Libera Università Maria SS. Assunta

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LUMSA University

Libera Università Maria Santissima Assunta (Italian)
Seal of LUMSA University
Former name	Istituto Superiore di Magistero Maria Ss. Assunta
Motto	In fide et humanitate (Latin)
Motto in English	In faith and in humanity
Type	Private university
Established	October 26, 1939; 85 years ago (1939-10-26)
Founders	Luigia Tincani, Venerable Giuseppe Pizzardo Pius XII[1]
Affiliation	BioGeM
Religious affiliation	Holy See
Academic affiliation	EUA IFCU
President	Giovanni Lajolo
Rector	Francesco Bonini
Students	7,200[2]
Location	Rome (main campus), Palermo, & Taranto , Italy
Campus	Urban (multiple sites)
Language	Italian and English
Colors	Malachite and white
Sporting affiliations	LUMSA Sport United
Website	www.lumsa.it

LUMSA University (Italian: Libera Università Maria Santissima Assunta, lit. 'Free University of Mary Most Holy') is a private Roman Catholic university founded in 1939 in Rome.^[3] It is the second-oldest university in Rome after Sapienza.^[2]

The university began its life as the "Istituto Superiore di Magistero Maria Ss. Assunta", an educational institute for nuns founded in 1939 by Luigia Tincani (Royal Decree No. 1760 of 26 October 1939). In 1989, it was reconstituted as "Libera Università Maria SS. Assunta" (LUMSA), a university for women. The university was opened to men in 1991.^[4]

LUMSA is a private Catholic institution with autonomy at all levels of the university. As an Italian-accredited institution, its degrees are considered equivalent to those issued by Italian public universities.

The university is governed by a council which includes a President, a Rector, two Pro-Rectors, a Director General, and general council members. Since 2017, the President has been Cardinal Giovanni Lajolo.^[5]

University teaching is distributed across three departments:^[6]

• Department of Law, Economics, Politics, and Modern languages (Rome)
• Department of Law (Palermo)
• Department of Human Studies, Communication, Education, and Psychology (Rome)

The educational structure of LUMSA is arranged around four divisions. The university offers, through the divisions, undergraduate degrees (Italian laurea) in various social science fields. In post-graduate education, LUMSA offers several graduate programs and two long-cycle programs in law and education sciences, as well as four PhDs (Italian: dottorato di ricerca).^[7][8][9]

• Giuseppe Pizzardo, co-founder^[10]
• Luigi Traglia, president^[10]
• Mario Luigi Ciappi, president^[10]
• Antonio María Javierre Ortas, president^[10]
• Carlo Furno, president^[10]
• Attilio Nicora, president^[10]
• Cornelio Fabro, director^[10]
• Giuseppe Dalla Torre, rector between 1991 and 2014^[11]

These people received an honorary degree, but did not attend the university.

• Joseph Ratzinger (future Pope Benedict XVI), honorary degree in Law, 1999^[12]
• Liliana Segre, honorary degree in International relations, 2020^[13]
• Sergio Cotta, honorary degree in law, 1999^[12]
• Liliana Cavani, honorary degree in Communication sciences, 1999^[12]
• Carlo Lizzani, honorary degree in Media studies, 2009^[12]

• List of Italian universities
• BioGeM consortium

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Libera Università Maria SS. Assunta.

• LUMSA University Website (in Italian and English)

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