Life at Strixhaven - Strixhaven: A Curriculum of Chaos

Life at Strixhaven. Strixhaven University sparkles with the enthusiasm of its students and faculty, as they study, debate about, and experiment with magic in its varied forms. This chapter offers an overview of life and studies on the university's campus, as well as a look at each of the five colleges where students explore different modes of magical study. During a duel in the Hall of Oracles, a student transforms her opponent into a goat, who is held back by a friend Magical Study The fundamental work of Strixhaven University is the application of magic to academic study. Students and faculty aren't limited to magical topics alone; they pursue studies in every facet of existence-magical or otherwise-applying magic to whatever they study. At Strixhaven, historians call the spirits of the dead to aid their lessons about the past, and arcano-biologists use necromancy to pull at life and coax out death when teaching about the natural world. Simultaneously, mage-artists sculpt elemental energy to create animate art, and arcane symbologists teach students how to recognize and understand the magical glyphs they encounter. Principles and Polarities The colleges and curriculum at Strixhaven are organized around the idea of philosophical principles joined in concordant opposition. Each school embraces the paradoxical unity of two polar principles: life and death, order and chaos, reason and emotion, and so on. The five Founder Dragons are thought to embody the coexistence of these principles, while the ten deans of the colleges stand for the individual principles distinguished from their opposites. A student's course of learning at Strixhaven involves exploring the tension between these opposing principles, which typically involves late-night arguments in residence halls and study rooms. The university's teaching philosophy is built on the idea that exploring opposites leads to an understanding of a greater whole. Most people believe that only a being with the wisdom (an...