What Christian in their right mind would argue that the Church did not start the university? Ought a good Christian do such a thing as to try and detract from the cultural legacy of the great faith? While it may seem like heresy, I believe that exploring a different read on the history of the university will help bring a fresh perspective to the problems of our time. To students who take ownership of their education, this is our reading of history: students started the university.
In the early eleventh century, students came together from all over Europe in search of an education. Together students would hire a teacher to instruct them in a subject. Students determined the subject matter and paid the professor directly, in class. If a professor did not teach relevant material or misused class time, students would simply boycott the class and not pay. As enrolment grew, this ad hoc arrangement transformed into something a little more permanent. Students organized themselves into student governments called guilds. These student guilds served as the administration of the university.
Up and out of their homes, teenagers as young as twelve would leave home and their native lands to join student organized universities in cities such as Bologna, Italy. The student guilds wielded significant power. They determined programs and course material, regulated the city's housing costs, and set the schedule for the academic year.
Professors formed their own guilds and would hire and fire members as they saw fit, but it was students who determined who got paid and who did not. The city and townsmen owned the property of the university, but it was students who determined how it was to be utilized. The students had a major bargaining tool. If the city did not do what they wanted, they would threaten to move the school. It is subsequently no wonder that cities sought and eventually gained control over the university, as a significant source of income was in the control of youth.
Charters were drafted between the city and the student guild, allotting rights to the students that essentially made them citizens unto themselves. This meant that much of the administration of civil and criminal justice was placed in the hands of people whom today would be considered mere adolescent children. Anyone holding this view back then would very likely have been out of a job. The student government was the university's board of governors.
Student guilds were truly international societies. Run like a modern consociational democracy, every nationality present at the university would have had two elected representatives sitting on council. Decisions were legislated by a majority vote with important decisions requiring the attendance and polling of all students.
The historical leadership of students in determining their education is worth considerable attention today. It says several things. First, students want to learn. Students are "authentic learners." Maybe there are many "students" at this private institution who "are not passionate for truth," but whose fault is that? Students do not determine their peers.
Second, students are not clients. Students are the principal investors. Principal investors own a significant share of the company and consequently gain a significant say. Instead of being represented through an Ipsos-Reid poll, principal investors have their people sit on the board.
Third, students should be given the permission to think. Students of the eleventh century were given permission to learn by virtue of a burden on them to set the agenda, and by the professors who consented to teach them. Today, even while IDIS professors dare students to think, many students still need to be given the permission to think. Dared "students" do very well at memorizing what's been given them to learn. Working hard, they meet expectations by getting sapere aude in their brains and out verbatim on paper. Students given the permission to learn, however, are willing to confront the unknown. Instead of alleviating their fears by letting others tell them how things "really" are, a student must be given permission to confront the void in life.
The success and failures of the eleventh century, student-run university deserve to be considered today, when issues of retention, relevancy, and identity now challenge the business of post-secondary education. The ideas delineated here are only those of one student who pretends to know what the problem is. He is a student who dares to challenge the idea that the university came from the church while giving himself permission to rethink how it is run today. He may be wrong, but he would rather look like a fool, even a heretic, than not try.
