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Concept
University
Summary
A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, the designation is reserved for colleges that have a graduate school.
The word university is derived from the Latin universitas magistrorum et scholarium, which roughly means "community of teachers and scholars".
The first universities in Europe were established by Catholic Church monks. The University of Bologna (Università di Bologna), Italy, which was founded in 1088, is the first university in the sense of:
Being a high degree-awarding institute.
Having independence from the ecclesiastic schools, although conducted by both clergy and non-clergy.
Using the word universitas (which was coined at its foundation).
Issuing secular and non-secular degrees: grammar, rhetoric, logic, theology, canon law, notarial law.
Academia#HistoryHistory of academia
The original Latin word universitas refers in general to "a number of persons associated into one body, a society, company, community, guild, corporation, etc". At the time of the emergence of urban town life and medieval guilds, specialized "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.
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", with the earlier emphasis on its corporate organization considered as applying historically to Medieval universities.
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.
Official source
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