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Universities exist for three main reasons: to contribute to the advancement of knowledge, to provide a higher education for students and to serve the society of which they are a part. This is known as the tripartite mission of the university. A university is not functioning fully if it focuses on one part at the expense of the others or if it values one part only insofar as it serves the other part(s). A fully-functioning university is one that values all three parts of the tripartite mission, each in its own right and expresses each part as fully as it can. So the fully-functioning university expresses most fully the tripartite mission of the university. In that sense, it realises the fullest potential of the university. This contrasts with a perspective which views the three parts of the tripartite mission as competing goals within the university.

The fully-functioning university idea was developed as an answer to questions about the purpose of a university in the 21st century. Studies of the fully-functioning university focus on complementarities between the three parts of the tripartite mission of universities, identifying areas where they can support each other.

History
The modern university has an unbroken history going back to the Middle Ages in Europe. Most of the earliest universities in Europe originated as cathedral schools. Their primary purpose was to serve the Latin Church and thereby the people of Latin Christendom. They also contributed significantly to the advancement of knowledge in Latin Europe by, for example, accumulating knowledge from Arabic countries.

During the last part of the medieval period universities experienced a crisis. They were unable to recruit sufficient students and many universities were in financial difficulties at a time when the Latin Church more generally was experiencing severe problems. As a result, the main goal of the university gradually changed from serving the Church to providing a higher education for the sons of the well-heeled and well-connected. During the Renaissance and early modern periods, universities therefore became more student-focused with the development of a more liberal curriculum including, in particular, humanistic education. Gradually, universities acquired a voice that was independent of the Church about what constituted legitimate knowledge. They were a significant part of the process by which knowledge became secularised. During this period, the main way that universities served society was by enabling leaders of the new nation states of Europe to be more educated under the civilising influence of a more liberal and humanistic education ;.

By the end of the early modern period, the universities were again in crisis. They were accused of degenerating into mere finishing schools for young gentlemen. And by the 18th century many young gentlemen preferred the grand tour of Europe instead of university as a way of completing their education.

Salvation for universities arrived at the start of the 19th century with the emergence of the Humboldtian university. As Minister of Education in the Prussia in the early years of the nineteenth century William von Humboldt was given the task of building a system of higher education for the Prussian state and its people. According to Humboldt, the main purpose of a university is not to serve the needs of the students but to serve the pursuit of knowledge. Humboldt also intended that the fruits of research would be available to the nation state. This represented another shift in the main focus of the university, this time towards the pursuit of knowledge, per se. The new focus of universities is best captured by the words of Humboldt himself: "At the highest level, the teacher does not exist for the sake of the student: both teacher and student have their justification in the common pursuit of knowledge" (page 243). It was this shift in mission that underpinned the emergence of the modern research university with its emphasis on the advancement of knowledge and research-based teaching.

The history of the university can thus be viewed in terms of competition between three main goals: the advancement of knowledge, the higher education of students and service to society of which it is part. In each era in the development of the university one of the goals has dominated the other two, which have been valued primarily in terms of supporting the dominant goal at the time.

A university cannot function fully if it must interpret two of its goals in ways that serve the third. For this reason the fully-functioning university is one that seeks to integrate the three parts of the tripartite mission to the maximum possible extent. It seeks to express as fully as possible the tripartite mission of the university emphasising complementarities between the three parts rather than competition between them. A significant element in the history of the fully-functioning university has been the development of land-grant universities in the USA as they were intended to provide a higher education to students, contribute to the advancement of practical knowledge and serve their communities and thereby society.

The higher education of a fully-functioning university
What sort of higher education would be offered by a fully-functioning university? It would be a higher education with three parts; a subject-centred part, a student-centred part and a society-centred part. In other words, it would be a university education that prepares students to contribute to the advancement of knowledge in their subject of study, to their own advancement as persons and to the advancement of the community and society more widely. The subject-centred part would emphasise up-to-date knowledge in the student’s subject of study together with the development and application of critical thinking to that subject. The student-centred part would focus on the student experience and preparing students for their lives (including their work) after graduation. And the society-centred part would comprise studies ranging from the sort of community-based service-learning found in many U.S. universities to courses in global citizenship.

The advancement of knowledge by the fully-functioning university
What form would the advancement of knowledge take in a fully-functioning university? It would, of course, include research that supports the advancement of knowledge in recognized fields of study. It would also include research that supports the higher education of students and also the advancement of the society of which it is a part. The last of these would include problem-centred research focused on social problems and multi-disciplinary in scope.

Research clearly contributes to the advancement of knowledge but so do developments in the preservation, dissemination and application of knowledge. A fully-functioning university would serve the advancement of knowledge by contributing to these too – and in ways that support all three parts of the tripartite mission.

The contribution to society by the fully-functioning university
The advancement of knowledge and the higher education of students benefits society in indirect ways. An enlargement of the pool of knowledge is a resource in tackling social problems from the community level to the global level. And a highly educated population contributes to social wellbeing and also material wellbeing by developing knowledge workers. In addition, the fully-functioning university seeks to contribute directly to the society of which it is part. This implies so-called ‘third leg’ activities such as outreach and extension programmes, social engagement and knowledge transfer. The fully-functioning university seeks to pursue these in ways that contribute also to the higher education and the advancement of knowledge. For example, greater use of project-based thinking within the domain of third leg activity can support research-led, and hence evidence-based practices and outcomes.

Where did the fully-functioning university concept come from?
It originated in an enquiry into what endeavours can be found in all the stages of the history of the modern university. This prompted the question, what would a university be like if it was able to realise its full potential? The term 'fully-functioning university' was inspired by the term 'fully-functioning person' by Carl Rogers, a leading figure in the exploration of human potential. Rogers asked what an individual would be like who could realise their full potential as an individual and he framed his answer as a fully-functioning person. The fully-functioning university has a similar provenance. It describes an institution that realises its full potential as a university by realising all three parts of the tripartite mission of the university.

Criticisms
The idea of a fully-functioning university claims to be able to minimise the tensions between the three parts of the tripartite mission and to offer ways to avoid them pulling a university in different directions. It can be objected, however, that there will always be competition between advocates within a university for prioritising the advancement of knowledge, or the higher education of the students or service to society. This is inevitable because the resources of any university are limited. It may be possible to identify complementarities between these three goals but that will not eliminate the competition between them.

A second criticism is that the fully-functioning idea assumes that each university is the mistress of its own fate. In reality, universities operate within various constraining contexts, including financial, social and political, and it is changes in these contexts that determine the goals and priorities of universities.