University of Pisa
UNIVERSITY OF PISA
Subject area: Philology, Foreign Languages and Modern Literatures
Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures
e-mail:
Subject Area Coordinator:
Prof. Guido Carpi
Dipartimento di Linguistica
via della Faggiola, 2
56126 Pisa
tel. +39-050-553089
fax +39-050-553089
E-mail:
Institutional Coordinator:
Professor Enrico Giaccherini
Rettorato
Lungarno Pacinotti, 43
56100 Pisa
tel. +39-50-2212227
fax +39-50-2212222
INDEX
1. GENERAL INTRODUCTION
1.1 The use of ECTS at the University of Pisa.
2. INFORMATION ON THE INSTITUTION
2.1 Name of Institution
2.2 Chancellor's Office and Administration Building
2.3 Institutional Coordinator
2.4 Subject Area Coordinator
2.5 International Relations Office
3. GENERAL DESCRIPTION
3.1 Type
3.2 Size
3.3 A short history of the University of Pisa
3.4 Characteristics of the Italian University System
3.4.1 Requirements and curricula
3.4.2 Classes of Study, Courses of Study, Faculties and Departments
3.5 The Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures: Location
3.6 Academic Calendar
3.7 Libraries, Laboratories and Research facilities
3.7.1 Centre for computer services (Humanities) – CISIAU
3.7.2 Italian Language courses for Foreign Students (CLI)
3.8 Accomodation – University canteens
3.9 Sports facilities
4. GENERAL REQUIREMENTS AND PROCEDURES FOR SOCRATES-ECTS STUDENTS
4.1.1 Before leaving your home country
4.1.2 On arrival
4.2 Registration, Orientation and "Student booklet"
4.2.1 Registration
4.2.2 Counselling and Orientation; the SOCRATES Board
4.2.3 Student booklet
4.3 Disabled students
5. INFORMATION ON THE SUBJECT AREA OF PHILOLOGY, MODERN LANGUAGES AND LITERATURES AND ON THE FACULTY
5.1.1 The subject area
5.1.2 Curricula
5.1.3 Specialistic Degrees
5.1.4 Italian exams and Laurea, credits.
5.2 Courses and examinations
5.2.1 Description of courses
5.2.2 Teaching methods
5.2.3 Examinations: form of assessment
5.2.4 Examinations: grading system
5.3. Postgraduate Studies
5.3.1 Postgraduate Courses for foreign students
6. COURSES 2004-2005
1. GENERAL INTRODUCTION
1.1The wider use of ECTS at the University of Pisa
This information package describes the European Credit Transfer Scheme, the University of Pisa, and in particular it contains descriptions of the courses offered in the Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures, within the Philology, Modern Languages and Literatures Subject Area in order to help the prospective SOCRATES student to prepare his/her study period in Pisa, promoting the transparency and efficacy of the adopted study plan in order to guarantee its integral recognition abroad.
What is ECTS?
ECTS (European Credit Transfer Scheme) is based upon the principle of mutual trust and confidence between participating higher education institutions. The few rules of ECTS, concerning Information (on courses available), Agreement (between the home and the host institutions) and the Use of Credit Points (to indicate student workload) are set to reinforce this mutual trust and confidence. Each ECTS department describes the courses it offers not only in terms of content but also adding the indication of credits to each course.
The ECTS credits
ECTS credits are a value allocated to course units to describe the students’ workload required to complete them. They reflect the quantity of work each course requires in relation to the total quantity of work required to complete a full year of academic study at the institution, that is lectures, practical work, seminars, private work – in the library or at home – and examinations or other assessment activities. ECTS credits express a relative value, with respect to one year’s total workload.
60 credits represent the workload of a year of study; normally 30 credits are given for a semester. It is important that no special courses be set up for SOCRATES students but that all courses be mainstream courses of the participating institutions, as attended by home students under normal regulations.
Each Course of Study establishes the number of credits for each course, of which practical placements, seminars and training periods form an integral part and also receive academic credit. Non-credit courses, such as the courses organised by CLI (Centro Linguistico Interdipartimentale) may, however, be mentioned in the transcript of records.
Credits are awarded only when the courses have been completed and all the required examinations have been successfully taken.
The students participating in ECTS will receive full credit for all academic work successfully carried out at any of the ECTS partner institutions and they will be able to transfer these academic credits from one participating institution to another on the basis of prior agreement between the institutions themselves.
Most students participating in ECTS will go to one single host institution in one single EU Member State, study there for a limited period and then return to their home institution. Some may decide to pursue their course of study at the host institution or to proceed to a third institution to continue their studies. In each of these three cases, students will be required to comply with the legal and institutional requirements of the country and institution where they take their degree.
When the student has successfully completed the study program previously agreed between the home and the host institutions, and returns to the home institution, credit transfer will then take place, and the student will continue the study course at his/her home institution without any loss of time or credit. If, on the other hand, the student decides to stay at the host institution and to take a degree there, he/she may have to adapt his/her study course due to the legal, institutional and departmental rules in the host country, institution and department.
Students selected by each institution to participate in ECTS may only be awarded a student mobility grant if they fulfil the general conditions of eligibility for the SOCRATES grant. These are:
- students must be citizens of one of the EU Member States or citizens of one of the EFTA countries (or recognised by one of the Member states or one EFTA country as having an official status of refugee or stateless person or permanent resident); in the case of EFTA nationals, students will be eligible provided that they are moving within the framework of SOCRATES from the respective EFTA home country to a EU Member State. EFTA nationals registered as students in other EFTA countries or in Community Member states are only eligible for participation in ECTS if they have established a right of permanent residence.
- Students shall not be required to pay tuition fees at the host institution; the student may, however, be required to continue to pay his/her normal tuition fees to the home institution during the study period abroad.
- The national grant/loan to which a student may be entitled to study at his/her institution may not be discontinued, interrupted or reduced while that student is studying in another Member State and is receiving a SOCRATES grant.
- The study period abroad can last from a minimum of 3 months to a maximum of a whole academic year (9 or 10 months).
- Students in the first year of their studies are not eligible for receiving SOCRATES grants.
2. INFORMATION ON THE INSTITUTION
2.1. Name of the Institution
Università di Pisa (University of Pisa).
2.2 Chancellor’s Office and Administration Building
Rector: Prof. Marco Pasquali
Central Administration: Lungarno Pacinotti 43/44, 56100 Pisa, Tel. +39 50 2212111, Telex +39 50 500035, Fax +39 50 40834.
2.3 Offices of the ECTS Extension Project: Coordinator
ECTS Institutional Coordinator
Prof. Enrico Giaccherini
Rettorato
Lungarno Pacinotti 43, 56100 Pisa
Tel.: +39-50-2212227, Fax: +39-50-2212222
E-mail:
Subject Area Coordinator (Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures]:
Prof. Guido Carpi
Dipartimento di Linguistica
via della Faggiola, 2
56126 Pisa
tel. +39-050-553089
fax +39-050-553089
E-mail:
2.4 International Relations Office (Sig.ra Bruna Orlando)
Lungarno Pacinotti 43, 56100 Pisa
Tel.: +39-50-2212227
Fax: =39-50-2212222
e-mail:
Office hours: Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, 9 am-12 am
3. GENERAL DESCRIPTION
3.1Type
LSUD (Long studies, State University, courses of three or more years leading to a "Laurea" degree).
The University of Pisa is a research and teaching institution which includes:
11 Faculties: Agricultural Sciences; Economics; Engineering; Law; Humanities; Mathematics, Physical and Natural Sciences (including Geology, Chemistry and Information Sciences), Medicine; Foreign Languages and Literatures; Pharmacy; Political Science; Veterinary Medicine. These Faculties include several Courses of Study, each leading to a specific Laurea degree within a given Faculty. The Departments are research and didactic structures which may group professors of the same Subject Area or contiguous Subject Areas, even if they belong to different Faculties.
3.2 Size:
a) University (updated 13.2.2003)
Teaching staff: 1902
Administration staff: 1700
Students enrolled: 48.378
b) The Philology, Modern Languages and Literatures Subject Area:
Teaching staff: 63
Research Fellows: 20 + 5 Assistant Lecturers
Students enrolled: 2.276 (for the updating of figures see
3.3 History of the University of Pisa
From the year 1000, Pisa’s cultural vitality in the Middle Ages is attested by its relationships with the Islamic and Byzantine worlds and by the emergence of personalities of the level of Buscheto, Burgundio and Leonardo Fibonacci. The University of Pisa was officially founded in 1334 by a Papal edict, although there had been teachers in the city for a long time. Theology, Civil and Canon Law and Medicine were the first faculties to be founded.
The life of the University has always been closely linked to that of the city. In the fifteenth century, for instance, when Florence subjugated Pisa, the University underwent a period of decline. The advent of Lorenzo de' Medici witnessed a revival of interest, but Pisa's subsequent rebellion in 1494, the war with Florence and the siege of 1509 stripped the University of all its resources. Only under the Grand Duke Cosimo I did the University, restored and reorganised, finally attain its status as one of the pre-eminent cultural and teaching centres in Europe, a position it held at least throughout the following century thanks to such renowned figures as Galileo Galilei. During this period, the botanist Luca Ghini established what are now the world's oldest botanical gardens (a distinction Pisa shares with Padua). These flourishing years were followed by a few decades of relative quiescence until, in the second half of the eighteenth century, there was a revival of interest on the part of the new Hapsburg-Lorraine Grand Dukes, who expanded the University's libraries and museums, created an Observatory, instituted Chairs in Physics and Chemistry, and reestablished the previously suspended teaching of Surgery. The subsequent Napoleonic period saw the addition of new Chairs, and the foundation of the Scuola Normale Superiore. The early 1800s also witnessed the birth of the new Faculties of Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine. In 1848, a battalion of University volunteers took part in the battle of Curtatone. This episode of the Austro-Hungarian war lies at the origin of the traditional 'goliardi", or caps with the peak cut off, worn by University students.
The University has continued to maintain a high reputation in the world of studies, and boasts two Nobel prize winners, Fermi and Rubbia, among its former students. In the 1960s a new university institution, the Scuola Superiore di Studi "Sant'Anna", was established, and during the same period the University strengthened its ties with the National Research Council (CNR), whose Pisa branch is one of the most important on a national scale.
The years of student unrest, in the late sixties and early seventies, which so deeply affected the universities and societies of many countries of the world, saw a clear confirmation of the vitality and the spirit of renewal of the University population of Pisa.
Since 1984, Pisa has been running the only university-run Conference Hall in Italy. The students – a population of more than forty thousand in a city of only one hundred thousand inhabitants -- are drawn to Pisa not only from the nearby Tuscan and Ligurian coasts, but from many other areas as well, especially from southern Italy. The number of foreign students arriving from other European, as well as from American, African and Asiatic countries, is steadily increasing.
Since Medieval times, when the bells in the tower near the Sapienza building rang out at the starting of classes in the early morning, the academic world has been a vital part of city life.
3.4 Characteristics of the Italian University System
3.4.1 Requirements and curricula
In Italy, the secondary school diploma (the "maturità") is granted after 13 years of curricular study.
The three-year degree (Laurea Triennale)
Students can enrol in the University after they have obtained the “maturità”. The three-year degree is intended to provide a suitable mastery of scientific tools and contents and, in many cases, the acquisition of specific professional skills. After this first level degree, one can either find a job connected with one’s own specific qualification, or decide to go on studying to get a Second Level Degree or a Master. After the first level degree it is also possible – for some subject areas – to get a “Diploma of Specializzazione” (Specialization Diploma) whose length may vary from 2 to 4 years.
For the three-year degrees offered by the Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures or for joint degrees with other Faculties see
The Second Level Degree (Laurea Specialistica)
It lasts two years and is intended to provide an advanced education necessary to carry on highly qualified professions in specific areas as well as high- responsibility carreers in different fields.
For second level degrees offered by the Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures or for joint degrees with other Faculties see
Single course Degree (Laurea Specialistica a ciclo unico)
For some scientific subjects it is not possible to get a degree after only three years of study; the only degree obtainable is after five years and it corresponds to a second level degree.
Master
It is a further opportunity to improve one’s own academic education. It can be obtained either after a first level degree (first level Master) or after a second level degree (second level Master). It usually lasts one year.
Research Doctorate (Dottorato di Ricerca)
After the Second Level Degree it is also possible to enter a “Research Doctorate”; access to the very limited number of posts is by local competition, nationally advertised, for each Subject Area. Among the winners, at least 50% receive financial support for the whole length of the course. If successful the candidate becomes a "Doctor of Research', a degree useful only for those who desire to enter the academic career.
For Doctorate Courses offered with the contribution of the Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures see
3.4.2 Classes of Study, Courses of Study, Faculties and Departments
In the Italian University system, Faculties (Facoltà) provide teaching activities for different Classes of Study (Classi di Laurea) which might comprise several Courses of Study (Corsi di Laurea): the latter are frameworks for both the teaching activity of professors and the learning activity of students. Professors carry out their scientific research in the Departments (Dipartimenti), which are also important centres for information on didactic activities.
Thus a University professor is a member of a Faculty (for example, that of "Foreign Languages and Literatures”), his/ her course of lectures and seminars (for example "Lingua e Letteratura Francese") pertains to a Course of Study belonging to a certain Class of Study offered by the Faculty or by more Faculties of the University. His /her scientific research is carried out in a Department (for example, the 'Dipartmento di Lingue e Letterature Romanze").
On the other hand, when enrolling, the student chooses a Faculty and a Course of Study within it. For this course he must possess some prerequisites which are verified after enrolment Ascertained gaps, expressed as “formative debts”, will have to be bridged within the first year through specifically organized activities.
To be awarded a Laurea, the student has to successfully take a fixed number of examinations within the relevant Course of Study (see 6); only after the examination at the end of each course of lectures is the student actually credited with the relative number of credits and given a mark on a scale of 30.
The acquisition of all credits – 180 for a three-year degree or 300 (including the former 180) for a second level degree – leads the student’s carreer to its conclusion.
The “formative credit” (CFU) measures the student’s actual amount of work in all the activities connected with the preparation of an exam and corresponds to 25 hours work/student including:
- contact hours at the University (lectures, seminars, exercise courses);
- laboratory activities and other practical activities (training periods, stages) also carried out outside the University;
- individual study.
Credits can be transferred from one Course of Study to another within the same Subject Area; from one University to another in Italy, and in a near future, in Europe as well.
At the end of his/her course of study the student submits a final work – which might be a short dissertation or a project or whatever else – to a Faculty Board. Only for the Second Level Degree is the writing of a proper dissertation required.
The Laurea is an academic qualification recognized by the State, it has the same legal value all over the home territory, no matter which University (Pisa, Milan, Rome, Naples ….) has awarded it. It is very important to enter jobs in both the public and private sectors.
3.5 The Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures: location
The University is located in many separate buildings, some historic and some new, in and around the centre of Pisa.
Especially relevant to the Subject Area Students are the following:
1. Palazzo Boileau, via Santa Maria 85.
This is the seat of the Preside (Dean) of the Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures, and is the location of many classrooms and of the following Departments and Institutes:
- Department of Linguistics
Institute of Linguistics: tel. +39 50 553104
Institute of German Philology tel. +39 50 553020
German Institute: tel. +39 50 553090
- Department of Romanistics
Spanish Institute : tel +39 50 2215140
Institute of Romance Linguistics: tel. +39 50 2215150
2. Palazzo Curini-Galletti, via Santa Maria 89.
- Department of Romanistics