Talk:University of Fresia

Our local parlance for a degree is Primary Measure and Secondary Measure. I like it! --Msallen

I like it, too, and it's a good start. A lot of it contradicts established canon. I'll do some polish work and we can move from there. Don't worry, it'll still maintain the same spirit by the 1000s, but there's no reason where it started needs to be the same as where it ended up. -gm

Made some changes to tie it into existing history, remove non-canonical references, and eliminated one anachronistic faculty member. (Not. Research. Universities. There are very much sages who specialize in knowing all kinds of things and also sages who specialize in examining the fringes of the poorly understood powers of the world. Naval gazing, masturbatory academics are the creation of the 20th century, and I'd prefer keeping them there. Any harshness in this should be taken as directed toward masturbatory academics and not you personally.

I've tried to do this in a way that did not disrupt the "spirit" of the University you seemed to be shooting at. Current structure and practice I care a lot less about, but integrating something into existing history is something I've very meticulous about.

FWiW, I found the University Creation Timeline, the Timeline of Arch-Wardens, and the Historical Timeline all pretty useful in coming up with all of that history vomit. -gm

FYI, I've been wanting to dig into the University pages for a while, but haven't been able to get the momentum. If someone were to go and make one, it might inspire me. Hint. Hint --Msallen

Also, I think this is all awesome. --Msallen

Double awesome. I'm so on it. =D --HelenAngel 13:54, 17 May 2011 (EDT)

Okay, got the template for you, Matt. Get to it! ;) --HelenAngel 17:40, 17 May 2011 (EDT)

Given the culture of Fresia, I would think this university would be more akin to, say, Mississippi State than Carnegie-Mellon: more agricultural & hard sciences, arts just kind of being an afterthought stuffed into the college of Education (not joking here- both theatre & music are shoved into the college of Education at MSU but they have separate colleges for Agricultural Science and Industrial Science). Of course, I would imagine there is, or used to be, a college devoted to arcane studies but who knows? Anyway, would like some guidance here regarding how universities are done in this world and I'll go to town on this article. --HelenAngel 11:22, 16 May 2011 (EDT)

Possible logo for the University showing emphasis on a) Dwarven recruitment since that's where money is and b) more "practical" areas of study.

--HelenAngel 11:37, 16 May 2011 (EDT)

Sure, I'm down with all that. Remember, though, at their heart these places are Universities in the medieval fashion - primarily for training people for the church. Over the centuries, they might have developed some form of specialization (or have one grandfathered in), but at the end of the day, the primary job of the universities is to train clerics and scholars and lawyers and mages. For the most part, Universities are vocational and training oriented rather than research based like the University of today. (Which is not to say many sages don't ALSO do research, but rather pointing out that the root purpose of the University is to train.) The wikipedia article about the Medieval University [1] is a pretty good start, although at this point all of the Mainland Universities *do* have their own campuses. Suffice to say, a lot of things that we moderns associate with the University did not really come into being until the 20th century. Before then, is was a place where the elites sent their children to learn all the skills to stay elite.

Let me know if this has been of any help? I know everyone always wants to make whatever they are working on the biggest and best and most awesome, but remember that Fresia is actually kind of the bottom tier in terms of faculty, resources, and prestige. (Which is what I thought you meant at first by comparing MissState to Carnegie-Mellon. ;) ) -gm

Well, that too. =D MSU also, at least when I was there, seemed really focused on training and not all that into research (veterinary school excluded). But awesome, I will totally start there. And yeah, I figured it was pretty bottom-tier given how poor Fresia is in general. --HelenAngel 14:07, 16 May 2011 (EDT)

Sounds like a winner. I'd drop the name from the seal, and maybe the wand. Otherwise I like it a lot. -gm

Okay, so I have two now for you to choose from:

Oh, these are nice. To prevent further work, let's go with #3. -gm