Conclusion to Building the Post-Pandemic University

In September 2022, Rectors, Presidents, and Vice-Chancellors assembled at the University of Bologna in Italy to sign the Magna Charta Universitatum (MCU 2020). This event was deeply symbolic for multiple reasons. The ceremony was the first public gathering of so many heads of universities since the Covid lockdowns. That it was at the University of Bologna, founded in 1088, cast the arc of time backwards as if to remind the world that this ancient institution had longer and deeper roots than the modern nation state. The Magna Charta itself, otherwise known as the Great Charta of Universities, is a short document that was ratified on the eve of the end of the Cold War in 1988, laying out the fundamental values and principles of the university, in particular institutional autonomy and academic freedom.