This is part 3 of Ben Reinhardt’s monograph on Unbundling the University. For the first two parts, see here and here. For more of Ben’s work, check out the Speculative Technologies site.

2. Universities have been accumulating roles for hundreds of years

Or, disgustingly abbreviated history of the modern university with a special focus on research and the creation of new knowledge and technology.

Medieval Universities

The first universities emerged in the 12th century to train clergy, who needed to be literate (at least in Latin) and have some idea about theology. Institutions of higher education had existed before, and academia arguably predates Socrates, but we can trace our modern institutions back to these medieval scholastic guilds in places like Paris, Bologna, and Oxford. In a recognizable pattern, the types of people who became professors also were the type of person who also liked trying to figure out how the world worked and arguing about philosophy. Many of the people who became clergy were the second sons of noblemen, who quickly realized that learning to read and a smattering of philosophy was useful. Nobles started sending their other children to universities to learn as well.

So from the start, you have this bundle of vocational training (although very scoped), general skills training, moral instruction, and inquiry into the nature of the universe. The business model was straightforward: donations paid for the original structures, and then students paid instructors directly; there were a small number of endowed positions whose salaries weren’t tied to teaching.

Also from the start, university professors spent a lot of time trying to come up with new ideas about the world; however, ‘natural philosophy’ – what we would now call science – was just a small fraction of that work. “How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?” was as legitimate a research question as “why does light create a rainbow when it goes through a prism?” There was no sense that these questions had any bearing on practical life or should be interesting to anybody besides other philosophers. This thread of “academia = pure ideas about philosophy and the truth of how the world works” remains incredibly strong throughout the university story. The centrality of ideas and philosophical roots created another strong thread that we will see later: the deep importance of who came up with an idea first.

The result