(Э)миссия университета

Abstract

The development of capitalism, the formation of a mass society, professionalization and specialization of knowledge have led to an increase in the number of universities, specialties and students. The consequence of this emission (proliferation) of the University has been renunciation of universal cultural mission of the University. Nowadays, the value of partial knowledge, professional education, commercial feasibility and pragmatism of applied science are dominating. The University has to respond to the challenges of the market with knowledge and education marketing. But the problems of the university have arisen from its essence – the idea of universitas (the totality, the unity of knowledge/ reason/culture). Nowadays, it is necessary to rethink and to enlarge the notional scope of universitas, as well as to open new opportunities for conjugation of “education” and “science”, taking into account the crisis of nation-states and the growth of the world market. New opportunities should be thought over from within university institutions. We need a reconfiguration of professional education and basic researches to successfully promote the product on the labor market and to preserve the academic science. This suggests a new politics of the University and the retraining of the concept of ‘elitism’. The modern university is not obliged to start from the universality and unity, but must take responsibility for keeping the possibility to finish with the singularity and uniqueness.