CISH 2026
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Collegiality in Universities

  • Date

    III. Thursday, 27.08.2026, 11:00-13:00/30

  • Location
    House 3 - SR 223
  • Theme
    H - The Institutional Setting

Abstract

This panel investigates the modality of and challenges to collegiality in both medieval and modern universities. Professor Thierry Kouamé (Université de Franche-Comté) explores how the democratic system established by the medieval University of Paris and the English universities was gradually adapted by medieval German universities to create government by councils. However, over time these too faced serious challenges, particularly in the modern period. Professor Leonidas Rados (‘A.D. Xenopol’ Institute of History, Iasi), examines how collegial solidarity proved to be weak in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Romanian universities, hampered not only by the different educational background of professors but also their vying political goals. As Professor Pieter D’Hondt (University of Eastern Finland) notes in his paper, this was not a problem faced by the Université libre de Bruxelles, established in 1834: instead financial problems undermined collegial aims. Needless to say, the geopolitics of the interwar period impacted on the development of collegiality, a good example being the co-existence of Ukrainian academic institutions and the Charles University in Prague, which is investigated by Dr Marek Ďurčanský (Institute for the History and Archive of Charles University (Prague). Professor Emmanuelle Picard (École Normale supérieure de Lyon), focuses on one method by which universities sought to strengthen collegiality: recruitment, and argues that though this is a central element in the functioning of universities as autonomous professional collectives, no single procedure for recruitment and promotion developed over the centuries.

Convenor

  • Elizabethanne Boran (The Edward Worth Library, Dublin)

Panelists

  • Thierry Kouamé (Université de Franche-Comté)
  • Leonidas Rados (‘A.D. Xenopol’ Institute of History, Iasi)
  • Pieter D’Hondt (University of Eastern Finland)
  • Marek Ďurčanský (Institute for the History and Archive of Charles University Prague)
  • Emmanuelle Picard (École Normale Supérieure de Lyon)

Papers

  • From Assembly to Council: The evolution of medieval university government

    Thierry Kouamé

  • Working Together or Against: Collegiality in Romanian Academia until World War I

    Leonidas Rados

  • The drawback of being independent. Ambitions and financial limits at the Université libre de Bruxelles

    Pieter D’Hondt

  • Ukrainian academic education in exile in interwar Czechoslovakia and its interaction with the local academic community

    Marek Ďurčanský

  • Academic collegiality put to the test in recruitment: differences linked to historical university models (France, North America, 19-21 c.)

    Emmanuelle Picard