Towards an International University. A Professorship at the Franz Joseph University (Cluj-Napoca) in 1901 (original) (raw)

Romanian University Historians in the 1930s and 1940s - the Case of Dimitrie Todoranu, Professor at the University of Cluj

published in ,,Journal of Research in Higher Education'', 2019

This study focuses on the complex topics of university history and academic strategy as they were seen in the late 1930s and early 1940s by a Romanian scholar, Dimitrie Todoranu. At the time a young psychologist and university member of staff, Todoranu held influential administrative positions, being appointed head of the University Office at the Romanian University of Cluj in 1934. Starting from that year, and throughout the Second World War, he reflected and published rather extensively on the characteristics, the "role and the essenceˮ of a university in Europe and in particular in Central and Eastern Europe. Using the evolution of the Romanian University of Cluj as a case study, Todoranu tried to define what a modern university should look like, what were the best relationships between students and professors, what the public significance of a university should be in the life of a (nation)state. Todoranu's works and ideas testify not only to a significant phase in the field of European higher education, but also represent an important and a less known episode / contribution to the history of universities in the 20 th century Romania. Keywords: history of universities, Romanian University of Cluj, Dimitrie Todoranu, academic institutional development, 1930s and the Second World War.

Polish Professors at Prague Universities (14th–18th Centuries). A Prosopographic Study

Acta Universitatis Carolinae - Historia Universitatis Carolinae Pragensis, 2020

This article examines the question of the participation of professors from Poland in the academic life in Prague from the fourteenth to the eighteenth centuries. Because the article is a prosopographic study, the group of surveyed professors is presented in the context of their academic careers, territorial and social origins, motivation to take up an academic career in Prague, and life after their academic endeavours in Prague had come to an end.

English and German studies at the Jagiellonian University between the two World Wars: The ideal of a scholar and challenges of reality

Prace Historyczne, 2018

The author discusses the creation of an ideal of a scholar and its implementation by the circles of English and German specialists at the Jagiellonian University in the interwar period. He considers how the academic activity was combined with "service for the state," increasingly imposed by the reality of the time. The choice of university Germanists and Anglicists from Cracow results from the obvious interconnections between the two groups of scholars and from the fact that by using their example it is easy to see how their specifi c mission was understood, interpreted and how it translated into everyday business relations. It turns out that academic success did not always guarantee a high position or even remaining in the job. Often, they were determined by various completely diff erent factors.

The Dilemmas of a Hungarian University in Cluj

Hungary and Romania Beyond National Narratives. Comparisons and Entanglements, eds. Anders E. Blomqvist, Constantin Iordachi, Balázs Trencsényi, Oxford, Bern, Berlin, Bruxelles, Frankfurt am Main, New York, Wien, Edit. Peter Lang, 2013, p.359-396, 2013

As institutions with real spiritual and social power that produce professional intellectuals, universities represent a complex eld of investigation. As a meeting point of most cultural aspirations, universities should be de ned through not only reference to certain ideal-abstract organizational types, but by the clientele they attract and the social functions they ful l. From this perspective, the choice of a certain higher education centre as well as the development of a typology of professional conduits, based on social-historical variables (ethnicity, religious denomination, social category, geographical origin, age, etc.), constitute privileged elements of analysis. An inquiry into higher education could be especially suggestive for the intra-Carpathian area which, throughout history, has known not only ethnic and religious pluralism, but also changes in political and state organization. rough such an inquiry more rigour can be brought to sometimes ambiguously formulated conclusions, which are, however, immediately annulled in the practice of in a-history, and which essentially claim that both in the periods-and-, ethnic and religious discrimination was practised at the University of Kolozsvár/Cluj, the institution acting as an ef cient instrument for the assimilation of Romanians-during the former period-and of Hungarians-during the latter. From this perspective, things appear much more complicated in the post-period, which has enjoyed very little attention. However, one fact remains irrefutable, namely that education (especially in its institutionalized form) has been a signi cant identity management strategy for every ethnic group. In this context, the transformations that the intellectual eld e research for this study was supported by CNCS-UEFISCDI, project number PN-II-ID-PCE-. 'Az Egyetem' , Kolozsvári újság, no. (May), .

Hungarian-language higher education in Serbia - the story of founding a faculty

The Serbian education policy does not allow the creation of a higher education institution in which the teaching is completely in Hungarian. However, the higher education research has shown that the main criterion in selection the higher education institution for Hungarian students in Vojvodina is its teaching language and geographical location. In minority higher education policy expressed the need to establish a Hungarian language university, but this initiative is only at the planning level. Discussions are related to the possible establishment of that institution in the Hungarian National Council, but in the near future, be sure that this initiative will not move on the path of realization. For this reason it is important to examine those institutions, i.e. faculties, which partially or completely conducted in Hungarian language education. Hungarian Faculty of Teacher Training in Subotica is the only higher education institution (faculty) where all subjects are taught in Hungarian. A special feature is that just only there form teacher who will teach the pupils on Hungarian. Considering the successful operation of the Faculty and taking into account the continuous expansion of the training offer, it’s important to know the history of the foundation, because, although it is a faculty, learning from its example might speed up the process of establishment a Hungarian language university or other faculty teaching in the minority language. To explore the method of foundation, in this case, expert interviews, document analysis, literature analysis and research on the internet come into play. Keywords: faculty, national minorities, higher education institutions, teacher training, training needs, training language.

Hungarian Higher Education Policy in the Interwar Period

In my study I aim to show the circumstances of the inception of “ideological” or, to put it another way, “parallel” departments of Ferenc József (Francis Joseph, in English) University, the predecessor of the University of Szeged, in the 1920s and 1930s through an accurate and complete exploration of archival sources. Also, by using a historical– sociological perspective, the religious affiliation and composition of students is examined as a supposed basis for the transformation of the university system in the early 1920s. The denominational composition of students enrolled in the University in the 1920s suggests that among the university students who moved from Kolozsvár to Szeged the Protestants were in a larger number than their proportion in contemporary Hungarian society.

(PhD Thesis) Habsburg Universities 1848 - 1918 : biography of a space. Wien, Univ., Diss., 2012

The thesis investigates the development and mobility patterns of scholars active at the universities in Cisleithania during the period 1848-1918. Applying the analytical tools of cultural geography, it demonstrates how the production of academic space through academic mobility changed over time, establishing language-defined systems with their own rules and hierarchies. From the late eighteenth century, the question of the language of scholarship increasingly influenced academic communities, especially in the Central Europe. In the Habsburg Empire several languages held claims to being developed enough for serving as the mediums of scientific instruction – yet, the privileged role of German language was sustained for political reasons. After 1848, this tension influenced scientific policy, as universities with different languages of instruction were allowed in Galicia and then in Bohemia. Concurrently, academic mobility increasingly extended beyond the boundaries of the Habsburg Monarchy, and non-Habsburg scholars were appointed to chairs from 1848, comprising at times more than a quarter of the lecturers at individual universities. Especially at germanophone academies and in Galicia, the number of foreign scholars rose, illustrating the dominance of language affiliations over state dependence. Galician universities in particular, became centers for education for Polish and Ruthenian speakers from three empires, striving to gather the best polonophone scholars as well. Germanophone universities were partially included in the network of the German Confederation/Empire, but later in the century turned more to their own offspring and developed a hierarchical system with discernible Habsburg-bound career patterns. In the case of Jewish scholars, this pattern was disrupted due to anti-Semitic hostility at the provincial academies; especially in the politicized disciplines, philosophy and history, the ministry also favored the appointments of Catholic scholars. Despite the turn to a fostering of their own culturally defined scholarship, Habsburg universities remained entangled by common frontiers, which proved highly influential on personal and institutional levels.

The Romanian University of Cluj and the Academic Community from the United States of America (1919- 1941): An Overview of Early Contacts

Journal of Research in Higher Education, 2019

The Romanian University of Cluj made constant efforts to establish and consolidate a constantly expanding network of cooperation with similar institutions from Europe and even beyond the borders of the "old continent". The long process of international affirmation began shortly after the Romanian University was organized in Cluj, at the end of the First World War. The tradition of "western education" among Romanian intellectuals facilitated the first institutional contacts with Western European Universities, especially from France and Germany. Such a tradition was missing in relation with the North-American academic community. Nevertheless, the first contacts with American higher education and research institutions were initiated during the interwar period. In this article the impact of American universities will be analysed, as a model of institutional organization, during the early years of the Romanian University of Cluj. In the first decades of the 20 th century American universities were perceived as an innovative model, different form the traditional rigidity of European universities, based on functionality and social involvement. In the second part of the article the focus will be on identifying the various means of academic cooperation and their influence on the teaching and research process in the University of Cluj: academic mobility, the access to American scientific literature, the exchange of publications between the University of Cluj and similar institutions in the U.S.A., conferences and other scientific events, the presence of professors from Cluj in American scientific societies, etc.