THE PHYSICS IN THE MODELS OF UNIVERSITY

Abstract

Over the centuries, various university models have emerged as adaptations to social, political, cultural, and historical circumstances. Here we give a brief history of the most important university models for our national reality, highlighting the place of physics and natural sciences in these models. The universities of Bologna and Paris, usually cited as the first universities, already presented important differences regarding institutional organization, financial model and fields of study. Later, many universities faced the trade-off between research and professionalization, between public and private funding, between rigid and liberal curricula, between pure science and application, between increasing access and investing in quality. These and other issues were solved in different ways by different universities and the most famous solutions have set up working models for other universities. Knowledge of these
models can make discussions about teaching of physics, as well as of other disciplines, more productive.