University of Lugano

Università della Svizzera italiana
Type Public
Established 1995 October 3
Budget CHF 91 million[1] (US$ 95 million)
Rector Boas Erez
Academic staff
 841[1]
Students 3015[1]
293[1]
Address Via Lambertenghi 10a, CH-6904 Lugano, Lugano (main), Mendrisio (Accademia di Architettura), Ticino
46°00′40″N 8°57′29″E / 46.011°N 8.958°E / 46.011; 8.958Coordinates: 46°00′40″N 8°57′29″E / 46.011°N 8.958°E / 46.011; 8.958
Campus Urban 15 acres (0.1 km2)
Website www.usi.ch/en/index.htm

Università della Svizzera italiana (USI; literally University of Italian Switzerland) is a public university established in 1995 with campuses in Lugano and Mendrisio, Switzerland.

Structured in four Departments and thirty research institutes [2] in the disciplines of Architecture, Economics, Communication Sciences, Informatics, and Biomedical Sciences, USI offers academic programs in the standards of the Bologna System and on three cycles of studies in Italian and English:[3] a three-years undergraduate degree (Bachelor), a two-years graduate degree (Master), and a doctoral degree (PhD).

History

Higher-Education Initiatives in the XIXth Century

The first plan for a public university in Ticino dates to the founding of the Canton, when in 1801 the Cantonal Diet decided for the establishment in Lugano of either a University or an Academy. The project of an Accademia Cantonale was further developed in the 1840s by Stefano Franscini. Although in 1844 the Grand Council approved with an overwhelming majority the bill to establish the institution, the Accademia was never established due to financial problems and more urgent issues with other sections of public education.[4]

The Public Debate in the 1970s and 1980s

The immediate predecessor to the current USI was the project that began in 1970 for an institute of higher-education focused on post-graduate continuing education and based on Regional Science and on the Humanities titled Centro Universitario della Svizzera Italiana (CUSI).[4]

Carlo Speziali, then Councilor of State, was the main promoter of CUSI. However, although a bill about CUSI was passed by the Grand Council on 11 December 1985, a committee led by Augusto Bolla and UDC deputy Giovanni Maria Staffieri launched a referendum against it.[5] The committee formed in favor of CUSI drew on the earlier legacy of Franscini, to demonstrate the historical necessity of higher-education in Ticino.[4]

Despite the support that the project of CUSI had received by the Canton, on 20 April 1986 CUSI was turned down by the public vote: at a 41,5% turnout, voters rejected the bill with 47,011 votes, against 21,512 votes that went in favor of it. This controversial result was received by public institutions in Ticino as a threat to the hopes for the development of higher education outside of the German and French speaking regions.[5]

Federal and Cantonal Initiatives of the 1990s

Following the defeat of CUSI, several new groups and institutions at different levels of government and civil society began formulating alternative proposals for a university based in Ticino.

On 27 October 1990 Swiss Federal Councilor Flavio Cotti gave a speech in Poschiavo on multilingualism where he clearly supported the idea of a public university in the Italian-speaking Switzerland, this time however as a full-fledged institute of higher-education supported by a favorable economic growth.[6] Cotti's speech echoed the manifesto that a group of politicians, scholars, and professionals published on 30 May 1990 on Libera Stampa, the newspaper of the Socialist Party. The group consisted of linguists Alessio Petralli and Stefano Vassere, economists Mauro Baranzini and Christian Marazzi, politician Rossano Bervini, Franco Cavalli, Mauro Martinoni, Silvano Toppi, Mauro Wolf.[5]

At the Cantonal level, the Ticino Government appointed architect and scholar Pier Giorgio Gerosa as delegate for university problems.[5] In the spring of 1990, from this institutional position and in a period of ongoing debates about the presence of multilingualism in the Swiss Federal Constitution, Gerosa asked the Swiss University Conference to contemplate the possibility of an academic institution in Italian-speaking Switzerland.[5] Furthermore, beginning on December 1991 Gerosa drafted a series of reports to demonstrate the case for a university with as many as four departments.[7]

At the Federal level, in 1992 the ETH Board commissioned architect Mario Botta to draft a project for a national academy of architecture, which however would not be approved. In response to this rejection, Botta brought the project to the attention of the Ticino Government, which reviewed it positively on May 1993. Consequentially this event brought to frictions between the Government and Pier Giorgio Gerosa, which led eventually to Gerosa's dismissal.[5]

Meanwhile, between 1992 and 1993 the Istituto Accademico di Teologia di Lugano is established under the support of Catholic Bishop Eugenio Corecco.[5] Although private institutions of higher education were already present at that point in Ticino - one example of which was the English-speaking Franklin University Switzerland founded in 1969, but granted full university accreditation only in 2013 - the initiative of the Catholic Church would be recognized as the first contribution towards a university in Italian-speaking Switzerland.[5]

The Opening of USI on 21 October 1996

In the following years, the project for a university is further developed by dedicated parliamentary commissions. In 1994 a group of Mauro Baranzini, Sergio Cigada, and Lanfranco Senn drafted a project for the Departments of Economics and of Communication Sciences. In the same year the Council of State of Ticino approved message n° 4308 pertaining the bill for the Università della Svizzera Italiana, which in twelve articles outlined the structure of the future institution, to be built around the Accademia di Architettura and with the contribution of private financing. A pivotal role in building consensus for this bill was played by Counselor of State Giuseppe Buffi. On Tuesday 3 October 1995, at 19:11, the Grand Council of Ticino approved the bill that established USI, with seventy-three of eighty favorable votes, thus nearing unanimity.[5]

After twelve months of preparations, on 21 October 1996 USI opened its doors in Lugano and Mendrisio to the first class of students. Marco Baggiolini is appointed to serve as USI's first President until 2006, when he would be succeeded by Piero Martinoli. After an administrative reorganization, in 2016 the position is commuted to a rectorship and Boas Erez is appointed as USI's first Rector. Mauro Dell'Ambrogio, who was the author of the bill, and who thus had previously played an important role on the side of Giuseppe Buffi as General Secretary of the Dipartimento dell'Istruzione e della Cultura of the Ticino Government, is appointed to serve as USI's first General Secretary. In 2000 USI granted the first degrees, concluding the first cycle of studies, and thus meeting the recognition of Federal authorities. In 2004 the Department of Informatics is established. In 2014 the Government approved the creation of the Department of Biomedical Sciences.[5]

Academic Programs

Università della Svizzera italiana offers English and Italian language higher education programs, classified at undergraduate and graduate level, such as Bachelor, Master and doctoral degree programs. Undergraduate and graduate programs are proposed in many disciplines, including banking and finance, international tourism, marketing, informatics, economics, architecture, communication sciences to name a few.[8] USI also runs doctorate programs in informatics, economics and communication sciences.

Campus

The Lugano campus developed around the existing city hospital circa 1996. Several state-of-the-art buildings have been added, most notably Informatics (2007), Aula Magna, Aule, Library, and LAB.

The main building consists of four floors containing: Communications and Economics offices (1-3), the Executive Centre, four computer labs (1), classrooms (1-3), the cafeteria (2)(Q1-2007), and third-floor auditorium (3)(Q3-2007). The library is four floors tall. The LAB has 5 floors, in great part occupied by the Institute of Computational Sciences, and the rest by other Communication Sciences and Informatics departments. .

Campus Map

The Aule, informally known as Palazzo Rosso (“Red Building”), hosts six classrooms on each of its three floors, and is commonly used by Economics and Communications faculties. The modern-looking concrete and metal Informatics building finished in 2007 contains classrooms (1), offices and study areas reserved for CS students and mentors (2-3).[9]

The Aula Magna is the university's convention hall and capable of seating around 400 people; it is used to host university conferences, speeches, and other public or private events; solely the entrance to the hall is visible above ground. South of the main building, the Central Services offices houses the Rectorate (as of September 1, 2016, until then the Presidency) and core services of the university, and the institutes provide offices for PhD students, assistants, and other research students.

Departments

USI has four Departments and two campuses. The departments of Economics, Communication Science, and Informatics are situated in the campus of Lugano, which is shared with the Facoltà di Teologia di Lugano, a private organization affiliated with the Diocese of the Catholic Church in Lugano, which contributed to establish higher education in Ticino. The Accademia di Architettura di Mendrisio, which is USI's Department of Architecture, is situated in the campus of Mendrisio.

Architecture

The Academy of Architecture, founded by acclaimed architect Mario Botta, is currently led by director Marc Collomb.[10] With forty lecturers and twenty-five design studios (including Mario Botta, Massimo Carmassi, Valerio Olgiati), the Accademia in Mendrisio trains 764 students for 3-year bachelor, and 2-year master's degree (2013).

Economics

The Faculty of Economics is led by dean Patrick Gagliardini. 1076 students (2013). Topics: Banking, Finance, Management, Economics and International Policies (it); Financial Communication, Marketing; in English and Italian.

Communication Science

The Faculty of Communication Sciences is led by dean Andrea Rocci. 871 students (2013). Topics of research and teaching include Media, new media and journalism, Marketing, Corporate Communication, Public communication, Healthcare communication, Information and communication technologies, Education and Tourism, mainly in Italian and English.

Informatics

Building of the Faculty of Informatics

The Faculty of Informatics was founded in 2004. It offers the only undergraduate program at USI with English as the language of instruction. The founding dean founding was Mehdi Jazayeri. Since 2015 the faculty is led by dean Kai Hormann.

The Faculty of Informatics at Università della Svizzera italiana performs world-class research in many areas of informatics, including computational science, computer systems, geometric and visual computing, information systems, intelligent systems, programming languages, software engineering, theory and algorithms. With its award-winning, innovative curriculum, the faculty aims to train informatics experts who are interdisciplinary in approach, with abstract thinking and generalization skills, a sound knowledge in the application fields of information technologies, as well as project-management and teamwork abilities.

First year students cover mathematical topics, computer architecture, networking, and fundamental concepts of programming. A further course persists throughout the 3-year undergraduate curriculum. Called the Atelier, it has the purpose of bringing the courses together and to provide exposure to real world tools that are useful to computer scientists, including Unix, LaTeX, HTML/CSS, GIT.

Students are expected to learn about a wide variety of topics, from big O notation and calculus, through networking protocols and layers, to computer architecture. A variety of programming languages are used. Programming is introduced through Scheme and functional programming throughout the first semester, in parallel with the computer architecture course (which uses MIPS assembly). Later on, C, Java, and JavaScript are used. The curriculum puts a strong emphasis on teamwork, with a major group project happening at the end of every semester.

Master topics include Software Design, Software Architecture, Dependable Distributed Systems, Embedded System Design (see ALaRI), Intelligent Systems (with IDSIA), Applied Informatics.

Institute of Computational Science

The Institute of Computational Science (ICS) was founded in 2008 and is led by director Rolf Krause. The institute is the result of the vision of USI to become a new scientific and educational node for Computational Science in Switzerland. The institute offers research and teaching in Mathematical Modeling, Numerical Simulation, and High Performance Computing. The ICS hosts seven research groups which focus on advanced computing in computational science, high-performance methods for numerical simulation in science, medicine and engineering, computational time series analysis, computational shape analysis, multiscale and multiphysics models in computational biology, computational modeling of cardiac electrophysiology, and the simulation of biological and physical systems.

The Computational Science Master of Science graduate program at the ICS emphasizes a mathematical and methodological framework as well as an application-oriented education in Informatics and Software Engineering.

Student life and culture

View from the main building

Università della Svizzera italiana had 3015 students in 2013-2014;[1] of these 987 (32,7%) are Swiss, and 2028 (67,3%) are foreign - from Italy (44%) or from over one hundred other nationalities (23,3%). Exchange students (see Erasmus) for 2013-2014 were 120.

In leisure time, students participate in city-sponsored tourism events,[11] school-sponsored sporting activities,[12] and student associations,[13] despite the town's small population. Twenty student associations have been established, with student clubs oriented around economics (AIESEC), informatics (EESTEC, IEEE student branch), and communications (L'universo student newspaper).

Associated and affiliated institutions

See also

Notes and references

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 "Students in Numbers". Unisi.ch. Retrieved 2011-07-08.
  2. ↑ "The history of Università della Svizzera italiana". usi.
  3. ↑ "Università della Svizzera italiana (University of Lugano)". moveonnet.
  4. 1 2 3 Elio Ghirlanda, "Relazione sul Centro Universitario della Svizzera Italiana," Scuola Ticinese, vol. XV, n° 128 (March 1986), p. 3-10
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Fabio Pontiggia, "I 20 anni dell'Università," Corriere del Ticino, 21 October 2016, p. 2-5
  6. ↑ In his speech, Buffi reportedly said: "Le aumentate potenzialità economiche della Svizzera Italiana, il suo ruolo di ponte in particolare tra l'Italia e i Paesi nordici di lingua tedesca, rendono molto desiderabile e auspicabile il riesame del problema. Se lo studio dovesse essere ripreso la Confederazione non mancherebbe di accompagnarlo con tutta la sua benevolenza". In: Fabio Pontiggia, "I 20 anni dell'Università," Corriere del Ticino, 21 October 2016, p. 2
  7. ↑ Pier Giorgio Gerosa, "Analisi e Proposte per lo Sviluppo della Politica Universitaria Cantonale", Dipartimento della Pubblica Educazione della Repubblica e Cantone del Ticino, Bellinzona (1991)
  8. ↑ "University of Lugano Masters Degrees". FindAMasters.
  9. ↑ "Campus map". ESASO.
  10. ↑ "Mendrisio Academy Press". USI Academy of Architecture.
  11. ↑ "Lugano Events". Lugano-tourism.com. 2011-06-16. Retrieved 2011-07-08.
  12. ↑ "USI Sport Club". Sport.unisi.ch. Retrieved 2011-07-08.
  13. ↑ "Student Associations". Unisi.ch. Retrieved 2011-07-08.
  14. ↑ "Dalle Molle Institute for Artificial Intelligence". SUPSI.
  15. ↑ "Dalle Molle Institute for Artificial Intelligence Research". universitieshandbook.
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