Government spending cuts are throwing Italian schools and universities into turmoil, sparking campus sit-ins and mass street protests around the country. The education system is in crisis, its brain-drain and lows in world rankings matched by its teachers' pitiful salaries.
政府削减教育经费，使意大利各院校陷入了混乱，全国各地纷纷爆发校园静坐示威和大规模街头抗议活动。教育体系岌岌可危；人才流失，在国际上排名靠后，均与该国教师微薄的薪水相对应。
“These are tough times,” says Gianluca Spina, professor of management and dean of MIP, the Politechnico di Milano school of management.
MIP's governance structure, unique in Italy, gives it some shelter in the storm, however. Founded in 1979, it is 51 per cent owned by Milan's Politechnico, Italy's oldest and largest state technical university, and 49 per cent by 17 corporations, mainly Italian multinationals, as well as subsidiaries of foreign enterprises, including Taiwan's Acer and Accenture of the UK.
米兰理工大学(Politechnico di Milano)管理学院(MIP)院长及管理学教授詹卢卡•斯皮纳(Gianluca Spina)表示：“目前是艰难时期。”
MIP was born out of the desire of industrialists at Pirelli, Eni and Fiat to provide their engineers with management skills. And, as Italy is drawn into the mainstream of globalisation, MIP is supplying customised business management packages for its corporate shareholders, as well as the open market.
不过，米兰理工大学管理学院的管理结构在意大利独树一帜，这在一定程度上有助于它避开风暴。该学院创立于1979年，51%权益由米兰理工大学所有，49%由17家公司所有，它们多数是意大利跨国公司，以及台湾宏碁(Acer)和英国埃森哲(Accenture)等外国企业的子公司。
“We are helping Italian companies with globalisation, how to manage cultural diversity as they acquire companies abroad, make greenfield investments and open factories, how to forge a corporate identity,” says Prof Spina.
He gives the example of the corporate MBA programme developed for Italcementi, Europe's second largest cement group which is expanding in the US, Asia and the Middle East. Non- Italians make up 25 of the class of 30.
米兰理工大学管理学院的创立，是源于倍耐力(Pirelli)、埃尼(Eni)和菲亚特(Fiat)等公司的实业家希望学院为它们的工程师传授管理技能。后来，随着意大利融入全球化大潮，学院开始为其企业股东提供定制商业管理课程，同时也公开对外招生。
Known as a country of small enterprises and family-run businesses, Italy has relatively few companies on the list of Fortune 500 in spite of its status as a G8 country. But MIP has found its own niche there by educating foreign customers on how small companies perform.
“我们在全球化方面为意大利公司提供帮助。比如，在海外收购公司、进行绿地投资和开设工厂时，如何处理文化差异？如何打造企业形象？”斯皮纳表示。
“US and China want to know about Italy's small companies, industrial districts and fashion houses,” Prof Spina says, noting its training programme on the exhibition and convention industry run with Shanghai's JiaoTong University.
About half of MIP's 600 to 700 students are individuals rather than on corporate programmes, drawn by Milan's reputation as a hub for design, fashion, finance and football. Among the wide-ranging courses on offer is a post-graduate course for athletes and young managers in the business of sport.
他举了为Italcementi设计的企业MBA课程作为例子。Italcementi是欧洲第二大水泥集团，正在美国、亚洲和中东地区进行扩张。全班共有30名学员，非意大利人占了25位。
A full-time MBA course over 14 months costs €25,000, while an executive MBA spread over two years is €28,000. Of the 75 students taking the full-time MBA, 50 are non-Italian. The institute has recently received accreditation from Equis, the accrediting arm of the European Foundation for Management Development.
意大利以小企业和家族企业众多而著称，虽然是G8成员国之一，但跻身“财富500强”的意大利公司相对较少。不过，通过向外国学员教授如何运营小企业，米兰理工大学管理学院从中找到了自己的目标市场。
Prof Spina sees three types of non-corporate students. The first is the non-Italian seeking a life experience – learning Italian, having a clear idea to return home and find work there. Type two are students from emerging economies – Chinese, Indian, and Latin American – who see a full-time MBA as a gateway to the developed world, expecting to find a placement in Italy or Europe. The third is more international career- oriented, seeking good placements but not necessarily in Europe.
Anthony Lambkin, an Australian, is clear “type three” material. After graduating from Brisbane University, he moved on to the University of North Carolina in the US and then the car industry in Detroit.
斯皮纳表示：“美国和中国都希望了解意大利的小企业、工业区和时装店。”他谈到，米兰理工大学与上海交通大学共同开设了面向展会行业的培训课程。
He says he was attracted by Politechnico's reputation for technological innovation, an MBA course that is shorter and more intense than in the US, and the inclusion of an internship, which he will complete at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, working on clean technology start-ups. “Milan feels like a hub,” he smiles.
From the start of the next academic year in May, MIP is moving with a large part of Politechnico out of its cramped and functional quarters in the suburbs of Milan. A campus for 20,000 students is being built in a former industrial zone outside the city in Boviso.
米兰理工大学管理学院有600-700名学生，其中一半左右参加的是个人课程，而非企业课程。他们被米兰作为设计、时装、金融与足球中心的名声所吸引。该学院提供的课程范围广泛，其中有一项是针对运动员和体育商业领域的年轻管理者而设置的研究生课程。
Prof Spina notes that Politechnico di Milano, with 40,000 students, provides 50 per cent of Italy's designers, 25 per cent of its architects and 15 per cent of its engineers. It is a powerful brand that enables MIP to compete with its more established and better known rival, Bocconi, a private university also in Milan.
全日制MBA为期14个月，费用为2.5万欧元；EMBA课程为期2年，费用2.8万欧元。全日制MBA的75名学员中，有50名学员不是意大利人。该学院近期获得了Equis的认证，后者是欧洲管理发展基金会(European Foundation for Management Development)下属的认证机构。
Unicredit, Italy's second largest bank, which is also a member of the shareholders' consortium, took the unusual step of “forcing” the two rival schools to co- operate and integrate programmes for its executives. “They threatened to go to Insead or London Business School instead,” Prof Spina recalls.
斯皮纳教授把非企业课程学员分成三类。第一类是想在意大利体验生活的非意大利人——学习意大利语，怀有回国工作的明确目标。第二类是来自新兴经济体——中国、印度和拉美——的学生，他们把学习全日制MBA当作进入发达世界的途径，希望在意大利或欧洲工作。第三类学生具有更国际化的就业意识，希望有好的工作，但不一定是在欧洲。
As the debate continues over the role that the MBA “culture” has played in the global financial crisis, there are some wry smiles from around the table in recalling the MIP programmes that assisted UniCredit's move into Germany and central and eastern Europe – an expansion that prompted the bank to seek a €6.6bn recapitalisation last October, and which was followed by official Libyan funds taking a 5 per cent stake in the bank.
安东尼•兰姆金(Anthony Lambkin)是一个澳大利亚人，他显然属于“第三类”学员。他从布里斯班大学(Brisbane University)毕业后，接着就读于美国北卡罗来纳大学(University of North Carolina)，之后投身底特律汽车行业。
他表示，吸引自己的因素包括米兰理工大学在技术革新方面的声誉、其管理学院的一项MBA课程用时比美国短而且更集中、课程还包含了实习期等。他将在美国俄亥俄州克里夫兰市的凯斯西储大学(Case Western Reserve University)进行有关清洁技术创业方面的实习。他微笑着说：“米兰感觉就像一个中心。”
从下学年开始（即5月份），米兰理工大学的一大部分将搬出已显得局促的米兰郊区校舍，管理学院也将随同搬迁。在Boviso郊外的一处原工业区，正在兴建起一座可容纳2万名学生的校园。
斯皮纳介绍道，米兰理工大学的学生人数为4万名，意大利50%的设计师、25%的建筑师和15%的工程师是该校培养的。这是一个强大的品牌，使其管理学院得以与博科尼大学(Bocconi)竞争，后者也是米兰的一家私人大学，历史更悠久，知名度也更高。
意大利第二大银行——联合信贷银行(Unicredit)也是米兰理工大学管理学院的股东。该银行采取了不寻常的举措，“迫使”这两家相互竞争的院校进行合作，一同为该行高管打造课程。对此斯皮纳回忆道：“他们威胁称，不然就要去找欧洲工商管理学院(INSEAD)或伦敦商学院(London Business School)。”
围绕MBA“文化”在全球金融危机中扮演了什么角色，人们仍在争论不休。提到米兰理工大学管理学院为联合信贷银行提供的、帮助该行进入德国及中东欧市场的课程，在座的人不禁露出苦笑。此次扩张，导致该行于去年10月寻求进行66亿欧元的注资，其后，利比亚国有基金获得了该行的5%股份。
译者/岱嵩