Carismă şi asceză-o istorie a universităţii între tradiţie şi modernizare
Charisma and Ascesis – a History of the University between Tradition and Modernization

Summary/Abstract: On the one hand, there is the modern curriculum, based on research, and on the other the academic brotherhoods, “Gaudeamus”, gothic stone facades and long black robes and caps. Thsi mixed heritage of modern universities is the subject of historian William Clark’s book on university charisma and the origins of the universities based on research. This “story” begins in the Middle Ages, continues through Renaissance and Enlightenment, moves from France to Germany and England. “Debates”, “police”, “bureaucracy”, methods of assessment, “hierarchy”, libraries, laboratories, scholarships – all these are parts of the evolution from the first academies to the contemporary institutions. The university, says the author of the essay, has never been an efficient corporation but more like the army, an organization simultaneously radically modern and traditional. It is hard to say how the institution as a whole would be affected by giving up tradition. It is a fact that nowadays, by the continuous decrease of state financing, university administrations have to turn to other sources of money and to take into account the market efficiency.

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