University Student/Professor

The Universities are probably the great intellectual innovation of current age of Fultar. Many magisters, sages, and other specialists would be trained at a university. Universities are places full of knowledge, the occasional dangerous idea, secret students of magic, and strange political notions. They are also infamous for wild life, licentiousness, misbehavior, and violence.
For most courses of study students enter the college between twelve and fourteen years of age, and continue their education for ten to twelve years. Some students have started their education at home or at the Temple Schools. They obtain the title of magister after the completion of the first six years of study. Their first four years are spent in the most menial of classes, requiring a subordinate position of service in the college to which they belong. They are automatically considered bachelors after that period, becoming entitled to more privileges and being less closely controlled.
Students at universities typically belong to a specific college or hall. These are essentially a combination of dormitories, student unions, and fraternities. For example, all students in the University of Gebesh are required to reside in a college/hall, while this is not obligatory in the Universities of Fulton or Atlan.   Each college/hall has its own charter of rules, self-government, traditions, and orientation. Colleges/halls are typically supervised by a permanent adult provost, rector, or warden.
Scholars of colleges/halls typically regulate life in their dormitories via a democratic system, where each one has a vote on collective decisions. They must abide by the fundamental rules and traditions laid down in the charter of the college/hall founders, however. The provost, rector, or warden of a college/hall advises and supervises the scholars, but do not vote in any decisions except when there is a tie. They do, however, have the authority to unilaterally expel scholars or students that violate the rules.
In a manner similar to Guilds and its liverymen, they also include certain senior students as titled scholars (or later, fellows) with special privileges, such as wearing the robes of their college/hall and the right to walk in the courtyard lawns of the halls.
Classes are taught on the basis of studies of books, written by ancient or modern masters of the related subjects. The basic curriculum for all universities is the nine liberal arts are arithmetic, geometry, astrology, music theory, religion, history, grammar, logic, and rhetoric Instructors are not generally expected to be very creative, as they elaborate on the book covered in their classes in the same rote way that most other instructors cover them. There is a standard interpretation generally followed by everyone, passed down from instructor to instructor. There are a few exceptions, with some truly brilliant teachers often being very popular, but also sometimes very controversial (especially if teaching theology). Fifty years ago the Katheroi heresy was centered in the University of Ashan, which has resulted in greater regulation and supervision by both the temples and the nobility.
Universities are places of relatively little innovation. They do not teach for the purpose of new discovery, doing so primarily to communicate ancient truths. The sacred scriptures and ancient philosophers are by far the most covered sources in the largest majority of classes. The purpose is to create a coherent and structured communication of proper knowledge and methods. Risk-taking in the form of new ideas, especially in religion, is discouraged.
The most-important libraries outside of the Library of the Muses are usually found in universities, but that does not mean that they include a vast number of books compared to the post-printing-press era. Most universities enjoy several libraries, some of which are collective and the rest belonging to individual colleges/halls. For example, the largest library in the University of Atlan includes eight hundred books. The largest one in the University of Gebesh only has about five hundred books. Each university also contains several smaller specialized libraries for particular topics—especially theology, law (religious or secular), medicine, and magic. Access to libraries is very strictly controlled; only professors can typically get universal access, with special collections that contain dangerous texts being even further limited. A few libraries still follow the earlier tradition of chaining up the books.
The university is one of the few places in Fultonian society where young men can be free from direct family supervision and control (students were considerably younger than they are today). As a result, towns must put up with thousands of boys and young men who are living large and mostly out of control. In spite of being mostly from good families, groups of university students behave similarly to street gangs in some ways—they are responsible for promoting prostitution, theft, vandalism, grift, and outright violence.

Type

Education