Breakfast Room
The College is sorry to report that the breakfast room in the South wing was damaged during the night between the 4th and 5th of November. The damage involved the plastic cover of the radiator switches and one of the food dispensers.
The action was inappropriate and the College expects that the student(s) who have caused the damage will come forward and take responsibility for the action before Friday the 13th of November at 12.00 noon in the College office in order to avoid a general response from College that would inevitably - and sadly - affect the whole College community.
Should the student(s) responsible for the damage fail to step forward, the College will close the breakfast rooms (G62-65 and G206), ping pong and table soccer room (G80), tv rooms (GG82 and G205) and gym (F75 and F76) between Friday 13th and Monday 16th of November 2015. It will also lift € 10 from the deposit account of each student - the minimal charge College Office can handle - in order to pay for the repairs.
Language Studies
College graduate and alumna Giulia Bonaretti is taking language studies at Volta to a new level. Giulia has offered to the members of Volta a free Course in French (basic) and Russian (basic). The French Course has enrolled 14 students, the Russian one has enrolled 10.
The College will also host shortly English Courses, at two different levels. Starting from the academic year 2014/15, the English Courses are co-organised with EDiSU and have enrolled this year a lower number of students compared to last year (18 students plus a member of staff vs 27 students in 2014/15. The decreases in the number of students studying English at Volta depends on the late start of the Courses last year, a problem that will be overcome this year. All in all though 42 students are studying English or French or Russian at Volta.
EDiSU Welcome Day
Paolo Benazzo (EDiSU President) and Alessandro Greco (EDiSU Vice-President) for the second year running will meet new students admitted to EDiSU Colleges.
The event will take place at Collegio Cairoli at 6.00 pm on Tuesday the 17th of November and will involve a brief welcoming speech in which the Presidency will outline the rules and features of the EDiSU Collegiate community. The speech will be followed by refreshments.
College undergraduates Delaram Farzin (Pharmaceutical Sciences, yr 3) and Paride Maddalena (Medicine, yr 2) will represent the Volta community at this event but the College hopes that a much larger group of members of Volta will travel to Collegio Cairoli to meet EDiSU and students from other Colleges.
New Emergency Numbers
Folowing the review of Health & Safety and Emergency procedures discussed in a College assembly on the 4th of November, College has introduced a new set of emergency telephone numbers that replace the ones previously notified. The new four numbers will reach:
- the College porter on duty: to be used beween 7.00 am and 1.00 am of the following day (Monday to Friday) and between 7.00 am to 11.00 pm (Saturday)
- the College keeper: to be used outside the hours in which the porter's desk is manned and at time in which the porter's desk is manned if, for any reason, a student fails to get a reply from the porter's desk.
- the College administrator and
- the College master.
The numbers will be made available to all College students on Monday the 9th of November. They are already available, for those students who wish to acquire them straight away, from the porter's desk and from a poster placed near the door leading from the College office into the College entrance hall.
A Buzzati-Traverso Lecture 2015/16
On Tuesday the 10th November 2015 at 3.00 pm Prof Václav Pačes of the Institute of Molecular Genetics of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Prague will deliver the 14th Adriano Buzzati-Traverso Lecture on Structure and Evolution of the Human Genome. The lecture will take place in the Aula A Falaschi of the CNR Institute of Molecular Genetics in Via A. Ferrata 1 and the poster of the lecture can be downloaded here.
Adriano Buzzati-Traverso (6 April 1913, Milan, Italy – 22 April 1983), the brother of the writer Dino Buzzati was an Italian geneticist and a Professor of Genetics at the University of Pavia. In 1962 he founded the Laboratorio Internazionale di Genetica e Biofisica (International Laboratory of Genetics and Biophysics) in Naples. He has a prominent figure in developing Genetics in Italy in the second half of the 20th century and in introducing the discipline now known as Molecular Biology in this country.
College undergraduate and graduate students in Biology, Biotechnology and Medicine are strongly encouraged to attend this lecture.
College Prefects
The College has appointed the students listed below as Prefects for the academic year 2015/16. Prefects have a role in ensuring that College rules are upheld in their area of the building and in promoting students response and participation to College life and events. They also play a role in matters of Health & Safety.
South Wing
V Carini room G_12A, extension 531 (G12-G15)
A Barone room F_01A, extension 557 (F01-F04)
C Neidhöfer room F_15D, extension 598 (F10-F15)
GA Kengne room S_04B, extension 612 (S01-S04)
M Gatti room S_13A, extension 636(S10-S15)
I Grassi T_04B, extension 651 (T03-T04 & T10-T11)
North Wing
A Martinasso room G_06D, extension 413 (Ground Floor)
M Invernici room F_07D, extension 439 (First Floor)
C Sgarlata S_06F, extension 460 (Second Floor)
G Siciliano T_05C, extension 478 (Third Floor)
Health & Safety Induction
On Wednesday the 4th of November at 6.00 pm a meeting will take place in the College lecture theatre.addressing College Health & Safety measures and matters. The meeting is compulsory for students who have joined the College in the academic year 2015/16 but even students previously resident in College are strongly recommended to attend. Key topics scheduled for discussion include: the fire (alarm and evacuation (policy and procedures), flooding and, in general the response to emergencies.
At the end of the Helth & Safety induction, a brief discussion will follow about two additional and pending College issues, namely the low rate of enrolment into the English Courses, which is jeopardising the Courses themselves, and the failure of graduate members of College to nominate candidates for the VSU Committee, which is jeopardising the whole process of election of the VSU executive.
Neglected Diseases
Serap Aksoy, of the Department of Epidemiology and Microbial Diseases of the School of Public Health at Yale University will give four lectures on Public Health Solutions for Neglected Diseases. The first lecture will take place at the Department of Public Healt of the University of Pavia on November 16th. The subsequent three lectures will be hosted by Collegio Borromeo late in November and erarly December. The poster if the lectures can be dowloaded here.
These lectures address major issues in diseases control and heath promotion and all students of Collegio Volta, especially medical students, are warmly encouraged to attend.
Internet Issues
Several College students have recently reported problems in accessing the internet. Hypergrid, the company in charge of maintaining the College wifi network, require accurate details of each problem in order to take the correct remedial action and have supplied two forms - one in Italian and one in English - for students to fill and return. The forms are available in the Information Technology page of the website under the header Network Maintenance and are also available here (the form in Italian can be downloaded here; the form in English can be downloaded here).
Once completed the form should be submitted to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and copied to the This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. The student will be contacted directly by Hypergrid and informed of the steps taken to solve the problem.
Nanospheres and Cancer
On November 20th the College will host a one-day meeting in the College lecture theatre organised by L Visai and focusing on New strategies for breast cancer therapy based on the use of nano spheres, a project recently supported through the crowd funding initiative of the University of Pavia. Nanospheres - and nanotechnologies in general - offer considerable scope for improving selective drug delivery to cancer cells and activation of prodrugs and the meeting will constitute the opportunity to discuss work in progress in this area in several Italian laboratories and its applicability to treat cancer. It will also offer the opportunity to inform the local academic community of a new programme of work, ie a Centre for Health Technologies, recently launched by the University. The meeting is open to all interested participants, the programme of the meeting (in Italian) is available here and further information can be obtained from This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
Image Source: http://nanocomposix.eu/products/80-nm-silver-shelled-gold-nanospheres
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Library Support 2015/16
The College would like to thank the many students who expressed an interest in offering Library Support for the academic year 2015/16 and wishes to inform all College members that the service will be offered by the following students:
Semester 1 (20 October 2015 - 31 March 2016): A Incardona and A Ghandour
Semester 2 (1 April 2016 - 31 July 2016 and 1 September 2016 - 30 September 2016): M Passanante and R Cacciatore.
Students offering Library Support will be available for enquiries and loans from 6.00 pm to 7.00 pm Monday to Friday in the small Library Office adjacent the Director's office.
Medical Studies in the UK
The first seminar of a series on postgraduate studies, training and working abroad for medical graduate will take place in the College lecture theatre on Thursday the 15th of October at 6.00 pm. The seminar will address study adn training in the UK and will be given by Prof Wendy Reid of Univesity College London (UCL) and Health Education England (HEE).
All medical students of Collegio Volta as well as other medical students are invited to attend. The poster of the seminar can be downloaded here. Further information from E Gherardi <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
English Courses 2015/16
The new English Courses will start in November 2015. Enrolmnent will start at the General College Assembly (October 13th at 6.00 pm in the College lecture theatre) and will continute until Thursday the 22nd of October.
EdISU will support the Courses financially, as it did in 2014/15. The College invites all Volta students whose English is below a C1 grade to enrol in the Courses. The cost for the Course is expected to be approximately € 200 with the possibility of a partial reimbiursement from EDiSU fo students who attend regularly and demonstrate commitment to the study of the English language. Enrolment sheets are available at the College porter's desk, in teh College Office and on the noticeboarrds adjacent the breakfast rooms in the South and North wings. Further information from E Gherardi <This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
General College Assembly
The General College Assembly will take place on Tuesday the 13th of October at 6.00 pm. The Assembly formally marks the start of the academic year at Volta and discusses essential aspects of College life and work including:
(i) College statistics, (ii) academic results and citations to students who have excelled in 2013/14, (iii) the organisation of the academic work and College teaching, (iv) the work of College Clubs and Societies, ( v) English language courses, (vi) sports and social life, (vii) students representation and Committees and, (viii() the launch of the Volta Students and Alumni Society (VSAS)
All students are warmly invited to participate. The Assembly will be will be followed by the customary bicchierata.
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