Corporation (university)

The term corporation refers to different kinds of student organizations worldwide. Generally, universities in the various European countries have student organizations called corporations. The name is derived from the Latin corporatio meaning a body or group. There was an earlier type of student organization, called a nation from the Middle Ages, where students from all over Europe at a particular university would unite according to national (actually regional) lines. Today, many student organizations in Sweden, Finland, and, to a lesser degree, Scotland are still termed nations, while most of the rest of European universities, the organizations are considered corporations.

Below are short entries on the organizations found at universities on a country-by-country basis. There are also references to longer articles.

Austria

Sharing common roots, Austrian corporations are quite similar to their German counterparts. While Catholic corporations generally are associated with the Christian-conservative Austrian People's Party (ÖVP) and are generally pro-Austrian, other corporations, especially Burschenschaften, are involved with the right-wing Freedom Party (FPÖ) and can be characterized as German-nationalist organizations.

Corporation

A corporation is a company or group of people authorized to act as a single entity (legally a person) and recognized as such in law. Early incorporated entities were established by charter (i.e. by an ad hoc act granted by a monarch or passed by a parliament or legislature). Most jurisdictions now allow the creation of new corporations through registration.

Corporations come in many different types but are usually divided by the law of the jurisdiction where they are chartered into two kinds: by whether or not they can issue stock, or by whether or not they are for profit.

Where local law distinguishes corporations by ability to issue stock, corporations allowed to do so are referred to as "stock corporations", ownership of the corporation is through stock, and owners of stock are referred to as "stockholders." Corporations not allowed to issue stock are referred to as "non-stock" corporations, those who are considered the owners of the corporation are those who have obtained membership in the corporation, and are referred to as a "member" of the corporation.

University

A university (Latin: universitas, "a whole") is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which grants academic degrees in various subjects and typically provides undergraduate education and postgraduate education. The word "university" is derived from the Latin universitas magistrorum et scholarium, which roughly means "community of teachers and scholars."

History

Definition

The original Latin word "universitas" refers in general to "a number of persons associated into one body, a society, company, community, guild, corporation, etc." At the time of the emergence of urban town life and medieval guilds, specialised "associations of students and teachers with collective legal rights usually guaranteed by charters issued by princes, prelates, or the towns in which they were located" came to be denominated by this general term. Like other guilds, they were self-regulating and determined the qualifications of their members.

In modern usage the word has come to mean "An institution of higher education offering tuition in mainly non-vocational subjects and typically having the power to confer degrees," with the earlier emphasis on its corporate organization considered as applying historically to Medieval universities.