UTAS becomes a signatory to the Magna Charta Universitatum
The University of Tasmania has become a signatory to the Magna Charta Universitatum. On Friday 20 September 2013, at a ceremony in the beautiful Aula Absidale Santa Lucia in the city of Bologna, UTAS Vice-Chancellor Professor Peter Rathjen signed the document.
The Magna Charta Universitatum, which speaks to fundamental university values and rights, is housed at the University of Bologna, the oldest university in Europe.
The Magna Charta asserts the role that universities must play in a changing and increasingly internationalised society to link culture, knowledge and research to social advance, and speaks with authority to fundamental principles that must be observed for this to occur:
- Research and teaching must be morally and intellectually independent of all political authority and economic power.
- Teaching and research in universities must be inseparable if tuition is not to lag behind changing needs and knowledge.
- Freedom in research and training is the fundamental principle of university life.
- The constant care of a university is to attain universal knowledge; to fulfil its vocation it transcends geographical and political frontiers and affirms the vital need for different cultures to know and influence each other.
"These values endure even as the details of the university mission vary across location and time, and with changes in technology, knowledge and social need.
"The University of Tasmania's Academic Senate and Council resolved unanimously that the university should apply to become signatory to the Magna Charta Universitatum following consultation and deliberation during the drafting of our Statement of Values and our strategic plan, Open to Talent. Our application was approved, together with those of 24 other universities, for 2013, the 25th anniversary of the original ceremony.
"In affirming our commitment to these ideals we join more than 750 universities across 80 countries, including many of the very finest and most prestigious, in aligning our local mission and characteristics with the broader philosophies of the western university tradition," Prof Rathjen said.
"I look forward to expounding further on the importance of this commitment by the University of Tasmania at a lecture to be arranged shortly."
Information about the Magna Charta Universitatum can be found at http://www.magna-charta.org/