Abstract

In the academic year 2001-2002 the University of Sassari had 17,060 students, spread over 11 Faculties. In 1945-46, in the aftermath of World War II, it had 836 spread over 4 Faculties. Back in 1970-71 it had 40 fulltime professors, today it has over 400. These data point up the rapid development of the University of Sassari over the last 50 years. Besides broader-based reasons prompting the growth of the Italian university, there are a few more of a more local nature: not least the fact that Sardinia is a self-governing Region with a special legal status which, while not directly granting specific jurisdiction in the field of education, has allowed it on several occasions to act in certain sectors (building, funding chairs, student services). The “diversity” of Sardinia is also reflected in the student movements marking the 60s and 70s when the prospects offered by the “Piano di Rinascita” (Renewal Plan, funded for 12 years starting in 1962 when Law 588 was passed) seemed to point to broad-based economic and social progress, with all that meant for courses at the university. Indeed, it was at this time, a turning point for Sardinian life in general, that the University of Sassari – perhaps more than any other Italian University – was transformed from an élite college training the city’s ruling classes into a university of the masses, increasing not just the number of problems and requirements but also the very presence of the towns’ people in the university itself: it is estimated that one Sassari “inhabitant” in six is somehow involved in university life. The word inhabitant is in inverted commas because it also refers to that large number of students who do not live in Sassari but who commute there from all over northern Sardinia: and commuting also characterizes the teaching faculty, caught up in the process of rapid turn-over that is the hallmark of all «pass-through universities» like Sassari.

I documenti depositati in UnissResearch sono protetti dalle leggi che regolano il diritto d'autore