The Italian Rectors' Conference is to oppose ministry plans to upgrade nearly 4,000 graduate technicians from non-teaching staff to tenured researcher status. Chairman Luciano Modica, rector of the University of Pisa, said that neither mass upgradings nor special concorso examinations for graduate technicians were acceptable. But higher education undersecretary Luciano Guerzoni says the proposals are the only viable way of resolving long-standing problems of legal status.