Birkbeck, University of London

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Birkbeck, University of London
College Crest
Motto In nocte consilium
"Study by night"
Established 1823
President Eric Hobsbawm
Master Professor David S Latchman
Students 14905 [1]
Undergraduates 11170 [1]
Postgraduates 3730 [1]
Location London, United Kingdom
Affiliations 1994 Group
Website http://www.bbk.ac.uk

Birkbeck, University of London, sometimes referred to by its former name Birkbeck College or by the abbreviation BBK, is a College of the University of London. At the undergraduate level, it aims at working people who want to study for degrees in the evenings (adult education). At the post-graduate level, it offers many Masters degree programmes that can be studied either part-time or full-time, though nearly all teaching is in the evening, whilst it also admits full-time (as well as part-time) students for PhDs. Its staff members have strong research reputations. It also offers many continuing education courses leading to extra mural certificates and diplomas, as well as other short courses.

Contents

[edit] Location

Birkbeck's main building is on Malet Street in Bloomsbury, with a number of other buildings on nearby streets. Virginia Woolf fans will also be interested to know that Birkbeck's School of History of Art, Film and Visual Media is housed in Woolf's former Gordon Square residence in Bloomsbury.

Many Birkbeck classes are taught at other locations across London, including many other universities. This is due to a combination of Birkbeck's widening participation strategy to make higher education accessible and also because nearly classes on one day are taught at the same time, resulting in heavy competition for limited space.

In 2006 it was announced that Birkbeck will be expanding into East London, in conjunction with the University of East London. Initially space will be rented as well as utilising the University of East London Stratford Campus, but the long-term aim is to construct a dedicated facility in Stratford. The project will be known as Birkbeck Stratford. [2]

[edit] History

In 1823, George Birkbeck, an early pioneer of adult education, founded the then "London Mechanics Institute" at a meeting at the Crown and Anchor Tavern on the Strand. Over two thousand people attended. [3] However the idea was not universally popular and some accused Birkbeck of "scattering the seeds of evil." [4]

Two years later the institute would move to the Southampton Buildings on Chancery Lane. In 1830, the first female students were admitted. In 1858 changes to the University of London's structure resulting in an opening up of access to the examinations for its degree. The Institute became the main provider of part-time university education.[3]

The Institute changed its name to the "Birkbeck Literary and Scientific Institution" in 1866 and in 1885 it moved to the Breams Building, on Fetter Lane, where it would remain for the next sixty-seven years.[3]

The early twentieth century saw further developments, with Birkbeck Students' Union being established in 1904, and in 1907 the institute's name changed once more, to "Birkbeck College". In 1913 a review of the University of London (which had been restructured in 1900) successfully recommended that Birkbeck become a constituent college, although the outbreak of the First World War delayed this until 1920. The Royal Charter for the college was granted in 1926.[3] The college's first female professor, Dame Helen Gwynne-Vaughan began teaching botany in 1921.[4]

During the Second World War, Birkbeck was the only central University of London college to not relocate out of the capital. In 1941 the library suffered a direct hit during The Blitz but teaching continued. In 1952, the College moved to its present location in Malet Street.[3]

In 1988 the Department of Extra-Mural Studies of the University of London was incorporated into Birkbeck, becoming at first the Centre for Extra-Mural Studies. In later years it would go by the name of the Faculty of Continuing Education, then the School of Continuing Education.[3]

In 2002, it dropped the word College to become simply Birkbeck, University of London. However, the term Birkbeck College is still often colloquially used, and survives on the façade of the main building itself. The following year a major redevelopment of the Malet Street building was opened.[3]

It was announced in 2006 that Birkbeck had been granted £5 million by the Higher Education Funding Council for England to expand its provision into East London, working with the University of East London. [2] The partnership was formally launched on November 21, 2006 and will be called Birkbeck Stratford. [5]

[edit] The School of Continuing Education

The current School of Continuing Education, which specialises in extra mural studies did not become an integral part of Birkbeck until 1988 but has a long separate history.

In 1876 the London Society for the Extension of University Education was founded, boosting the aims of encouraging woking people to undertake higher education. In 1903 it became the Department of Extra-Mural Studies of the University of London and it was integrated into Birkbeck in 1988. Initially known as the Centre for Extra-Mural Studies, it was also been called the Faculty of Continuing Education before adopting its current name in 2005.[6]

[edit] Research and Teaching

The façade of the main building of Birkbeck, University of London (formerly Birkbeck College).
Enlarge
The façade of the main building of Birkbeck, University of London (formerly Birkbeck College).

While part-time undergraduate teaching remains the focus and mandate of Birkbeck, the college has recently grown into a powerhouse for progressive research in the arts and humanities.

The Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities [7] was established in 2004, with the renowned but controversial Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizek appointed as International Director. According to its website, the Institute aims to, among other things, "engage with important public issues of our time through a series of open debates, lectures, seminars and conferences" and "foster and promote a climate of interdisciplinary research and collaboration among academics and researchers". The launch of the Institute wasn't without controversy, provoking an article in The Observer newspaper titled "What have intellectuals ever done for the world?" [8] which criticised the ostensible irrelevance and elitism of contemporary public intellectuals.

Meanwhile, the London Consortium graduate school -- a collaboration between Birkbeck, the Tate Galleries, the Institute of Contemporary Arts, the Architectural Association, and, until 1999, the British Film Institute -- has been running since the mid-1990s, offering masters and doctoral degrees in the interdisciplinary humanities and cultural studies, resourced and jointly taught by all the participating institutions.(Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities). Its permanent and adjunct faculty include figures such as Philip Dodd, Colin MacCabe, Laura Mulvey, Steven Connor, Marina Warner, Juliet Mitchell, Stuart Hall, Roger Scruton, Salman Rushdie, as well as Zizek. Its current chair is Anthony Julius.

[edit] Statistics & Ratings

[edit] Birkbeck

Birkbeck is often not included in British Newspaper University league tables, since these are usually based on the statistics for full-time undergraduates (of which Birkbeck had just five in 2004-2005[1]), but Birkbeck was ranked 13th in The Guardian's 2001 Research Assessment Exercise league table and 26th by the Times Higher Education Supplement's equivalent 2001 RAE league table. Birkbeck has also appeared in the Shanghai Jiao Tong University's Top 500 World Universities ranking in 2004, placed in the 404-502nd rank (the tables rank Universities in equal blocks of about 100 after the first 100 individually ranked Universities). However, Birkbeck did not appear in the 2003 or 2005 Shanghai Jiao Tong University listings.

[edit] Departmental

The Guardian's 2001 RAE subject ranking league tables put Birkbeck in the top 10 for research in the following subjects: English (1st), History (1st), History of Art (2nd), Philosophy (6th), Iberian and Latin American Languages (1st), Earth Sciences (4th), Law (9th), Economics and Econometrics (5th), and Politics and International Studies (5th).

Birkbeck's School of English and Humanities was rated 5* in the 2001 Research Assessment Exercise, as were the School of History, Classics and Archaeology, and the section for Spanish and Latin American studies within the School of Languages, Linguistics and Culture -- ranking these departments with, and in some cases above, Oxford and Cambridge.

[edit] Organisation

The university is divided into four faculties, the Faculty of Arts, the Faculty of Social Sciences, the Faculty of Science and the Faculty of Continuing Education, which are sub-divided into 20 schools. The current President of the college is the historian Eric Hobsbawm.

[edit] Student life

As Birkbeck is primarily for part-time courses, often in the evenings, student life is less centralised than in other universities. It does not offer its own halls of residence, for instance, though Birkbeck students do have access to the University of London's intercollegiate halls.

Birkbeck Students' Union offers a number of societies for students, as well as a football club that competes in the University of London league. It also provides student representation and support, a student magazine, a student shop and a bar. Birkbeck students also have access to the societies and clubs of the University of London Union.

The college arms include a lamp and an owl, symbolising the college's motto In nocte consilium ("study by night"). Because of this, the student magazine is called Lamp and Owl.

The college has entered teams in University Challenge over the years with very varied results. In 1997 a team scored just 40 points - at that stage the lowest score since the series had been revived, though this has since been broken by New Hall, Cambridge, the University of Bradford and the University Challenge: The Professionals team of Members of Parliament. [9] 1998 saw a reversal of fortunes when Birkbeck reached the final, losing to Magdalen College, Oxford. In 2003 Birkbeck again reached the final, facing another team of mature students from Cranfield University. On this occasion Birkbeck won.

[edit] Notable Birkbeck people

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b c d Table 0a - All students by institution, mode of study, level of study, gender and domicile 2004/05. Higher Education Statistics Agency online statistics. Retrieved on 2006-11-18.
  2. ^ a b Birkbeck projects win £8.7m HEFCE funding for innovative higher education provision in London. Birkbeck, University of London. Retrieved on 2006-11-26.
  3. ^ a b c d e f g The History of Birkbeck. Birkbeck, University of London. Retrieved on 2006-11-26.
  4. ^ a b (2002) Birkbeck, University of London Continuing Education Courses 2002 Entry. Birkbeck External Relations Department, 5.
  5. ^ Birkbeck/UEL Partnership at Stratford launched. Birkbeck, University of London. Retrieved on 2006-11-26.
  6. ^ (2004) Birkbeck, University of London Continuing Education Courses 2004 Entry. Birkbeck External Relations Department, 4.
  7. ^ Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities. Retrieved on 2006-11-26.
  8. ^ What have intellectuals ever done for the world?. The Observer November 28, 2004. Retrieved on 2006-11-18.
  9. ^ New Hall, Cambridge in 1998 and University of Bradford in 2004 both scored 35 points. In the special series University Challenge: The Professionals the Members of Parliament achieved 25 points - the lowest score in the modern era. The score of 40 has also been achieved by Oxford Brookes University (1998), the University of St Andrews (2002 & 2005), Keele University (2002) and Queen's University Belfast (2005). Statistics for the original incarnation of the series are not known, though the lowest score achieved was by the University of Sussex in 1972 with a score of 10. University Challenge - Lowest Scores. Sean Blanchflower's University Challenge Page. Retrieved on 2006-11-18..

[edit] External links


Recognised bodies of the University of London

Birkbeck | Courtauld Institute of Art | Central School of Speech and Drama | Goldsmiths | Heythrop | Imperial | Institute of Cancer Research | Institute of Education | King's | London Business School | LSE | London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine | Queen Mary | Royal Academy of Music | Royal Holloway | Royal Veterinary College | St George's | SOAS | School of Pharmacy | UCL
Listed bodies

University of London Institute in Paris | School of Advanced Study | University Marine Biological Station, Millport
The 1994 Group (of smaller British research universities)
Bath | Birkbeck | Durham | East Anglia | Essex | Exeter | Goldsmiths College | Lancaster | Leicester | Loughborough | Queen Mary | Reading | Royal Holloway |
School of Oriental and African Studies | St Andrews | Surrey | Sussex | Warwick* | York
* Also a member of the Russell Group
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