University of Bari Students Back Lettori Against Rector

by Domenico Pacitti

OVER 650 ANGRY students from the faculty of foreign languages
and literature at the University of Bari in southern Italy have petitioned the rector to reinstate their original language teachers.

They say rector Giovanni Girone has aggravated long-running
job discrimination against the university’s language teaching
staff of 72 lettori (contract lecturers) by relegating
them to the humble role of “individual study assistants”
and transferring key teaching duties to Italian professors
of literature from the start of term this past October 15th.

On October 30, the students held a sit-in in support of the
lettori, who are continuing to carry out minimal token lessons
as part of their industrial action of adhering literally to
their new job description.

“We felt we were seriously affected by the rector’s behavior and agreed to a sit-in organized mainly by our colleagues at political sciences,” student representative Giuliano Greco explained to Adjunct Advocate.

“Our literature professors are simply unable to teach language as well as native speakers. The university should give the lettori the recognition they deserve.”

English-language student Giulia Riccio thought it paradoxical
that the university had reduced the importance of the lettori’s
work when the Italian government had just placed new emphasis
on language teaching with the introduction of three-year “short”
degrees which were heavily language-oriented. “We are the most penalized in this deadlock,” she said.

The students were given little encouragement at a recent meeting with the rector, who predicted another long bureaucratic battle but refused to answer specific questions put by Adjunct Advocate.

According to faculty dean Francesco Perillo, the lettori’s duties had not really been changed at all, nor was it a matter that the faculty could decide. The national conference of faculty deans would ask education minister Letizia Moratti to seek an urgent solution to the lettori problem at the national level, he said.

Meanwhile, Bari lettori say they are fighting for a definition of their true teaching role, proper representation as a separate category and the re-opening of contract talks after six years. They are also considering suing the university for breach of contract and mobbing.

Peter Avanti from New York, one of eight American lettori at Bari, has been teaching there for 16 years. He described the situation as the latest development in eight “utterly negative” years of illegal firings and lengthy lawsuits.

Avanti warned: “In Italy you have a choice of being exploited either by the private, mostly British schools, if they will accept an American accent, or else by a schizophrenic university structure which demands that all students have foreign language skills while negating the professional value, necessity and very existence of language teaching.”

“This is the only country in the Western tradition where professors do not have contracts. They are similar to magistrates and are regulated directly by the legislature which is pretty much dominated by university professors. This makes it a closed, self-regulating system similar to the Roman Catholic Church.
It is no wonder that most students come to believe that you
must genuflect before the High Pontiff of knowledge,”
he added.

Anthony Green, a Londoner who began teaching at Bari in 1988
and created the largest e-mail list for lettori in order to
help unite opposing factions and encourage communication,
said: “If giving people responsibility for teaching content
without recognizing their contribution with representation
on the bodies which decide on language content is enlightened
policy, then I am a baboon. If this is not pure racist discrimination,
then I can think of no better examples.”

Green, who takes offence at being given advice on what to
include on his courses by Italians “whose English could
be written on the back of a postage stamp,” sees the
rector as a man of limited vision who has his back to the
wall and has decided to declare a war of attrition rather
than sit down and “talk things through with disgusting
foreigners.”

“No serious management consultant has ever suggested
treating a category of professional workers from whom you
expect creativity and commitment as if they were pariahs in
society. For the administration we remain the lowest form
of life…the untouchables.”

“Whether the University of Bari can ever be dragged
kicking and screaming into the 21st century is very much open
to question. Petty hatred of gifted foreigners is a far stronger
driving force than commitment to injecting hope into the society
which surrounds them and for whose backwardness they are in
part responsible,” Green said.

New Yorker John Gilbert is the national coordinator of the
SNUR-CGIL, Italy’s largest trade union for university employees
which boasts 56 members among the Bari lettori. Gilbert,
a lettore at the University of Florence since 1987, applauded
his colleagues’ initiative: “Kudos to my Bari colleagues.
Once again their local struggle serves us all as an example
of effective action in the workplace.”