- UNIVERSITIES;
1.Early universities:
The modern Western university evolved from the medieval schools known as studia generalia; they were generally recognized places of study open to students from all parts of Europe. The earliest studia arose out of efforts to educate clerks and monks beyond the level of the cathedral and monastic schools. The inclusion of scholars from foreign countries constituted the primary difference between the studia and the schools from which they grew.
The earliest Western institution that can be called a university was a famous medical school that arose at Salerno, Italy, in the 9th century and drew students from all over Europe. It remained merely a medical school, however. The first true university in the West was founded at Bologna late in the 11th century. It became a widely respected school of canon and civil law. The first university to arise in northern Europe was the University of Paris, founded between 1150 and 1170. It became noted for its teaching of theology, and it served as a model for other universities in northern Europe such as the University of Oxford in England, which was well established by the end of the 12th century. The Universities of Paris and Oxford were composed of colleges, which were actually endowed residence halls for scholars.
These early universities were corporations of students and masters, and they eventually received their charters from popes, emperors, and kings. The University of Naples, founded by Emperor Frederick II (1224), was the first to be established under imperial authority, while the University of Toulouse, founded by Pope Gregory IX (1229), was the first to be established by papal decree. These universities were free to govern themselves, provided they taught neither atheism nor heresy. Students and masters together elected their own rectors (presidents). As the price of independence, however, universities had to finance themselves. So teachers charged fees, and, to assure themselves of a livelihood, they had to please their students. These early universities had no permanent buildings and little corporate property, and they were subject to the loss of dissatisfied students and masters who could migrate to another city and establish a place of study there. The history of the University of Cambridge began in 1209 when a number of disaffected students moved there from Oxford, and 20 years later Oxford profited by a migration of students from the University of Paris.
From the 13th century on, universities were established in many of the principal cities of Europe. Universities were founded at Montpellier (beginning of the 13th century) and Aix-en-Provence (1409) in France, at Padua (1222), Rome (1303), and Florence (1321) in Italy, at Salamanca (1218) in Spain, at Prague (1348) and Vienna (1365) in central Europe, at Heidelberg (1386), Leipzig (1409), Freiburg (1457), and Tübingen (1477) in what is now Germany, at Louvain (1425) in present-day Belgium, and at Saint Andrews (1411) and Glasgow (1451) in Scotland.
Until the end of the 18th century, most Western universities offered a core curriculum based on the seven liberal arts: grammar, logic, rhetoric, geometry, arithmetic, astronomy, and music. Students then proceeded to study under one of the professional faculties of medicine, law, and theology. Final examinations were grueling, and many students failed
2.Impact of the Protestant Reformation and the Counter-Reformation on European universities:
The Protestant Reformation of the 16th century and the ensuing Counter-Reformation affected the universities of Europe in different ways. In the German states, new Protestant universities were founded and older schools were taken over by Protestants, while many Roman Catholic universities became staunch defenders of the traditional learning associated with the Catholic church. By the 17th century, both Protestant and Catholic universities had become overly devoted to defending correct religious doctrines and hence remained resistant to the new interest in science that had begun to sweep through Europe. The new learning was discouraged, and thus many universities underwent a period of relative decline. New schools continued to be founded during this time, however, including ones at Edinburgh (1583), Leiden (1575), and Strasbourg (university status, 1621).
The first modern university in Europe was that of Halle, founded by Lutherans in 1694. This school was one of the first to renounce religious orthodoxy of any kind in favour of rational and objective intellectual inquiry, and it was the first where teachers lectured in German (i.e., a vernacular language) rather than in Latin. Halle’s innovations were adopted by the University of Göttingen (founded 1737) a generation later and subsequently by most German and many American universities.
In the later 18th and 19th centuries religion was gradually displaced as the dominant force as European universities became institutions of modern learning and research and were secularized in their curriculum and administration. These trends were typified by the University of Berlin (1809), in which laboratory experimentation replaced conjecture; theological, philosophical, and other traditional doctrines were examined with a new rigour and objectivity; and modern standards of academic freedom were pioneered. The German model of the university as a complex of graduate schools performing advanced research and experimentation proved to have a worldwide influence.
3.First universities in the Western Hemisphere:
The first universities in the Western Hemisphere were established by the Spaniards: the University of Santo Domingo (1538) in what is now the Dominican Republic and the University of Michoacán (1539) in Mexico. The earliest American institutions of higher learning were the four-year colleges of Harvard (1636), William and Mary (1693), Yale (1701), Princeton (1746), and King’s College (1754; now Columbia). Most early American colleges were established by religious denominations, and most eventually evolved into full-fledged universities. One of the oldest universities in Canada is that at Toronto, chartered as King’s College in 1827.
As the frontier of the United States moved westward, hundreds of new colleges were founded. American colleges and universities tended to imitate German models, seeking to combine the Prussian ideal of academic freedom with the native tradition of educational opportunity for the many. The growth of such schools in the United States was greatly spurred by the Morrill Act of 1862, which granted each state tracts of land with which to finance new agricultural and mechanical schools. Many “land-grant colleges” arose from this act, and there developed among these the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cornell University, and the state universities of Illinois, Wisconsin, and Minnesota.
4.Reorganization, secularization, and modernization from the 19th century:
Several European countries in the 19th century reorganized and secularized their universities, notably Italy (1870), Spain (1876), and France (1896). Universities in these and other European countries became mostly state-financed. Women began to be admitted to universities in the second half of the 19th century. Meanwhile, universities’ curricula also continued to evolve. The study of modern languages and literatures was added to, and in many cases supplanted, the traditional study of Latin, Greek, and theology. Such sciences as physics, chemistry, biology, and engineering achieved a recognized place in curricula, and by the early 20th century the newer disciplines of economics, political science, psychology, and sociology were also taught.
In the late 19th and 20th centuries Great Britain and France established universities in many of their colonies in South and Southeast Asia and Africa. Most of the independent countries that emerged from these colonies in the mid-20th century expanded their university systems along the lines of their European or American models, often with major technical and economic assistance from former colonial rulers, industrialized countries, and international agencies such as the World Bank. Universities in Japan, China, and Russia also evolved in response to pressures for modernization. In India some preindependence universities, such as Banaras Hindu University (1916) and Rabindranath Tagore’s Visva-Bharati (1921), were founded as alternatives to Western educational principles. The state universities of Moscow (1755) and St. Petersburg (1819) retained their preeminence in Russia. Tokyo (1877) and Kyōto (1897) universities were the most prestigious ones in Japan, as was Peking University (1898) in China.
5.Modern universities:
6.University of British Columbia
university, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada:
University of British Columbia, Canadian public university with campuses in Vancouver and Kelowna. It is one of the largest universities in Canada and the oldest in the province (founded 1908). Its Vancouver campus officially opened in 1925 in what was then the separate municipality of Point Grey. Following the institution’s merger with Okanagan University College, its Okanagan campus was opened in Kelowna in 2005.
The university comprises faculties of applied science, arts, creative and critical studies, dentistry, education, forestry, graduate studies, health and social development, land and food systems, law, management, medicine, pharmaceutical sciences, and science. The Vancouver campus hosts the UBC Botanical Garden and Centre for Plant Research; the garden is open to the public. Additionally, the university has extensive study-abroad and continuing-education programs.
University of British Columbia
7.Auburn University
university, Alabama, United States:
Auburn University, public, coeducational institution of higher education located in Auburn, Alabama, U.S. The university offers a broad range of undergraduate and graduate degree programs and is noted for its colleges of engineering and business. Degrees in nursing, pharmacy, and veterinary medicine are also available. A branch campus in Montgomery offers undergraduate and graduate degrees in schools of business, education, liberal arts, nursing, and sciences. Auburn University’s research facilities include the Space Power Institute, the Center for Microfibrous Materials Manufacturing, the National Center for Asphalt Technology, and the Forest Products Development Center. Total enrollment at the two campuses is more than 27,000.
A land-grant institution, Auburn University was chartered in 1856 and opened in 1859 as East Alabama Male College. The school was closed two years later, however, at the outset of the American Civil War and reopened in 1866. The Methodist church, which had supported it before the war, transferred control of the college to the state of Alabama in 1872. The school’s name was then changed to the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Alabama. Women were first admitted in 1892. The name was changed to Alabama Polytechnic Institute in 1899 and to Auburn University in 1960. The Montgomery campus was created in 1967, and instruction began there in 1969. Architect William Spratling was an Auburn graduate.
Auburn University
8.University of Pennsylvania
university, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States:
University of Pennsylvania, private university located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S., one of the eight Ivy League schools, widely regarded for their high academic standards, selectivity in admissions, and social prestige. It is the oldest university in the country. (The oldest U.S. college is Harvard, founded in 1636).
The University of Pennsylvania was founded in 1740 as a charity school. Largely through the efforts of Benjamin Franklin and other leading Philadelphians, it became an academy in 1751, with Franklin as president of the first board of trustees. In 1755 it was chartered as the College and Academy of Philadelphia. With the foundation in 1765 of the first medical school in colonial America, the institution became in fact a university, but it was not so called until 1779, when for a time it received state support. Since 1791 it has been a privately endowed and controlled institution, although it continues to receive state aid. Approximately 25,000 students are enrolled at the university.
The university was one of the first in the country to admit women students. Women began attending with nondegree status in the late 1870s. They were admitted formally—as graduate students—when the graduate program was established in 1882 and as undergraduates when the School of Education (now a graduate school) opened in 1914. A College of Liberal Arts for Women was established in 1933, thus allowing women to pursue undergraduate degrees in subjects other than education; the university was not made fully coeducational, however, until 1974, when the women’s school was merged into the School of Arts and Sciences.
The university now has four undergraduate schools: the College (School of Arts and Sciences), the School of Engineering and Applied Science, the School of Nursing, and the Wharton School (business education). Graduate and professional programs are offered by these schools and by graduate schools of law, medicine, veterinary medicine, dental medicine, education, communication, fine arts, and social work. University institutes include the Mahoney Institute of Neurological Sciences (1953) and the Joseph H. Lauder Institute of Management and International Studies (1983), part of the Wharton School. The University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology (1887) is a noted teaching and research organization.
Notable alumni include architects Louis Kahn and Bruce Graham, U.S. Supreme Court justices William Brennan and Owen Josephus Roberts, suffragist Alice Paul, football coach John Heisman, linguist and activist Noam Chomsky, and poets Ezra Pound and William Carlos Williams.
9.Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania
school, Slippery Rock, Pennsylvania, United States:
Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania, public, coeducational institution of higher learning in Slippery Rock, Pennsylvania, U.S. It is part of Pennsylvania’s State System of Higher Education. It comprises colleges of Arts and Sciences, Education, Health and Human Services, and Information Science and Business Administration. In addition to undergraduate study, the university offers master’s degree programs in education, psychology, English, history, accounting, nursing, environmental policy, and public administration; a doctoral degree program is offered in physical therapy. There are instructional facilities at Moraine State Park, McKeever Environmental Learning Center, and Wallops Island Marine Science Center in Virginia. Total enrollment exceeds 7,500.
The university was founded in 1889 as Slippery Rock State Normal School, a training institution for teachers. It was renamed Slippery Rock State Teachers College in 1926, when it became a four-year institution. In 1960 the school was allowed to award degrees other than in education and became Slippery Rock State College; university standing was granted in 1983.
Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania
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