Shelby University

A.K.A.: Central University of Shelby

Motto: Veritas Vos Liberabit (The truth shall set you free)

Colors: Blue and Gold

Established: 340 years ago

Government: Ruling Counsel

Chancellor: Lord Remington Utherfort

Vise-Chancellor: Lord Saul Gregor

Main Location: Shelby Island

Students: ~8500

Colleges: Law, Business, Arts, Liberal Arts, Science, Wizardry, Medicine

Branch Academies: Central City Law & Business Academy, Women's Academy of Shelby, Shelby Military Academy, Highfield Academy of Shelby

Prep Schools: Shelby-Trent School for Boys, Saraivo School for Girls

Shelby is a prestigious University, which is especially well known for wizardry and the develop of magical theory. The Shelby practice and style of magic is possibly the most advanced and best known style of wizardry in Icarus. However, besides its college of Wizardry, Shelby is also had as renowned school of science, law and medicine.

History
Shelby was founded shortly after Central City and is built on a small satellite island to the Central City island. When it was founded all participating nations pooled their knowledge and archives. The purpose was to create a University where wisdom and truth would be available to all and where countries could combine efforts to counter the dark and criminal magical orders which were universally feared at the time.

Today Shelby has created it's own sphere of influence, thanks to the political and magical power many of it's alumni have gained. It's become very rich, due to high Tuition and large donations from several rich noble-families and spends millions a year on research and salaries for the most famous and renowned professors. Several nations eagerly support Shelby University, hoping to get and edge on the latest innovation in magic and science, Central City holds the most sway over the school.

Campus
The main campus of Shelby University is built on Shelby Island, a small, yet usually flat island, only a couple of miles off Central City. It's a beautiful and old campus, with green parks, groves and water wells between the old stone buildings. The administration and library are in one large main building in the center of the island. Statues of great men, who attended Shelby line the courtyard in the front and the bell tower rising high over the island. Besides the main building, there's a campus cathedral, buildings for each of the colleges and housing for professors and students. Besides the main campus, there is only a small port village and the Shelby-trent Prep-school on the island. Overall there's only room for about 4500 students on the main campus, which adds to Shelby's exclusive admission policies.

While housing is available on Shelby, many of the faculty and students are rich enough to have homes in Central City as well as on campus and there is often a good deal of traffic between Shelby and Central City.

Organization
Shelby is governed by a ruling council of twelve deans overseen by the Chancellor and Vise Chancellor, each college and academy is represented on the Council and council members are elected by the peers, which includes all the University professors, deans and agents. The council makes all the important decisions from allotting fund to appointing professors to organizing degree programs. The council has also proved to have some political influence within Central City, mainly because many of the council members are also nobles and politicians outside the University.

Peers are an important part of Shelby. Besides the ruling chancellors, deans and professors working within the Univerity, Shelby peers include agents, who serve various purposes outside the University. They often work as ambassadors to nations, advising and teaching, while at the same time trying to gain endowments in exchange for the wisdom they provide. Agents can also serve as combat wizards and have authority to enforce laws concerning magic in many counties. Most agents have to have to have earned a doctorate at Shelby, but some students who have achieved a masters and are currently working on their doctorate will work as agents as well. Most agents are magically gifted and trained even if their doctorate is in something else and this role agents have as advisors and wizard protectors has given Shelby a lot of international influence. The reputation of magical power and wisdom is often represented by the Shelby agents.

Like many other Universities, Shelby offers two levels of academia, not including the prep-school. Undergraduate "Masters" degrees usually take four years to achieve, while graduate "Doctorate" degree take six years. To graduate as a wizard, lawyer, or medical doctor student must achieve both a Masters and a Doctorate. Professors and deans don't necessarily have to have a Doctorate to become a Shelby peer, but the counsel seldom appoints anyone who doesn't.

While magic is a part of every program at Shelby, only the college of Wizardry and some of the medicine degrees rely heavily upon it. Nonetheless, wizardry is the most poplar college and there are several overlapping programs, making it possible for students to be a wizard lawyer, or wizard historian ect.

Admission
Like Central City, Shelby was supposed to be a place of equality and fairness, so there are no official rules against the admittance of any sentiment race. Than being said, there's a difference between official rules and what actually happens. Humans dominate most the council and the majority of accepted students are human and white humans at that. There are some minority races, but most of them are humanoid and also white.

When it comes to gender, there's not even an official pretenses of political correctness. Females students are only accepted to the Women's Academy of Shelby, which is a small campus on Central City. It receives minimal funding and doesn't offer as many degrees as the rest of the University colleges.

When reviewing applications, Shelby University scrutinizes a student's previous academic records and tests them for magically ability. Shelby has very high standards and a prestigious reputation to keep up. They'll eagerly search out students with highly remarkable abilities in either magic or academics and at the same time turn down many students, who just don't reach the bar. The easiest way to get in, would be to attend the University prep schools. Graduating from Shelby-Trent or Saraivo doesn't guarantee admittance, but it helps a lot and most students who graduate in the upper 50% of their class will be accepted, without difficulty.

Finally, it's all about money. Shelby is very careful to only allow rich nobles into the University. The tuition is very high, making it difficult for anyone not rolling in wealth to get in. Family checks are done to prove a student's nobility. However, in recent years, much more emphasize has been placed on being rich rather than being noble. Rich families often give generous donations and often have political/financial power, which they can use in the University's favor. The currant council seems to have decided future grants and donations were better than having poor student's who's family name goes back thirty generations. Scholarships have been offered to students with impressive gifts in magic or academics, but even with scholarships, Shelby will never be available to the poorer classes.

Law
The College of Law, is in the Sir Robert Fairwyn Building, one of the older and most decorative buildings on campus. It specializes in government, leadership, political history, judgment, ethics, and how to know and manipulate law and gain political power. Though a Shelby law degree is very prestigious, the law school requires very little magic, which makes it popular with students, who may not much natural aptitude for magic. Before the discovery of white-mercury, it was the largest college, but in that last hundred years it's diminished, as more students are able to excel in magic. Also the creation of the College of Business has drain its ranks as well.

Business
The business school is the newest college on campus and the Halloway Building is rather small and squeezed in behind the Fairwyn Building close to the edge of the island. The college is very modern and successful, teaching the latest developments and theories of economics, investment, financing and exploitation. It's growing rapidly, but those students who aren't part of it often hold the business students in distain. Usually full of the sons of mechanist, who have recently gotten incredibly rich, or by contrast the sons of poor noblemen who have realized they if they don't become incredibly rich they will loose their place in society. There's a lot of negative stigma and stereotypes surrounding the business school and there is an especially big enmity between law students ("True" and "righteous" nobles, with their heads up their fancy asses) and business students (money scrounging upstarts). There's been no end of trouble, especially since the two school often have a lot of overlap.

Arts
The Art School is probably the smallest college even though it's fairly old. It's building is the Shairdyn building, next to the cathedral and the actetecture is quite beautiful and a little more gothic than the other college buildings. Being a central university founded by many nations, Shelby doesn't really have a strong cultural identity, and most true artists are come from national schools, deeply rooted in the identity of it's own country. Nonetheless, the blending and meeting of cultures has had it's advantages. Often artiest will come and study for a short while before returning to their home counties, full of revolutionary ideas. Shelby has built up a large and eclectic collection of art and music, from all around the world and their programs offer more of a wide pallet full of inspiration and verity, rather than a serious and in depth concentration on any one style. Overall, the art school is more of an fancy embellishment of wealth and culture, rather than a serious college, like law or wizardry.

Liberal Arts
The school of liberal arts is one oldest and most developed schooled. When Shelby was founded there was wizardry and then there was everything else, which was mostly liberal arts. Philosophy, history, language, literature, religion it's all an important part of having a noble and rounded education. The Lord Jeramy Leto building is large and stands across from the Fairwyn building near the center of campus. Magic is often involved, though more as a field of study than practice. Liberal arts focuses more on understanding magic, it source and it's history, than about using it. It's generally a place of thinkers, rather than doers and as such hasn't earned as much prestige as the colleges of wizardry and law.

Science
Housed in the Fawklyn Biulding in the back of the campus, the science college goes about its business without concerning itself with the rest of campus society. the Science college often thinks of itself as the unsung hero. This is where the real work and advancement is done. They may not have the glory of the wizardry school or the prestige of the law school, but this is where the true core of knowledge lies.

There are many natural forces in the world and magic is just one of them. Though the advancement and application of magic is what Shelby is best know for, the rest of science hasn't been left behind and in many ways Shelby's method of wizardry is just a branch of science. There is a tremendous amount of overlap between the two colleges as well as a deep dose of competition and enemy. Wizards often say that that the scientists are like them, but without talent or style. Scientist will say wizards are like scientists only without brains, despite the fact that their heads are the size of blimps.

There have been several revolutionary and famous scientistic discoveries and theories to come from Shelby, including Johan Frederson's new and controversial Spherical World theory. The University's prestige, and affluence gives the scientists more clout. They may not be any better or smarter than other academies or universities, but people are more likely to notice, read and accredit a paper from Shelby, which give Shelby researchers a huge advantage in the field. The University also dumps a lot of funding on the science college. Magic may be their forte, but there's a lot more competition in the science field and they don't want to loose their reputation for being the best. Thanks to the large amount of funding, the science college is able to so extraordinary amounts of research all a around the world and have several field bases in other places.

Wizardry
Shelby's college of Wizardry is probably the most famous wizarding school in Icarus. It was build upon the theories on theories of several already advanced nations when it was founded and has developed a method and theory of magic which is unique, scientific and powerful. It's combined several perceived forces of magic, and discovered an underlying core and source, which allows Shelby wizards to manipulate all sorts of magical forces, like they are one. Energy, elements, thoughts, even life and soul itself. The knowledge and potential are huge and with the relatively recant discover of white mercury, Shelby magic has become accessible to many more people, making it more important and dangerous than ever before.

It is probably because of this that Shelby is very careful about who they admit on the the college of wizard and how they use and distribute their power. Or it could be that the monopoly they have means they can get kings graveling at their feet with endowments, just so that their countries can get a piece of their magic. Shelby was founded with the purpose of being a guardian and protector, charged to develop magic with righteous intention so as to counter the evil and corrupt forces. Ethics and honor is still an important part of Shelby and there are long standing rules of conduct, dictating where the lines are and which one should never be crossed.

However, lately other universities and academies have been getting access to white mercury and copying the Shelby method well enough holding their own. Coxland, one of the main contributors in Shelby's founding, has always been only a step or two behind. Other less neighborly countries, are also on their heels and less scruples have given others an advantage. This, along with new discoveries, increase in capitalism and changing ideas about morality has started to blur the lines, which have been sacred for so long. Some of the latest research the counsel has been approving are in fields previous generations would have been horrified to even consider.

The main college is housed in the Merlyn Building, a big grand building across from the library and administration building. Except for maybe medicine, It is the hardest school to get admitted to and it's a difficult and competitive program. However a Shelby degree in wizardry almost guarantees a successful a sought after career. Most governments, companies, schools and industries would love to have a Shelby wizard on staff. Even if they aren't very good, it sounds impressive to have a wizard on your advisory staff.

Medicine
This is the hardest degree to get. Not only is the medical degree programs long and hard, but the only way anyone can succeed is if they have a tremendous amount of the right kind of magical talent and a very high IQ to go with it. The peek of medical achievement is the perfect balance of magic and science and the perfect medic is also the perfect scientist and the perfect wizard. Biology, chemistry and magic combine and with a lot of concentration, patience, intelligence and strength of will, a good medic can perform miracles. Though there has never been reports of people coming back from the dead, people have been saved from mortal injures, and serious illness.

The school is small and the percent of students who make it all the way through is even smaller. But medics are to wizards what wizards are to normal people. Sometimes you just take a step back and wonder if it's real. The Aravon building is small simple and out of the way, but there's no doubt that the faculty and students attending it are respected.

Women's Academy
Shelby's Academy for Wemen in Central City rather than on Shelby island. It's not as large or well funded and has much more limited degree programs. However several women have graduated from the academy and proved themselves very capable as wizards, scientist and even medical doctors.

Central City Law & Business Academy
CCL&B Academy is a branch academy in Central City, where many law an business students go while they was working on their doctorates. Often these students will be interning or serving full time in the City government and businesses. The students are allying themselves to the real world and it's often seen as the final show down in the competition between the Law and Business students.

Highfield Academy
Highfield is a small island a few miles directly above Central City. Shelby built the academy as a secure research center for magic and science. Several professors working on the front edge of their fields do their research there and graduate students often spend a few semester there as interns and lab assistants. Only people authorized by Shelby can land on he island and projects are usually kept secret.

Shelby Military Academy
Most students spend a summer semester learning combat at the Military academy, which is another small island a few miles away from Shelby Island. However, it's main purpose is for training Shelby agents after the graduate.

Prep Schools
One of the best ways to get into the University, is to graduate from the Shelby prep school. The Shelby-Trent School for Boys has it's campus on Shelby Island. Saraivo School for Girls if in Central City. Both schools are boarding schools and students are accepted at ages 12 or 13.