Colleges and Universities

I

Introduction

Colleges and Universities, degree-granting institutions of higher education. In the original sense of the word, a college was a group of students who gathered to share academic and residential facilities. Each college was a component part of a corporate body called a university, the word being an abbreviation of the Latin universitas magistrorum et scholarium (“guild [or union] of masters and students”), organized for mutual advantage and legal protection. Today, a college may be affiliated with a university or independent.

In some universities, particularly European institutions, students begin their higher education with specialized studies because their general education is completed in secondary school. In general, European universities have no prescribed courses, attendance requirements, or course grades. Students may attend lectures, but do their work directly with tutors who prepare them for examinations. Programmes may be completed in two to six years, usually split into three terms. In the United States, students are traditionally required to take general survey courses before they specialize in major areas of concentration; the undergraduate programme generally lasts four years, with each year split into two or three semesters.

Typical first degrees include the Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) and Bachelor of Science (B.Sc. or B.S.) degree, while those who want additional education may enrol in programmes leading to a Master of Arts (M.A., occasionally a first degree, as in some Scottish universities) or a Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) degree.

II

Development of Colleges and Universities

Although modern colleges and universities evolved from Western European institutions of the Middle Ages, significant types of higher learning existed in ancient times, in the Middle and Far East as well as in Europe. Some of these Eastern institutions still flourish.

A

Historical Antecedents

In Greece, the Academy of Plato and the Lyceum of Aristotle were advanced schools of philosophy. During the Hellenistic period, which began in the 4th century bc, Athens attracted many Roman students, including, later, the statesmen and writers Julius Caesar, Cicero, Augustus, and Horace. Also important during this period was the Egyptian city of Alexandria, with its great library (see Alexandria, Library of) and museum, which attracted scholars from the Middle East. The Jewish academies in Palestine and Babylonia, which produced the Talmud, promoted religious and secular intellectual pursuits from about ad 70 through to the 13th century. The University of Nalanda, in northern India, where native and Chinese students studied Buddhism, functioned until the 12th century. Institutions of higher education flourished in China itself from the 7th century onwards, and in Korea from the 14th century. Al-Azhar University in Cairo, now more than 1,000 years old, is the central authority for Islam. Another Islamic institution of equal antiquity is Al Qarawiyin University in Fès, Morocco.

B

Medieval Universities

Western European universities developed as students migrated to various places where noted teachers lectured on subjects of particular interest to them. Language was no barrier because lectures and disputation were conducted in the universal tongue, Latin. By the 12th century, Paris was established as the centre for theology and philosophy, and the University of Paris became the model for later universities in northern Europe. Bologna, Italy, was the centre for the study of law, and the University of Bologna set the pattern for Italian and Spanish universities. From the 13th century onwards, universities were established in France, England, Scotland, Germany, Bohemia, and Poland. Students migrating from the same country banded together into so-called nations for mutual aid and protection. From these communities developed the concept of the college (Latin, collegium,”society”). Medieval universities had the right to suspend studies when conditions in their towns and cities were unfavourable and to confer degrees that included the privilege of teaching in any Christian country.