Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore
It’s one of the most prestigious universities in Europe. In English: Catholic University of the Sacred Heart. The largest private university in Europe and the largest Catholic university in the world. Its main campus is located in Milan, Italy, but also the university has other campuses around Italy in Brescia, Piacenza, Cremona, Rome, and Campobasso. And is organized into 12 faculties and 7 postgraduate schools. But when did it start? And, how did it became what it is today?
Towards 1870 the idea and project to create a big catholic university was in the head of many individuals and supported by representatives of all the Catholic cultural current which acts as a guide. But it wasn’t until 1918, right before the First World War was ending that Giuseppe Toniolo, upon his death bed said to Father Agostino Gemelli: “I do not see the end of the war, but you, when it is finished, do it, do the Università Cattolica.” And in 1919 Father Agostino with Ludovico Necchi, Francesco Olgiati, Armida Barelli, and Ernesto Lombardo founded the Istituto Giuseppe Toniolo di Studi Superiori. On June 24, 1920 the Institute was legally recognized by the Minister of Education, and even the Pope at that time, Benedict XV officially recognized the University’s ecclesiastical status.
It was however, until the 7th of December of 1920 that the university was officially inaugurated with a mass celebrated by Father Gemelli. Achille Ratti, the Cardinal and Archbishop of Milan, was there too and three months later was elected as Pope Pius XI. At the very beginning there were only two programs: philosophy and social sciences, and only 68 students enrolled. After a few years other programs opened and the university started growing.
· In 1923 The Istituto Superiore di Magistero was opened.
· In 1924 the Humanities and Law Programs were inaugurated.
· In 1926 the Political and Economical Sciences Department became independent from the School of Law.
· In 1947 The School of Economics (night classes.)
· In November 1952 the School of Agriculture Sciences was inaugurated.
· In 1956 the School of Teaching and Education.
· In 1971 the School of Mathematics, Physics, and Natural Sciences.
· In 1990 the School of Banking, Finance, and Insurance Sciences.
· In 1991 the School of Foreign Languages and Literature (today the College of Linguistics and Foreign Literature.)
· In 1999 the School of Psychology.
· In the 2000’s the new School of Sociology.
Throughout the war and the post war period the university opened new programs and campuses, Piacenza being the first in 1952 and Brescia the second in 1956, Rome the third in 1961, a medical school. (Pope John XXIII inaugurated the school)
During the World War Two the university was key to the Resistance, Ezio Franceschini, a member organized meetings of the Freedom Volunteer Corps in the university. Before the war ended around 1944, a professor hid a box containing documents and books on the Resistance and FRAMA group (a group founded by Ezio Franceschini, who played an important role in the fight against the Nazis) in the basement of the university. The SS rummaged every part of the campus to find those cards, but buried among the bones of 50 skeletons, dead from an epidemic of plague in the sixteenth century, they remained there and emerged only after the war. During the war the university was partially destroyed by bombings and was rebuilt and restored, with the words of encouragement of Father Gemelli: “Rise again more beautiful and bigger than before.”
In 1968 after the university increased tuition fees, the students decided to occupy the university as a way of protest. That same night the then rector Ezio Franceschini expelled the students with help of the police. After three days has passed 30,000 students marched through Milan to the archbishop making the protest spread to each and every major university in the country. The 21st of March, the university was reoccupied, after that it was evacuated and closed indefinitely. A few days later, on March 25, the so-called “battle of Largo Gemelli” took place where thousands of students tried to reopen the university, but were strongly stopped by the police. The leader of the protest was Mario Cappana, a student of philosophy at the Università Cattolica in Milan.
Nowadays the university is opened and serve more students than ever. It has expended to six different Italian cities, Milan being the main one. Regarding admissions, the university is known more being restricted to only the best possible students out there. All university campuses have a limited number of seats and most of the schools require an admission test to enroll. One of the most selective one is the one for the school of medicine “Agostino Gemelli”. The test consists of a written test followed by an oral exam. In the admission test in 2012, there was 8244 candidates for 300 seats. According to a study of International Student Barometer, the university holds the second in Europe and fourth position at the international level among the most recommended universities by foreign students. Also in the QS World University Rankings, the university appear within the world’s 500 best universities and was the only Italian private university ranked.
The university also welcomes international students by being part of a series of international networks including but not limited to: Erasmus Network, UCSC International Bilateral Agreements, ISEP Network,International Network of Universities (INU), Fédération des Universités Catholiques Européenes (FUCE), Fédération Internationale des Universités Catholiques (FIUC), International Partnership of Business Schools (IPBS). Etc. Also the university counts with a series of activities in which a student can chose to be part of: Student media (Radio Catt and TV Catt.) Student associations (cultural activities and publish several magazines that are distributed free of charge within the university), Sports, etc.
The university has also several traditions since its foundation, the most important being the one that states that those who pass through one of two inner yards of Milan campus will not graduate. It’s also a tradition that after earning their degree, the graduates usually make a round of racing in one of the cloisters. The university has survived wars, protests and all kinds of troubles since the beginning but today the university stands strong and powerful being one of the leader universities in the world, Giuseppe Toniolo would be proud.
