The University : From State Bureaucracy to Scientific Communities

Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Contemporary Education, Social Sciences and Humanities (ICCESSH 2019), 2019

The article analyzes the main ideas related to the system of higher education, the Russian philosopher and teacher S. I. Hessen. Being a follower of the Neokantian trend in philosophy, the Russian thinker supports the ideas of continuous education, the connection between learning and science, the joint creativity of the teacher and student, university freedom, the freedom of the teacher in choosing the courses to be read, and the freedom of the student in choosing a teacher. Keywords-education; upbringing; the idea of the university; S.I. Hessen I. *The publication has been prepared with the support of the "RUDN University Program 5-100".

On the occasion of the 370th birthday of the student nations (osakunnat, nationerna) at the University of Helsinki, the authors of this anthology are wondering to what extent and in which way the student nations have contributed and still contribute to the educational task of the university, in the meaning of bringing up the students. It is the merit of the editor that this question runs as a nice connecting thread throughout the volume. In one of the editor's own chapters the topic is dealt with more specifically, offering an historical overview of the role of the student nations (organized on a regional basis) and other kinds of student unions in transforming the students into (academic) citizens. Yet it is mainly through the personal memories of some seniors from different student nations that the educational task of those nations receives a more tangible and enlivened interpretation. When reflecting on how their activities within the student nations have had an impact on their later life, it becomes clear that they owe them a lot: offering experience in holding meetings, debating, reaching compromises, accounting and teamwork; providing a wider view on the world, and at the same time countering the threat of a too exclusive focus on the capital city in policy making; developing their social skills; and above all networking, with fellow students of different ages and from different disciplines.

Synthesis Philosophica, 2013

Knowledge has become a resource that the modern society increasingly wishes to exploit in the market of competitiveness. One of the first requirements on the evaluation list is useful ness and competitiveness of the profile of graduates in the workforce market. The Bologna study Process, which strived to enable modern university to successfully prepare the modern student to enter the workforce market, in many scholars opinion did not achieve this goal. Despite having more resources invested in higher education, the society of knowledge is increasingly further from our reach. Additionally, modern university is facing new methodo logical and technological challenges in the process of education. Must one acknowledge the anthropological findings of M. Wesch about the new "internet" human, who not only has a different path to knowledge, but also defines this knowledge differently? The discussion finds that methodological change is not enough; instead we need to reevaluate knowledge as well as the role of student and teacher. One of the solutions is a new community of teach ers and scholars supported by imagination, where cooperation is a way of work and life.

Complexion of higher education is fast changing from liberal arts to professional skills passing through natural and social sciences. So are changing the values associated with education. While lofty ideals are still written in the treatises on education, there is growing realization that they are hardly practiced; the hiatus between professed goals and practiced norms is widening. Change from religion to civics to economics of human affairs is clearly visible. At the same time we are witnessing a sea-change in funding pattern from community, to State to private corporate sector. While we are gaining a lot materially and in individual sense, through higher education that develops us as resource, we are losing quite a bit in terms of community sense. There is no way we can reverse the flow. An attempt is made in this paper to see sense in sensitizing institutions in cultural terms as cultivating noble tendencies was the main role of higher education once upon a time. There is no reason to believe that a good professional need not be a good human being. Socialisation as against individuation, homogenization as against differentiation, and innovation as against conservation are the values that need to be promoted. However, it is left for individual institution the way they would attempt to carry out the agenda for we view plurality and diversity as positive attributes of any system.

Business and Economics Journal, 2017

This study draws on the implementation of the Bologna Declaration and the daily life of universities, to appraise the process’s objectives whilst comparing them to its outcomes. The concepts of European University convergence, global training of students and a more balanced society are objectives that the Bologna Declaration enshrines. Yet, for its implementation, a knowledge-based society calls for a greater plasticity of skills to improve economic and social performance. This study relies upon questionnaires to university students, held in 2008, 2009 and 2015. Evidence unveils a somewhat slim knowledge pertaining to aspects of the Bologna process, which may have negative external economies about the autonomous workload each student should devote to course units, as well as to the hierarchy and management of their tasks. This evidence also unveils thatstudents are sensitive to the five global development processes of the person in line with the multiplicity of Gardner’s intelligenc...

This paper brings the reader's attention to the importance of the transition from the traditional to the postmodern teaching process that is part of the development of teaching. In the panoply of professions, teaching has acquired, over the years, the merit to stand first. Contemporary society owes much to teaching, given the importance of education in developing a morally and informational healthy society. In postmodern teaching the three characteristics of the educational process: teaching, learning and assessment are no longer separate. The assessment also comes along with the other two, in a continuous process. The conclusion of my research paper emphasizes the need of a teaching carrier based on a perpetual process of learning, as a guarantee for quality, and the ability to adapt to changes that we all witness, generated the circle of knowledge.

History of education & children's literature, 2014

The current university in a globalised world is facing all kinds of new challenges: an increasing commodification of research, a growing number of cases of scientific fraud, pressure on teaching, and internationalisation within still predominantly national frameworks. Taken together, all these elements contribute to the impression among the general public of a certain crisis of the current university. The central question of this paper is to what extent the original ideal of the university as a universal institution, in the period of its foundation in the High Middle Ages, can function as a source of inspiration for the concerns of the contemporary university. It will be shown that many traditions connected to this ideal can still function as valid models to reflect upon the university today, offering as such a nice example of how history of (university) education can be of use in the ongoing public debate and policy making process. The exercise to think about the university in this...

The Yearbook on History and Interpretation of Phenomenology 2017, 2018

The paper deals with some aspects which occur in contemporary discussions concerning the idea and crisis of the university from the phenomenological perspective. The author holds that this crisis originates in the alienating interpretation of the university, which leads to inappropriate discourse on the function or purpose of the university and, in the end, disrupts its original meaning. In the first part of the article, taking Hannah Arendt’s concept of labour as a basis of reflection, the latent background of the dominant alienating interpretation is discussed. Human activities in this context appear meaningful insofar as they are turned into labour or are evaluated and justified according to the norms prescribed by labour’s structure of meaning. The second part of the paper is devoted to the need to differentiate between mere function (purpose), the end of which is already given, and the idea that embodies the experience of non-givenness. The need to turn attention away from the purpose and towards the idea of the university consists in the fact that in education the experience of personal transformation, of opening towards the non-given, is inherent. Next, the encounter with the world, i.e. the experience of wonder (θαῦμα) as the grounding experience of personal transformation and education, which becomes institutionalized especially in the interpersonal relations of the university, is discussed.

Scientific Papers of Silesian University of Technology. Organization and Management Series, 2017

The aim of this paper is to reflect the changing role of a university in relation to the contemporary society. Higher education is one of the key investments in the future of global society. Not only in the context of the Slovak society, there is an obvious need to transform the education system, which is, in its current form, not able to adequately respond to the problems of nowadays. We believe that the key player in meeting this goal is a university that can be strongly supported by academic ethics as a direct application of ethical tools to the academic environment. Our paper is divided into two consecutive parts. In the first part, we focus on the analysis of academic ethics so that we can then, in the second part of the text, address the "controversial" question of the role of an intellectual in the present public space.