A
university is an
institution of
higher education and
research which grants
academic degrees in a variety of subjects and provides both
undergraduate education and
postgraduate education. The word "university" is derived from the
Latin universitas magistrorum et scholarium, which roughly means "community of teachers and
scholars."
[1]
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."
[2] At the time of the emergence of urban town life and
medieval guilds,
specialised "associations of students and teachers with collective
legal rights usually guaranteed by charters issued by princes, prelates,
or the towns in which they were located" came to be denominated by this
general term. Like other guilds, they were self-regulating and
determined the qualifications of their members.
[3] The original Latin word referred to degree-granting 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. For non-related educational
institutions of antiquity which did not stand in the tradition of the
university and to which the term is only loosely and retrospectively
applied, see
ancient higher-learning institutions.
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 first university. The
University of Bologna adopted an academic charter, the
Constitutio Habita,
[4] in 1158 or 1155,
[5]
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".
[6] This is now widely recognised internationally - on 18 September 1988 430 university rectors signed the
Magna Charta Universitatum,
[7] 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.
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