The LSE Italian Society

The Italian Society aims at promoting Italian culture on campus and raising awareness over political and economic issues concerning Italy and Europe.

The Italian Society

In order to fulfil the Society’s mission, to promote Italy and the Italian culture on campus, we organise a series of activities, which are open to Society’s Members as well as the wider LSE and general public.

Activities may vary from year to year, subject to the talents present in the Executive Committee and fund availability.

Activities include weekly meetings of the Committee, participation to the life of the Students’ Union, promotional activities, social events, academic events, cultural activities and various one-off initiatives.

CONSTITUTION

Every students’ society which forms part of the official student body organisation, the Students’ Union, has a Constitution which regulates its workings. How does the Constitution affects members and stakeholders of the Italian Society?

In the first place, every student has the right to become a Member. More importantly, every student, graduate or undergraduate, has the right to stand for an elected position. This is a prestigious opportunity and it is important that information about it is available to every one. Competition about talented students is at the heart of the success of our Society.

The Executive Committee is democratically elected at the beginning of every year. The Constitution provides the Society with a set of rules that guarantee participation, representation and fairness.

In the second place, if you are a Sponsor or and Institution dealing with our Society, the Constitution guarantees the protection of your investment or interest in the Society and outlines the legal framework of our operations as part of the LSE Students’ Union.

For the first time in its history and as a rare case of transparency among LSE SU societies the Italian Society will publish the text of its Constitution on this page throughout the first Term of the 2009-2010 academic year.

THE LSE

If you are surfing these pages and yet have no clue of what the London School of Economics and Political Science is like, we strongly recommend a visit to the School’s website.

In this page we will try to present the School. The brief description which follows is written from the point of vies of an Italian graduate student.

The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) is among the top five UK universities. It is the best social science university in the world.

The School is over a hundred years old. Little if compared to Oxford or Bologna but, nonetheless, it has a well established tradition among European higher education institutions.

What distinguish the LSE from other top UK universities are its location and its orientation. In fact, the LSE is based in Central London (the City of Westminster), thus it combines notoriety and reputation with an undeniably central location. In addition, the LSE was meant to be, in the vision of its founders, a working class institution. This is largely reflected in the progressive orientation of the university today.

These two elements constitute a premise for the unique constitution of the LSE students body. This is one of the most international and diverse in the world. It is not possible to compare the multitude of cultures and national backgrounds that are represented in the LSE student body as well as its diversity under every aspect, even religious and in terms of sexual orientation.

The different organisation of university studies between Italy and the UK is best exemplified by the fact that the LSE Students Union has an Italian Society when Italian universities do not have students unions at all. In this our Society represent a unique case that requires a good deal of extra communication when approaching Italian institutions.

The mascotte of the School is the beaver (“castoro”), the motto is the simple latin “Rerum Cognoscere Causas”. Alumni include J.F. Kennedy and R. Prodi.

THE SOCIETY

We are always open to suggestions from Members honorable guests and sponsors. We aim at catering the best events to our diverse public.