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Wednesday 9 January 2019

University

A university is a community or corporation of men or women devoted to higher learning. The word university is derived from the Latin universitas magistrorum et scholarium, which roughly means "community of teachers and scholars. "

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HISTORY

The University of al-Qarawiyyin is the oldest existing, continually operating higher educational institution in the world. It was founded in 859 in Fes, Morocco.

El Azhar, a Muslim university and mosque was founded at Cairo, Egypt in 969. From its inception it has been a significant influence in Muslim higher education.

Bologna University in the Kingdom of Italy, then part of the Holy Roman Empire, is the oldest university in continuous operation in the western world. In the 19th century, a committee of historians traced the founding of the University back to 1088.

Oxford is the western world's second-oldest university after the University of Bologna, There is no known date of foundation, but there is evidence of teaching as far back as 1096.

The University of Paris existed for 820 years from 1150 AD to 1970, when it was broken up for being the main source of student revolutionaries who nearly overthrew the French government in May 1968.

Meeting of doctors at the University of Paris. From a medieval manuscript.

Oxford University grew rapidly from 1167 when King Henry II banned English students from attending the University of Paris. English students were not allowed to continue studying in Paris after Thomas Becket was murdered. King Henry III granted Oxford University a royal charter on June 20, 1248.

The precise beginnings of Cambridge University are unclear, but it is known that in 1209 a party of students arrived from Oxford, where there had been disturbances.
John de Baliol, a rich Norman, founded in 1253 Oxford's Balliol College, originally as a hostel for poor students. It was a penance for assaulting the Bishop of Durham.

Medieval scholars used to read leaning against high desks.

In the early 1300s Oxbridge students made their own arrangements with individual masters and lived in whatever lodgings they could find. The first residential colleges were established later in the century: Merton set the pattern in Oxford in 1264, followed by Peterhouse in Cambridge twenty years later.

Front quad of Merton. By I, Sailko, Wikipedia

Charles, King of Bohemia, issued a Golden Bull to establish Charles University in Prague in 1348, the first university in Central Europe.

University fees in the United Kingdom in the late 14th century were £3 a year- £1,370 ($1,564) in today's prices.

The first universities in the Western Hemisphere were established by the Spaniards: the Universidad Santo Tomás de Aquino, in what is now the Dominican Republic was the first university in the Americas to be founded in 1538.

The National University of San Marcos, the oldest university in South America, was founded in Lima, Peru, in 1551.

The Pontifical and Royal University of Santo Tomas, The Catholic University of the Philippines, was established in 1611. It has the oldest extant university charter in Asia and is one of the world's largest Catholic universities in terms of enrollment found on one campus.

The University of Santo Tomás campus (circa 1940's). By GabDelRosario 

A vote of the Great and General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony established the first college in what would become the United States in 1636. Today it is known as Harvard University.

The Collegiate School of Connecticut was chartered in Old Saybrook, Connecticut in 1701. When British merchant and slave trader Elihu Yale gave books and goods worth $2,500 to the Collegiate School seven years later, its name was changed to Yale University.

The University of Georgia, the first public university in the United States, was founded in 1785. It was incorporated by the Georgia General Assembly, which had given its trustees, the Senatus Academicus of the University of Georgia, 40,000 acres (160 km²) for the purposes of founding a "college or seminary of learning."

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, one of the oldest public universities in the United States and the only one to award degrees in the 18th century, received its charter in 1789. The cornerstone of Old East, the oldest state university building in the United States, was laid on the campus of the University of North Carolina four years later.

While the Middle Ages saw universities sprung up all over Europe, until the 19th century England only had two: Oxford and Cambridge. Durham, which was founded in 1832 is England's third oldest officially recognized university.

Shaw University was founded on December 1, 1865, by the American Baptist Home Mission Society in Raleigh, North Carolina. It is the oldest historically black university in the South and one of the oldest in the nation. The university was founded to provide education to newly emancipated African Americans in the aftermath of the Civil War. Shaw University has a long and distinguished history of providing educational opportunities to African American students.

Texas A&M University opened as the U.S. state's first public institution of higher education on October 4, 1876 with six faculty members and forty students. As of 2021 enrollment, Texas A&M's student body is the largest in the United States (72,982 in the fall 2021).

The University Tests Act passed in 1871 in the United Kingdom, allowed students to enter the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge and Durham without religious tests (except for those intending to study theology).

Brigham Young University, the largest religious university in the United States, was founded in Provo, Utah on October 16, 1875. Approximately 99 percent of the students are members of the Mormon Church.

The Brigham Young Academy building circa 1900

When California Governor Leland Stanford Sr. lost his only child to Typhoid, he decided to honour his late son by spending his fortune to build Stanford University, telling his wife that "the children of California shall be our children". The university was founded in 1885.

20th century innovations include universities serving international areas, for example, the Middle East Technical University at Ankara, Turkey, supported by the United Nations.

The Open University put out its first television broadcast about mathematics on UK's BBC Two in 1971. Two years later, on January 11, 1973, the first Open University degrees were awarded to students who had spent two years studying at home. Within just two years, it had become the UK's largest university, with more than 40,000 students.


Dartmouth became the last Ivy League college to go coeducational in 1972, when it allowed women to join men in pursuit of the A.B. degree.

RECORDS 

In 1994, Michael Kearney received his Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of South Alabama. Michael was 10 years old and the youngest-ever college graduate. As well as setting several world records related to graduating at a young age, as a game-show contestant, Kearnery has won over one million dollars.

When 13-year-old Ruth Lawrence achieved a starred first in Mathematics at Oxford University on July 4, 1985, she became the youngest British person ever to get a first-class degree. She took just two years to complete the three-year course.


The University of Pennsylvania has produced 25 billionaires, the most of any college in the world.


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