Carrara, Tar annuls election of Academy director: she did not have a requirement

It is almost unbelievable what is happening at theAcademy of Fine Arts in Carrara: the director of the Carrara institution, Silvia Papucci, will in fact have to leave her post, at least according to the Tar of Tuscany , which annulled her election in a ruling that upheld the appeal filed by Professor Marco Baudinelli, former director of the same academy between 2003 and 2011. Baudinelli had once again run for the leadership of the Carrara Academy, and in the 2023 elections he came second behind Papucci (53 votes to 11), but shortly thereafter he challenged the appointment of the newly appointed director: the argument was that Papucci did not have the six years of seniority in the role required by the academy’s statute (Article 12.5) to be eligible to serve as director.

Papucci, in fact, could claim only four years of seniority in the role, the ruling read. The Academy of Fine Arts objected to the inadmissibility of Baudinelli’s recollection, providing a different interpretation of the statute, where it is stated that “the director is elected from among tenured faculty members also from other institutions with at least six years of seniority in the role.” the Academy in fact believes that seniority " in" the role is not equivalent to seniority “of” the role, attributing to the concept of “seniority in the role” all activities and services actually performed as a faculty member even if they precede permanent employment. The Election Committee, therefore, held that Professor Papucci’s seniority should be considered from November 17, 2011, the date Papucci assumed “tenure” as a lecturer of Engraving Techniques and Art Graphics. So, by the time the professor assumed her tenure, on November 1, 2018, she had already accrued three years and one month of seniority.

In the Tar’s ruling, however, it is stated that “by ’tenure’ is always meant permanent placement on the staff of the Academy or other university institutions,” and consequently, the “interpretation of the provision offered by theinterpretation of the provision offered by the Academy’s defense,” according to which the statute is intended to give relevance also to “pre-role” service, that is, service “rendered prior to tenure but nevertheless in the role of lecturer.”

“According to this line of interpretation,” the Tar argued, “it would indeed be necessary to attribute to the term ’role’, in quick succession, two different meanings: ’role’ of the teaching staff hired on a permanent basis in the staff of the universities; ’role’ understood, in a more generic and common sense, as the performance of the teaching function, even outside the non-contracted staff of the universities, through contract teaching or, in any case, fixed-term employment relationships. This interpretative option does not seem reasonably and logically viable, as the same term ’role’ cannot be given two different meanings, one technical and one common sense, in the same sentence; otherwise theAccademia di belle arti di Carrara, in drafting the Statute, would have used different and more precise words to render the second meaning, indicating that the six years of seniority required concerned teaching activity in general and therefore the ’pre-role’ period.” Consequently, for the Tar, seniority had to be counted from the time of tenure, and Professor Papucci, the ruling reads, “unquestionably did not possess that seniority requirement at the time of her admission to the present procedure and appointment.”

Papucci had been appointed director for the three-year period 2023-2025, so she will have to leave her post and the Academy, as the Tar ruled, “will have to verify the existence of the prerequisites for the appointment of the plaintiff as director in place of the other party,” so it will have to ascertain whether there is a possibility of Baudinelli becoming the new director.

Image: Carrara, Palazzo Cybo-Malaspina, home of the Academy of Fine Arts of Carrara

Photo: Wikimedia/Chabe01

Carrara, Tar annuls election of Academy director: she did not have a requirement

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