University


A university is an institution of tertiary education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. University is derived from the Latin phrase universitas magistrorum et scholarium, which roughly means "community of teachers and scholars". Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs.
The first universities in Europe developed from schools that had been maintained by the Church for the purpose of educating priests. The University of Bologna, Italy, which was founded in 1088, is the first university in the sense of:

Definition

The original Latin word universitas refers in general to "a number of persons associated into one body, a society, company, community, guild, corporation, etc". As urban town life and medieval guilds developed, specialized associations of students and teachers with collective legal rights became denominated by this general term. Like other guilds, they were self-regulating and determined the qualifications of their members.
In modern usage, the word has come to mean "an institution of higher education offering tuition in mainly non-vocational subjects and typically having the power to confer degrees". The earlier emphasis on its corporate organization is no longer the primary feature by which a modern university is recognized.
The original Latin word referred to degree-awarding institutions of learning in Western and Central Europe, where this form of legal organisation was prevalent and from where the institution spread around the world.
File:Oxfordceremony.jpg|thumb|Graduation ceremony on Convocation day at the University of Oxford. The Pro-Vice-Chancellor in MA gown and hood, Proctor in official dress and new Doctors of Philosophy in scarlet full dress. Behind them, a bedel, a Doctor and Bachelors of Arts and Medicine graduate.

Academic freedom

An important idea in the definition of a university is the notion of academic freedom. The first documentary evidence of this comes from early in the life of the University of Bologna, which adopted an academic charter, the Constitutio Habita, in 1155 or 1158, which guaranteed the right of a traveling scholar to unhindered passage in the interests of education. Today, this is claimed as the origin of "academic freedom". This is now a widely accepted concept in international research. On 18 September 1988, 430 university rectors signed the Magna Charta Universitatum, marking the 900th anniversary of Bologna's foundation. The number of universities signing the Magna Charta Universitatum continues to grow, drawing from all parts of the world.

Antecedents

was established by emperor Kumaragupta I of the Gupta Empire around 427 CE, became a major Buddhist learning hub, attracting scholars like Xuanzang. It was destroyed in 1202 CE by Bakhtiyar Khilji. The characterization of Nalanda as a "university" in the modern sense has been challenged by scholars. They argue that while it was undoubtedly a major center of learning, comparing it directly to a modern university is historically imprecise. An early institution, often called a university, is the Harran University, founded in the late 8th century. Scholars occasionally call the University of al-Qarawiyyin, founded as a mosque by Fatima al-Fihri in 859 CE, a university, although writes that this is done out of scholarly convenience. Several scholars consider that al-Qarawiyyin was founded and run as a madrasa until after World War II. They date the transformation of the madrasa of al-Qarawiyyin into a university to its modern reorganization in 1963. In the wake of these reforms, al-Qarawiyyin was officially renamed "University of Al Quaraouiyine" two years later.
Some scholars, including George Makdisi, have argued that early medieval universities were influenced by the madrasas in Al-Andalus, the Emirate of Sicily, and the Middle East during the Crusades. Norman Daniel, however, views this argument as overstated. Universities and madrasas differed in several major respects. In 2013, Roy Lowe and Yoshihito Yasuhara claimed that the influences of scholarship from the Islamic world on the universities of Western Europe requires a reconsideration of the development of higher education, turning away from a concern with local institutional structures to a broader consideration within a global context.

Medieval Europe

Although there are antecedents, the modern university is generally regarded as a formal institution that has its origin in the Medieval Christian tradition. European higher education took place for hundreds of years in cathedral schools or monastic schools, in which monks and nuns taught classes; evidence of these immediate forerunners of the later university at many places dates back to the 6th century. In Europe, young men proceeded to university when they had completed their study of the trivium – the preparatory arts of grammar, rhetoric and dialectic or logic–and the quadrivium: arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy.
The earliest universities were developed under the aegis of the Latin Church by papal bull as Studium Generale and perhaps from cathedral schools. It is possible, however, that the development of cathedral schools into universities was quite rare, with the University of Paris being an exception. Later they were also founded by kings - but with prior papal approval. or municipal administrations. Most of the early universities of the high medieval period were founded from pre-existing schools, usually when these schools were deemed to have become primarily sites of higher education. Many historians state that universities and cathedral schools were a continuation of the interest in learning promoted by monasteries. Pope Gregory VII was crucial in promoting and regulating the concept of modern university, as his 1079 Papal Decree ordered the regulated establishment of cathedral schools that transformed themselves into the first European universities.
The first universities in Europe with a form of corporate/guild structure were the University of Bologna, the University of Paris, and the University of Oxford. The University of Bologna began as a law school teaching the jus gentium or Roman law of peoples which was in demand across Europe for those defending the right of incipient nations against empire and church. The University of Bologna, or Alma Mater Studiorum, is widely recognized as the oldest university that is independent of any direct authority, such as kings, emperors, or religious organizations. Bologna's claim to being the oldest university is based on its unique characteristics, such as its autonomy and its ability to grant degrees.
The conventional date for the start of teaching at Bologna of 1088, or 1087 according to some, records when Irnerius commenced teaching Emperor Justinian's 6th-century codification of Roman law, the Corpus Iuris Civilis, recently discovered at Pisa. Lay students arrived in the city from many lands entering into a contract to gain this knowledge, eventually organising themselves into Nationes, divided between that of the Cismontanes and that of the Ultramontanes. The students "had all the power... and dominated the masters".
All over Europe, rulers and city governments began to create universities to satisfy a European thirst for knowledge, and the belief that society would benefit from the scholarly expertise generated from these institutions. Princes and leaders of city governments perceived the potential benefits of having a scholarly expertise developed with the ability to address difficult problems and achieve desired ends. The emergence of humanism was essential to this understanding of the possible utility of universities as well as the revival of interest in knowledge gained from ancient Greek texts.
The recovery of Aristotle's works – more than 3000 pages of it would eventually be translated – fuelled a spirit of inquiry into natural processes that had already begun to emerge in the 12th century. Some scholars believe that these works represented one of the most important document discoveries in Western intellectual history. Richard Dales, for instance, calls the discovery of Aristotle's works "a turning point in the history of Western thought." After Aristotle re-emerged, a community of scholars, primarily communicating in Latin, accelerated the process and practice of attempting to reconcile the thoughts of Greek antiquity, and especially ideas related to understanding the natural world, with those of the church. The efforts of this "scholasticism" were focused on applying Aristotelian logic and thoughts about natural processes to biblical passages and attempting to prove the viability of those passages through reason. This became the primary mission of lecturers, and the expectation of students.
File:Divinity_School_Interior_2,_Bodleian_Library,_Oxford,_UK_-_Diliff.jpg|thumb|The University of Oxford is the oldest university in the English-speaking world.
The university culture developed differently in northern Europe than it did in the south, although the northern and southern universities did have many elements in common. Latin was the language of the university, used for all texts, lectures, disputations and examinations. Professors lectured on the books of Aristotle for logic, natural philosophy, and metaphysics; while Hippocrates, Galen, and Avicenna were used for medicine. Outside of these commonalities, great differences separated north and south, primarily in subject matter. Italian universities focused on law and medicine, while the northern universities focused on the arts and theology. The quality of instruction in the different areas of study varied, depending on the university's focus. This led scholars to travel north or south based on their interests and means. The universities also awarded different types of degrees. English, French and German universities usually awarded bachelor's degrees, with the exception of degrees in theology, for which the doctorate was more common. Italian universities awarded primarily doctorates. The distinction can be attributed to the intent of the degree holder after graduation – in the north the focus tended to be on acquiring teaching positions, while in the south students often went on to professional positions. The structure of northern universities tended to be modeled after the system of faculty governance developed at the University of Paris. Southern universities tended to be patterned after the student-controlled model begun at the University of Bologna. Among the southern universities, a further distinction has been noted between those of northern Italy, which followed the pattern of Bologna as a "self-regulating, independent corporation of scholars" and those of southern Italy and Iberia, which were "founded by royal and imperial charter to serve the needs of government."