HISTORICAL HINTS
HISTORICAL HINTS6. XX Century.
The first decade of our century was a period of tranquillity and hard work for the University, enriched by excellent teachers. It was a period of great increase in the number of students and in the strengthening of the Scientific Institutes. The 1915-18 War found ready spirits, teachers and students participating in the conflict and many of these sealed with their lives the dedication to their country learnt at school. The University Reform, of 1923 (the Gentile Law) which gave an administrative autonomy to the University of Modena, marked a deep and radical change in the structure of our institution. With the new law, the autonomous Universities like ours began to assume the nature of State Institutes with administrative autonomy and presented some distinctive, new characteristics. One of these was the administrative, didactic and disciplinary autonomy and the freedom of study for the students. The period of administrative autonomy did not have a very happy beginning, however. In fact, the University lost the Superior School of Veterinary Medicine and the two-year preparatory training period for Engineering. The latter was, however, returned in 1936. The sad facts of the 1940-45 war deeply affected the University life, even if the material damage was, miraculously, very slight. Even in this period the University distinguished itself by contributing to the civil growth of the city, fighting for the Resistance against Fascism and defending freedom and peace. As recognition for this civil involvement in 1962 it was awarded a silver medal for civil bravery. In 1947 the Faculty of Science was completed and offering a complete course for degrees in Mathematics, Physics and Mathematics-Physics and with remarkable improvements in the variuos institutes. In 1963, the new Policlinico with its Departments and University Institutes opened and we have the beginning of the construction of the University Campus in which we have at the moment the Biology Institutes and the Departments of Chemistry, Physics and Mathematics. The degree course in Geology goes back to 1958 and in 1959 the degree course in Biology began. Then, in 1970 the degree course in Pharmaceutical Chemistry and Technology was established. At the moment, the University of Modena has six Faculties - Law, Medicine and Surgery, Mathematical, Physical and Natural Sciences, Pharmacy, Economics, Business and Administration and the Faculty of Engineering. The Faculty of Medicine and Surgery is divided in the Medical and the Dental Schools; the Faculty of Mathematical, Physical and Natural Sciences has degree courses in Chemistry, Physics, Mathematics, Biology, Geology and Natural Sciences; the Faculty of Pharmacy offers a degree course in Pharmacy and one in Pharmaceutical Chemistry and Technology. In 1989 the teaching staff is composed of 157 full and 273 associate Professors, 23 assistants and 140 researchers. The non-teaching staff is composed of 437 people. About 800 students graduate every year. The total number of students is about 10,000. At present the following inter-departmental centres are working: Automatic Calculation and Applied Computer Sciences, Large Instruments, Experimental Animal Laboratory and Library Automation Services. They all have the function of organising and utilising services and complex scientific apparatus for research and teaching. The University of Modena is also participating at the moment in Research Doctorates (1V cycle). For 17 of these it is an administrative base and for the remaining 32 it is an associate centre.
