Disputatio:Universitas Catholica Lovaniensis (UCLouvain)

I intend to move this to Universitas Catholica Lovaniensis (UCL). See talk here. Sigur (disputatio) 14:20, 17 Maii 2019 (UTC)

I have to add that for this one, there is a little additional issue: The university has recently started to use the brand "UCLouvain", but "UCL" is still widespread, so I would stick to the latter for the time being. If really "UCL" gets completely supplanted by "UCLouvain" in some years ,we can still move again. Sigur (disputatio) 15:32, 17 Maii 2019 (UTC)

This is no doubt a marketing issue. European universities and business schools have been going for abbreviations for some years now. It sounds brisk and efficient. Location (Lima, Lisbon, Liverpool, Louvain or Lvov?) remains a matter of interest to some potential students. If we have the place-name in there somewhere, we are doing our best for everybody! Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 16:09, 17 Maii 2019 (UTC)

Except that in this case, the location is plainly wrong, because the university is not in "Louvain" (Leuven, Lovanium) but in Louvain-la-Neuve (Novum Lovanium, granted, just 30 km away) and the faculty of medicine in Brussels (even nearer). Of course, our Latin adjective will be wrong in that sense as well, so for me, whatever... Sigur (disputatio) 18:10, 17 Maii 2019 (UTC)

! Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 20:10, 17 Maii 2019 (UTC)

Could you make your vote a bit clearer? (I'm abstaining, nobody else is voting, so...) Sigur (disputatio) 19:14, 19 Maii 2019 (UTC)

Sorry! I think your suggested move is a good idea, in spite of the issues mentioned. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 20:02, 19 Maii 2019 (UTC)

"non-rectionalis"?

Yes, it's apparently not publica (run by the state), but what does non rectionalis mean? IacobusAmor (disputatio) 11:32, 6 Iunii 2019 (UTC)

I tried to compromise, and this can be found elsewhere here on Vicipaedia as "non-governmental". Not that I was particularly happy with it... Do you have something both true and, let's say, "more classical"? That would be great! Sigur (disputatio) 18:10, 6 Iunii 2019 (UTC)

Mihi est! Ecce privata! IacobusAmor (disputatio) 18:48, 6 Iunii 2019 (UTC)

So be it! No more compromise and back to the start. :) Sigur (disputatio) 18:50, 6 Iunii 2019 (UTC)

There are surely quite a few universities sharing some similar characteristics. Cambridge and Oxford are not run by the state, though they could not continue to do all that they do without state funding. The secondary school I attended was in a position like that when I attended it (more than half a century ago!) and afterwards, like many similar ones, decided to go independent (private) when the terms of state funding changed. The same could conceivably happen to Oxford and Cambridge universities, though I don't predict it!

I wonder whether the Greek word "autonomus", used currently in several countries for educational institutions that aren't governed by the usual culprits, should be adopted by us. Here it is in Latin (fol. 20 verso apud Google Books) in a 17th-century book, apparently talking about the governance of religion within a state -- a comparable topic. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 09:04, 7 Iunii 2019 (UTC)

Autonomus has potential uses everywhere, but I don't see why the idea wouldn't be covered by privatus here. ¶ As to the degree by which educational institutions are beholden to the state, it might be useful to observe that in the United States at least, the main connection between educational institutions and governments involves money. So-called private institutions generally get no direct funding from state (civitas) and city governments, but they may get indirect support in the form of tax breaks, scholarships, student loans, local infrastructure, and so forth, and they do get direct funding from the federal government, usually for research. If the internet is to be believed, Johns Hopkins University, a "private research university," gets something like $2 billion a year from the federal government, a huge proportion of the $2.5 billion it spends annually on research. I remember hearing discussions of money & control ("he who pays the piper calls the tune") as long ago as the 1960s. And then there's France. ¶ In addition to public and private colleges & universities, we have commercial ones, run for profit! Maybe that's where autonomus could come into play. IacobusAmor (disputatio) 12:58, 7 Iunii 2019 (UTC)

It is difficult to consider the University of Louvain as privata in the sense that contrary to the strictly private universities in Flanders including Leuven, UCLouvain is not considered as a private entity anymore and is 100% funded by the French Community of Belgium. Also, its existence is only assured by 2 national laws (1910, 1970) and not by any private initiative, meaning it doesn't even have its own published statutes. Legally, it is a free university of the French Community (contrary to private and public), whatever that means... --PCC7500 (disputatio) 15:57, 7 Iunii 2019 (UTC)

As a Catholic university, indeed a pontifical university, how on earth could it be a state (publica) university? Statutes directly pertaining to it may be on the books, and of course it has to follow the laws in general, but even if it happened to have been created by the state, it's not a state-run institution, is it? Harvard College received its charter from the Massachusetts-Bay Colony in 1650, but that doesn't make it a state college. IacobusAmor (disputatio) 17:29, 7 Iunii 2019 (UTC)

I don't see the difference between the KUL and the UCL here (of course, they depend on two different legislators, but I don't think the KUL is much more "free" than the UCL). But this is indeed where I kind of understood where you were coming from, because what Iacobus describes is not how the UCL works. In our article on Universitas privata we also say that "subsidia ex vectigalibus non accipiunt". Sigur (disputatio) 16:10, 7 Iunii 2019 (UTC)

That's false and should changed! In the United States, all or practically all major private research universities benefit from money from the federal government, in a variety of ways. IacobusAmor (disputatio) 17:20, 7 Iunii 2019 (UTC)

Well, the UCL does. All of the Belgian Catholic and free-thinkers' universities do. They were privately created, but there are now laws that specifically take them into account, say under which conditions they get the fixed state contribution per student, what courses they can offer, where they can do that etc. The difference with really "public" universities is that the latter just have to obey those laws, while the former theoretically have the right to ignore them, but then they don't get a penny for what they do outside the scope of the law and the diplomas they dish out in that context will have no legal value whatsoever. So, although the theoretical difference is clear, for a prospective student the only difference there is is the religious/belief background and of course the individual reputation of the university. The admission conditions are the same and it's going to cost them the same thing in Louvain-la-Neuve (Catholic) as in Liège (public) or Brussels (free-thinkers) (apart from costs of living in different places sometimes being different, of course), and their diplomas will have the same legal value. Therefore, I get it that "private" theoretically may cover this but gets the wrong impression across nevertheless. That being said, if I look at "autonomus" from the vernaculars, the public universities can also be said to be "autonomous", because they have as much leeway to make their own policy decisions as the "private" ones have left in practice. It's not as if the minister of education is simply their hierarchical superior; they simply have to obey the legal framework, and within that, they are run "autonomously", not from outside. So, I don't think, "autonomus" would actually mean much here in terms of distinguishing between the two. Sigur (disputatio) 16:10, 7 Iunii 2019 (UTC)

For anyone who wants to dig deeper, here is the Act of 1911 (actually the bill, but the version of the last chamber that voted on it, so it must be the final text), and here the current amended version as it applies in the French Community of Belgium (and thus to the UCL). This is what would be called a Private Act of Parliament in the UK; ad-hoc legislation to remedy in two particular cases the absence (at that time) of a general framework for acquisition of legal personality by private non-profit organisations. It didn't make the universities public bodies, they remain legal entities of private law. In any case, as far as I'm concerned, I can live with "privata" although I understand it may not be ideal. Sigur (disputatio) 18:45, 7 Iunii 2019 (UTC)