Royal University of Caledon
The Royal University of Caledon (RUC) is the major university in the Principality of Caledon.
Description (Specifications)[edit]
The RUC is actually a loosely-knit federation of institutions run by a government-chartered "philanthropic corporation".
Organization[edit]
The organization of the RUC is very fluid; institutions are formed, flourish, fade and are dissolved as their need ebbs and flows (e.g. the "Duke of Pratt Institute of Fission Studies" was phased out when Fission power became obsolete).
History & Background (Dossier)[edit]
Founded by a charter issued by Prince John III in 57, the institution is governed by the "Charter Committee", a 27 member board of academics, businessmen and nobles filled by invitation from a five member "Chamber Committee" appointed by the Sovereign Prince.
The RUC is funded for the most part by royalties from research activities, a massive endowment funded by centuries of nobility, and to a lesser extent tuition and fees. Government funding in the form of non-research direct payments amounts to less than 5% of revenues.
Institutions[edit]
The RUC currently includes the following institutes:
Catherine College[edit]
This is the elite of elites among Caledonian research; the Charter Committee seeks the premiere thinkers, researchers, theorists, engineers and academics in a variety of fields, from abstract philosophy to arts, humanities and literature to particle physics, and pays them to serve 2-5 years tutoring a select group of 3-10 students in the subject exclusively. Being invited to serve as a tutor is considered a very high honor among Caledonian academics - indeed, frequently it is a steppingstone to knighthood in the Royal Order of Sages and Scholars; between 75 and 100 tutors are engaged at a given time. They are given free reighn to select their students, and tutor them any way they wish.
For the students, admission to the program is incredibly competitive; between 100 and 2,000 applications are received for every place in the program (and the number of places varies according to the number and disciplines of the tutors invited). The students accepted vary widely at the discretion of the tutors; while most are graduates of other colleges and universities studying at a graduate level, students have also included child prodigies, self-taught geniuses, and accomplished but unlettered practitioners.
Catherine College is run from a small, old building on the main campus. It has no formal "campus", per se; students meet their tutors wherever they and the tutors arrange. Professors' homes, businesses, laboratories borrowed from the University or from other places of business, bars and cafes, at archaeological digs and construction sites, even virtual meetings.
Graduates from the program have gone on to be leaders in technology, research, medicine, philosophy, arts and letters, and government. Many of the invited tutors are themselves graduates of the program.
Saints College[edit]
This is, essentially, an advanced prep school for nobles. Saints is academically adequate-to-good - but classroom education is a secondary mission at Saints. The primary mission is to help young nobles build a network among nobles througout the Principality, as well as developing the skills and attributes that are considered desirable in a noble.
Saints also provides - optionally - military education; it graduates many young officers for the Army and the various planetary defense services. Saints students also serve as staff for the House of Lords and Privy Council, as well as with major corporations. Graduates with an aptitude toward investigation and excellent social skills are frequently recruited into Department 5 of the Royal Intelligence Service.
Tuition is expensive - Saints' income helps support the rest of the RUC - and admission is entirely based on being a member of the peerage between the ages of 16 and 22 (although waivers on the upper age limit are freely granted to nobles who've opted to serve in the military first).
Princess Margaret's Anthropological Institute[edit]
"The Marge" is a highly advanced institute of interplanetary anthropology. It's also a unique hybrid institution - combining undergraduate and graduate training with what can best be described as an anthropological extension service.
- The School: This refers to the undergraduate and graduate programs. The School operates under a highly informal, tutor-based system. Entry is intensely competitive.
- The Research Department: Graduates of The School, as well as faculty and adjunct staff, can work as Research Analysts in the department - or, upon qualification and graduation from the Royal Caledonian Expeditionary Service's basic space training course - accompany RCES missions as "Field Researchers", or full-time research scientists. The Research Department will also occasionally charter merchant ships to serve as research vessels (after a suitable refit).
- Department of Antiquities: This is the PMAI's archaeological institute. It has developed an immense body of knowledge about the pre-human history of Reavers Deep, including the study of the Saie civilization, and Crash Jura.
Earl of Urquehart's College[edit]
In the Caledonian legal system, barristers (lawyers) need not attend law school to be admitted to the bar; not a few self-taught people and (more often) motivated legal assistants ("paralegals") have been admitted to the Caledonian bar.
However, law school improves the odds of passing the bar exam - and Earl of Urquehart's College is the premiere law school in the Principality.
Unusually, it is an almost completely remote campus; students attend classes on-campus (located in a ramshackle old building in Invergarry) for the first year, and then go home (or wherever) to take further classes remotely, returning for the mock trials that serve as the "pass/fail" test at the end of each of their second and third terms.
The Cloister[edit]
The Cloister is an elite government-policy think tank housed at the main campus. The school retains a large number of key domestic and foreign policy thinkers, and provides selected graduate students as their assistants. Many key leaders in the bureaucracy got their start at The Cloister.
Much of the Foreign Service leadership also studied at the Cloister, either before or after joining the Service.
The Regent's University[edit]
Regents is a decentralized system, a "virtual campus" with branches on most of the Principality's constituent worlds. It operates on the principle of providing a networked infrastructure for small, semi-formal "study groups" scattered all about the Principality, directed by academics who are also decentralized (although many live and work at or around the central campus in Selkirk for convenience sake).
Regent's is the largest grantor of academic degrees in the Principality.
The Armstrong Center[edit]
The Armstrong Center is an elite engineering and hard-science research center. Based near the Caledon Downport at Leithdoun, Armstrong has led the Principality's research into jump drives, high-energy research and other applied physical sciences.
College Of Surgeons[edit]
The Principality's main medical school and medical research institution.
Worlds & Sectors (Astrography)[edit]
This institution is primarily based out of the following sector:
World Listing: 1105[edit]
The following systems and worlds are associated with this institution:
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References & Contributors (Sources)[edit]
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- Author & Contributor: Mitchberg
- Author & Contributor: Lord (Marquis) and Master of Sophontology Maksim-Smelchak of the Ministry of Science