“Sport elite” programme

With the "SPORT elite" programme the Università della Svizzera italiana offers to elite athletes the chance to get involved in one of USI’s academic programmes (Bachelor or Master) and organise their schedule in a flexible manner, to ideally combine three main goals:

• succeed in their academic studies
• achieve high levels in their discipline
• secure their post-career

In particular the programme allows to:

• take advantage of a personalised short, medium and long term study plan in order to meet the athlete's training schedule and competitions;
• extend the study plan without consequences;
• get financial support to take part in international university competitions.

The “SPORT elite” programme will be launched during the academic year 2013-2014, and it will be coordinated by USI’s Sports Service in the person of Giorgio Piffaretti. The programme aims at finding solutions to the many challenges in combining professional sports careers and academics, while keeping a careful eye on academic quality.

Organisation

The "SPORT elite" programme, or the opportunity to arrange the academic schedule according to the athlete's engagements, revolves around the following key figures:

Programme Coordinator

Is the person in charge of USI's Sport Service, Giorgio Piffaretti whose role is to:

• verify if all applications meet admission criteria;
• organise the preliminary meeting between the Faculty's Sport Advisor (see below), the Athlete, the Coach or an Executive Member of the affiliated Sport's Club;
• decide together with the Faculty's Sport Advisor the beginning of the personalised schedule for all student/athletes who are admitted into the programme;
• monitor the sport's performance;
• act as a reference along with the Faculty's Sport Advisor, to help solving all programme-related issues;
• allocate financial aid for the participation in international university sport events.

Faculty's Sport Advisor

Each Faculty has a designated "Faculty's Sport Advisor".

The role of the Advisor is to:

• gather from the Programme Coordinator all application for enrolment in the student/athletes programme;
• take part in the preliminary meeting with the Programme Coordinator, the Athlete, The Coach or an Executive Member of the affiliated Club;
• decide with the Programme Coordinator the beginning of the personalised schedule for all student/athletes who are admitted into the programme
• monitor academic performance;
• act as reference with the Programme Coordinator to help solving all programme-related issues.