University of Sheffield

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University of Sheffield

Motto: Latin: Rerum cognoscere causas ("to discover the causes of things")
Established: 1905(1897 as University College of Sheffield)
Type: Public
Endowment: £31.5 million[1]
Chancellor: Sir Peter Middleton
Vice-Chancellor: Prof. Keith Burnett
Staff: 1,306
Students: 25,700[2]
Undergraduates: 18,480[2]
Postgraduates: 7,225[2]
Location: Sheffield, South Yorkshire, UK
Campus: Urban
Colours: Azure
Affiliations: Russell Group
WUN
EUA
ACU
N8
White Rose
Yorkshire Universities
Website: http://www.shef.ac.uk/
Logo of the University of Sheffield

The University of Sheffield is a research university, located in Sheffield in South Yorkshire, England.

Contents

[edit] History

[edit] Origins

The University of Sheffield was originally formed by the merger of three colleges. The Sheffield School of Medicine was founded in 1828, followed in 1879 by the opening of Firth College by Mark Firth, a steel manufacturer, to teach arts and science subjects. Firth College then helped to fund the opening of the Sheffield Technical School in 1884 to teach applied science, the only major faculty the existing colleges did not cover. The three institutions merged in 1897 to form the University College of Sheffield.[3] Sheffield is one of the six original Red Brick Universities.

[edit] Victoria University

It was originally envisaged that the University College would join Manchester, Liverpool and Leeds as the fourth member of the federal Victoria University.

[edit] Royal Charter

However, the Victoria University began to split-up before this could happen and so the University College of Sheffield received its own Royal Charter in 1905 and became the University of Sheffield.

From 200 full-time students in 1905, the University grew slowly until the 1950s and 1960s when it began to expand rapidly. Many new buildings (including the famous Arts Tower) were built and student numbers increased to their present levels of over 20,000.

In 1995, the University took over the Sheffield and North Trent College of Nursing and Midwifery, which greatly increased the size of the medical faculty. In 2005, the South Yorkshire Strategic Health Authority announced that it would split the training between Sheffield and Sheffield Hallam University - however, the University decided to pull out of providing preregistration nursing and midwifery training due to "costs and operational difficulties".[4]

Over the years, the University has been home to a number of notable writers and scholars, including the literary critic William Empson, who was head of the Department of English; author Angela Carter; five Nobel Prize winners; and Bernard Crick.

[edit] Histories

There are two official histories of the university:

  • Arthur W. Chapman (1955) The Story of a Modern University: A History of the University of Sheffield, Oxford University Press.
  • Helen Mathers (2005) Steel City Scholars: The Centenary History of the University of Sheffield, London: James & James.

[edit] Organisation

Sir Frederick Mappin Building, Faculty of Engineering.
Sir Frederick Mappin Building, Faculty of Engineering.
Bartolomé House, home of the School of Law from January 2008.
Bartolomé House, home of the School of Law from January 2008.

Like most British universities, the University of Sheffield is headed by a Vice-Chancellor. Professor Keith Burnett, CBE, is the current Vice-Chancellor, and he took over from Prof. Bob Boucher, CBE on 1 October 2007. There is also a titular Chancellor, Sir Peter Middleton. Professor Burnett was Head of the Division of Mathematical, Physical and Life Sciences at the University of Oxford and, before that, the Chairman of Physics.

The University is in the process of changing its structure, from the existing seven faculties[5] into five new faculties:[6]

[edit] Reputation

Sheffield was the Sunday Times University of the Year in 2001 and has consistently appeared as one of their top-30 institutions. Just three universities nationally have more than Sheffield's 30 top-rated subjects for teaching excellence and only five have a greater number than the 35 subject areas at Sheffield deemed to have conducted world-class research in the most recent ratings.[7]

The University of Sheffield is rated 8th in the UK, 18th in Europe and 69th in the world in an annual academic ranking of the top 500 universities worldwide published in August 2005. Shanghai Jiao Tong University evaluated the universities using several research performance indicators, including the number of highly cited researchers, academic performance, articles in the periodicals Science and Nature, and the number of Nobel prize-winners. A separate ranking, published in the US by Newsweek magazine, and released in August 2006, ranked Sheffield 9th in the UK, 18th in Europe and 70th in the world in a list of the Global Top 100 Universities. The University is rated 12th in the UK, 22nd in Europe and 68th in the world in the Times Higher Education Supplement's November 2007 ranking of the top 200 universities in the world.

[edit] Branding

The brand (encompassing the visual identity) is centred on the theme of "discovery", led by the Latin motto from the coat of arms "Rerum Cognoscere Causas" – "to discover the causes of things" (the same motto is used by the London School of Economics).

The identity has been applied across print, screen and other areas such as signage, vehicle livery and merchandising. The project was key to the University's Marketing Department receiving "HEIST Marketing Team of the Year, 2005".[8]

[edit] Location

The Arts Tower. During the year, windows of south facing façade have been occasionally blanked out to form massive advertisements for charity campaigns.
The Arts Tower. During the year, windows of south facing façade have been occasionally blanked out to form massive advertisements for charity campaigns.

[edit] Main campus

The University of Sheffield is not a campus university, though most of its buildings are close together. The centre of the University's presence lies one mile to the west of Sheffield city centre, where there is a mile-long collection of buildings belonging almost entirely to the University. This area includes the students' union, the Octagon Centre, Firth Court, the Geography and Planning building, the Alfred Denny Building (housing natural sciences and including a small museum), the Dainton and Richard Roberts Buildings (chemistry) and the Hicks Building (mathematics and physics). The Grade II*-listed library and Arts Tower are also located there. The Arts Tower houses one of Europe's few surviving examples of a Paternoster lift. A concourse under the main road (the A57) allows students to easily move between these buildings. The Information Commons is the newest building, added in 2007. The Information Commons is a new library, coffee shop and cafe, with a digital and computer infrastructure, lounge areas and flexible learning space.

[edit] St George's

To the east lies St George's Campus, named after St George's Church (now a lecture theatre and postgraduate residence). The campus is centred on Mappin Street, home to a number of University buildings, including the Faculty of Engineering (partly housed in the Grade II-listed Mappin Building) and the University of Sheffield School of Management and Department of Computer Science. The University also maintains the Turner Museum of Glass in this area. The University has recently acquired the listed old Victorian Jessop Hospital for Women buildings and HSE Building. Both buildings are currently being refurbished to house the Departments of Modern Languages, History and English, thus fully joining the West and St. George's campuses. The Law School will move from the Crookesmoor Building to Bartolomé House in early 2008.

[edit] West of the main campus

Further west lies Weston Park, the Weston Park Museum, the Harold Cantor Gallery, sports facilities in the Crookesmoor area and medicine, in the Royal Hallamshire Hospital (although taught in the city's extensive teaching hospitals under the Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, and throughout South Yorkshire and North East Lincolnshire).

[edit] Student accommodation

Further west still lie the University halls of residence. These comprise Tapton Hall of Residence, and the Endcliffe Student Village (comprising of several new blocks of apartments, the established Halifax and Stephenson Hall of Residence, newly created Howden, Frogget, Yarncliffe and Derwent, as well as University owned private houses). The music department, in Broomhill, is also based in this area.

[edit] Manvers campus

The Manvers campus, at Wath-on-Dearne between Rotherham and Barnsley, is where the majority of nursing is taught.

[edit] Research and teaching quality

The University of Sheffield has been described by The Times as one of the powerhouses of British higher education.[7] The University is a member of the Russell Group, the European University Association, the Worldwide Universities Network and the White Rose University Consortium. It is a major contributor to research, being the sixth most highly rated research university in the UK (As of 2001).[citation needed]

In the latest round of Teaching Quality Assessments (TQA 1993-2001) Sheffield ranked third in the UK for the highest number of "Excellent" rated subject areas. Nearly 75% of all teaching subjects achieved a 24/24 (Excellent) score.

Firth Court Quad
Firth Court Quad

The University of Sheffield is rated 8th in the UK, 18th in Europe and 69th in the world in an annual academic ranking of the top 500 universities worldwide published in August 2005.[citation needed] Researchers at China's Shanghai Jiao Tong University evaluated the universities using several research performance indicators, including the number of highly cited researchers, academic performance, articles in the periodicals Science and Nature, and the number of Nobel prizewinners. A separate ranking, published in the US by Newsweek magazine, and released in August 2006, ranked Sheffield 9th in the UK, 18th in Europe and 70th in the world in a list of the Global Top 100 Universities.

The University has won Queen's Anniversary Awards in 1998, 2000, 2002 and 2007. It was also named the Sunday Times University of the Year in 2001.

In the 2007 National Student Survey, five of the University of Sheffield's departments reached the top of the table for overall student satisfaction among the UK universities. "Dentistry, Electronic and Electrical Engineering, Philosophy, East Asian Studies and courses in Modern Languages and Modern Languages with Interpreting returned the highest satisfaction scores in the UK".[9]

Major research partners and clients include Boeing, Rolls Royce, Unilever, Boots, AstraZeneca, GSK, ICI, and Slazenger, as well as UK and overseas government agencies and charitable foundations.

For many years the University has been engaged in theological publishing through Sheffield Academic Press and JSOT Press.

The University of Sheffield is also a partner organisation in Higher Futures, a collaborative association of institutions set up under the government's Lifelong Learning Networks initiative, to co-ordinate vocational and work-based education.[10]

[edit] Students and academics

The University of Sheffield's 25,000 students arrive mostly from the UK, but include more than 3,700 international students from 120 different countries. The University employs nearly 6,000 people, including almost 1,400 academic staff.

[edit] Students' Union, sports and traditions

The University of Sheffield Union of Students was founded in 1956. It has two bars (Bar One – which has a book-able function room with its own bar, The Raynor Lounge – and The Interval); three club venues (Fusion, Foundry and Octagon); two off-campus public houses (The Fox and Duck in Broomhill and The University Arms on Western Bank, and previously, The Rising Sun[11]); and coffee shops, restaurants, shops, a supermarket, the cinema Film Unit, a fully functioning and student run theatre company (suTCo), a student radio station called Sure Radio, its own newspaper, The Steel Press, and about two hundred student societies, many sports teams and a turnover of around £8,000,000.[citation needed]

The Union is also home to a variety of advice and support services and manages the successful USports sports facilities.

Left to right: the Hicks Building, students' union/University House (conjoined), walkway to the Octagon Centre and the Education Building (in background).
Left to right: the Hicks Building, students' union/University House (conjoined), walkway to the Octagon Centre and the Education Building (in background).

In addition to the student union-supported sports teams, Sheffield University Bankers Hockey Club play field hockey in the national first division. The annual "Varsity Challenge" takes place between teams from the University and its rival Sheffield Hallam University in over 30 events.

As part of rag week, University of Sheffield students used to take part in the Pyjama Jump pub crawl, cross-dressed only in nightwear in mid-winter: the men often dressed in nighties or in drag featuring mini-skirts and fishnet tights, and the women in pyjamas.[12] This event was banned in 1997 following the hospitalisation of several students.[13] The role-playing society run a 24-hour role-playing event on RAG weekend. Another rag week tradition is the Spiderwalk, a fifty mile trek through the city and the Peak District, the first half through the night. Sheffield's students are also very active when it comes to volunteering for good causes. The Union's "SheffieldVolunteering" scheme is one of the countries most active and well-recognised student volunteering schemes that has won various national acclaim over the years.

[edit] Varsity sports

The University has 26 varsity sports (sports contested in varsity). The University sports colours are black and gold.

Male

  • Badminton
  • Basketball
  • Canoe Polo
  • American Football
  • Football
  • Hockey
  • Indoor Cricket
  • Lacrosse
  • Rugby League
  • Rugby Union
  • Volley Ball
  • Waterpolo
  • Snowboarding
  • Skiing
  • Ice Hockey

Female

  • Badminton
  • Basketball
  • Canoe Polo
  • Football
  • Hockey
  • Indoor Cricket
  • Lacrosse
  • Netballl
  • Rugby Union
  • Volley Ball
  • Waterpolo
  • Snowboarding
  • Skiing

Mixed

  • Athletics
  • Climbing
  • Golf
  • Korfball
  • Lacrosse
  • Rowing
  • Sailing
  • Squash
  • Swimming
  • Tennis
  • Trampoline
  • Snowboarding
  • Skiing

[edit] Nobel Prizes

The University's Faculty of Pure Science may boast an association with five Nobel Prizes, two for the Department of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology:

And three to its Department of Chemistry:

[edit] Notable alumni

See also Category:Alumni of the University of Sheffield.

[edit] Academia

[edit] Business

[edit] Law

[edit] Literature

[edit] Media

[edit] Pioneers

[edit] Politics

[edit] Public service

[edit] Religion

[edit] Science

[edit] Sport

[edit] Notable academics

[edit] See also

[edit] References

[edit] External links