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The University of Chardon

The University of Chardon is a famous center of learning and teaching, renowned as one of the great centers of magical knowledge in the world. It occupies much of Precinct IV in Chardon, and is among the oldest and most powerful institutions in the city. The university is closely affiliated with the Great Library, as well as the Hetaeri Magica and the Society of the Open Scroll, but has its own independent rules and governance.

In the middle of the oldest part of Chardon, the towers and spires of the Chardonian Lecti, the halls and colleges that make up the University of Chardon, rise above he bustle of the students, faculty, tutors, and others, sharing the skyline with the towers of famous wizards dancing with subtle magic.

Facilities and Organization

Undergraduate Lecti

The University is organized primarily into a series of undergraduate colleges, known collective as the Chardonian Lecti, that employ masters to teach undergraduates. Each college, known as a lectum (plural: lecti), is functionally independent, maintaining their own hall, sometimes with student housing, and arranging their own source of funds to pay masters to teach. Funds come from diverse sources, including, but not limited to, student fees, the imperial state, rich benefactors, the temple, and endowments. The halls of the Chardonian Lecti are almost exclusively located in Precinct IV, and tend to cluster around the prominent Great Library campus, with its massive spire, but there is no formal central organization that allots space, and competition among lecti for space, masters, and students is often contentious.

Architecturally, most lecti mimic the Great Library, with towers rising above the main building or building complex, which gives the university district a distinctive and impressive skyline.

Some of the more famous lecti include Sibyl’s Hall, one of the original colleges of the University, and Maruso Lectum, endowed by and named after an extremely wealthy adventurer.

Graduate Faculties

In addition to the undergraduate lecti, the University of Chardon has five graduate faculties: the Faculty of Magic, the Faculty of Law, the Faculty of Theology (which includes medicine and healing), the Faculty of History, and the Faculty of Metaphysics (which includes supernatural and planar studies). These higher faculties are governed independently from the undergraduate lecti. with their own departmental facilities and policies.

Governance

The University of Chardon operates under its original Drankorian Charter granted in DR 980, and thus claims to be above and outside the laws and politics of the current day city. Students who are accused of crimes are, according to the university, only able to be tried and punished by university courts (although the Imperial bureaucracy claims the ability to confine students to university grounds without trial, which is occasionally contentious).

The Hetaeri Magica, which draws members from both the University of Chardon and the Great Library controls and propagates rules on the use of magic within Precinct IV, the academic quarter of Chardon.

History

  • 939 DR: The University of Chardon is founded in Chardon on the authority of an Imperial Charter from Eiphis the Blind, the Emperor of Drankor.
  • 1065 DR: The University of Chardon expands, absorbing many refugees from the destruction of Drankor during the First Plague.