Susan Biggin
Venice, Italy--A scandal that began to engulf Italy's "concorsi" system for making academic appointments last year, when a number of appointments were exposed as being rigged, continues to widen. More than 100 professors, most of them members of concorsi boards that judge candidates for academic jobs, are now being investigated. Meanwhile, reform proposals are bogged down in the Senate. As a result, the concorsi system has been put on hold, and some 2000 academic posts are now vacant.