A university (from Latin universitas 'a whole') is an institution of tertiary education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. University is derived from the Latin phrase universitas magistrorum et scholarium, which roughly means "community of teachers and scholars". Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs.
The first universities in Europe developed from schools that had been maintained by the Church for the purpose of educating priests. The University of Bologna (Università di Bologna), Italy, which was founded in 1088, is the first university in the sense of: