Open Day 2013
Discovering the IUS: What ties Discipline, Stories and Challenges Together
«“Sophia is a dream become reality but it is also a reality that nourishes the dream, that of a world in which cultures and disciplines contaminate each other and complete one another, they get enriched by one another and for one another.” With these words rector Piero Coda announced Open Day 2013 and welcomed all present, mostly young people, come to discover the IUS, full of curiosity about its interdisciplinary studies and for the original method favored by the Institute.
The dreamer is not a confinable creature, he is not satisfied by a great realized dream; the dreamer is constantly searching for precious stones, for small signs to develop, he is an innovator, a courageous heart. On February 22, notwithstanding a snowfall, the ‘Aula Magna’(Main Hall) was filled by these hearts, without which it would not be possible to continue to indicate the path towards what will be.
Every day, in front of us is a fulfillment to be reached, going beyond the many language problems, life in common, and study commitments. Each one, in his heart feels a thread tying together all of their experiences, their stories and the challenges they must face.
It’s Sophia: with its dialogue, and with reciprocal love.
It’s Sophia: where one shares the difficult situations happening in the country of the person next to him.
It’s Sophia: where losing one’s prejudices and preconceived notions allows one to be penetrated by the truth.
It’s Sophia: where one makes oneself empty in order to welcome the knowledge of others and stays, along with professors, to listen to wisdom.
It’s Sophia: the ‘thinking together’, the encounter, and the dialogue at the border between faith and scientific rationalization.
Open Day could not have been then, only a simple occasion to explain academic incentives; this also,
without a doubt, but above all it was an occasion to live a typical day, through debates, testimonies, questions, and also a lunch filled with dialogue.
The afternoon was divided into three parts: a guided tour of the locales involved in university life; an academic moment with three brief lessons, followed also by live streaming, on topics of politics, economy and theology, with professors Antonio Maria Baggio, Luigino Bruni and Alessandro Clemenzia; and then dialogues with professionals and experts: Lorenzo Rosi and Eva Gullo, businesspeople, Letizia de Torre, politician, Araceli Del Pozo armentia, university professor.
The entire program concluded with the possibility of individual dialogue with the professors, a last immersion in one’s own discipline before returning home.
During the day it was not difficult to see smiles, hear spontaneous jokes and feel that unmistakable familiarity that easily abides in this place of study, life and sharing.
One arrives at Sophia already with a degree, but returns to one’s place of origin as a ‘world-man’. The individual is changed, transformed, gives and receives, loses himself and finds himself again, recapitulates his thought and his existence in the light and the existence of others The calendar’s pages turn month after month, and after a while, at first very subtly, a feeling crystallizes and becomes clearer: Sophia is the kind of university that ‘chooses’ its students calling them by name.
And let us hope then, that on a day with snow falling, it may have warmed the heart of some young person and invited him/her to walk with us for part of the journey».
Text: Andrea Cardinali
