For a higher profile

The “Bologna process”, which represents “the main event for universities in Europe in recent years and is aimed at creating by 2010 a European common higher education area, justly attaches great importance to the centrality of the learning person. This priority qualifies the educational mission of universities and appeals to university teachers as educators conscious of their duty to build, through scientific research, a society in which the person remains at the centre”. The general secretary of the Italian Bishops’ Conference (CEI), Monsignor Giuseppe Betori , interviewed at the recent conference on “The new responsibilities of university teachers in the face of change” held in Naples, emphasized what ought to be the spirit and the identity of university education in Italy and in Europe. Monsignor Betori called for “a fruitful dialogue between Church and academic world, to ensure that universities, with the contribution of all the components of civil society, be ever more effectively at the service of the person and the common good”. The “consciousness that the academic institutions represent” “a crucial place for the elaboration of democratic and cultural processes requires – said Betoli – that all those involved should have a clearer view of the ultimate goal of their action, essential for the Italian and European identity: that of integrally forming solid personalities of active and caring protagonists at the service of society, supported by a sound vision of man”. “Society of knowledge”. “Under the constant impetus of the evolution of society”, continued Msgr. Betori, universities “are struggling to maintain the humanist centrality of education”. In the new perspective of “the so-called ‘society of knowledge’, the needs of production and professional skills have been compounded by those of a pragmatic, effective and efficient education that permits students to operate with success, quality and flexibility in complex, even contradictory, and constantly changing situations”. This implies a new university “mission” which, observed Msgr. Betori, “was indicated by the European Council itself in Lisbon (2003)” but which may run the risk “of a kind of neo-utilitarianism that leads students to optimise space and time, ethics and efficiency, economy and society, analysis and synthesis”, but that “does not assign priority to the person of the student, to the inalienable questions of personal conscience, and to the questions that appeal to his/her reason in the pursuit of truth and goodness”. No to the fragmentation of knowledge. According to the general secretary of the CEI, “without reference to the principles and criteria that preside over the formulation of ethical directives and norms, as well as of cultural options, it will be impossible to overcome the diversification of the branches of knowledge or their inability to communicate with each other”. We will also run “the risk of seeing researchers, professors and students immuring themselves in their own little enclaves of knowledge and limiting their research to a fragmentary consideration of reality”. “By vocation universities are called to play a leading role in the development of culture – warned Betori -; they cannot passively submit to the predominant cultural influences or become marginal to them”. So “the danger of universities succumbing to a form of self-renunciation in pursuit of functional empiricism needs to be averted”. Msgr. Bertori therefore called on Christian communities, university teachers and staff, “animated by faith in the Risen Christ”, as also Catholic universities, “to form a network and cooperate with all those who intend to work for the formulation of an ethical model of university culture, teaching and academic research”. Between technology and culture. According to Msgr. Betori “the possibility of beginning a constructive dialogue aimed at consolidating the realization of a university model that transcends the mere functional and utilitarian perspective depends on a shared conviction of the importance of respecting the foundations of a sound educational role”. “If our Italian and European society fails to overcome the gap between its technology and the roots themselves of its culture – he warned -, it will be unable to see clearly even its own future”. Since “it is sound and consolidated practice for all gains of scientific research” to be “shared and evaluated between experts in an honest and sincere way”, it is legitimate, “in the hoped-for humanistic perspective”, to request – said Bertori – that “each scientific acquisition” be “also shared through a careful consideration of its didactic and educational needs”. Lastly, Betori touched on dialogue between theological knowledge and other branches of knowledge: to this end he re-launched John Paul II’s proposal for the establishment of “cultural laboratories aimed at underlining the unity of knowledge and consolidating interdisciplinary dialogue”.