| The University of Buckingham | |
|---|---|
| Motto | Alis Volans Propriis (Latin) |
| Motto in English | Flying On Our Own Wings |
| Established | 1983 - gained University Status by Royal Charter 1976 - University College[1] |
| Type | Private |
| Chancellor | Lord Tanlaw |
| Vice-Chancellor | Dr Terence Kealey |
| Admin. staff | 89[1] |
| Students | 1308[1] |
| Undergraduates | 856[1] |
| Postgraduates | 452[1] |
| Location | Buckingham, England |
| Website | http://www.buckingham.ac.uk |
The University of Buckingham (UB) is an independent, non-sectarian, research and teaching university located in Buckingham, Buckinghamshire, England, on the banks of the River Great Ouse. It was originally founded as Buckingham University College in the 1970s and received its Royal Charter from the Queen in 1983. The University's funding regime is not like that of other UK universities, but rather is on the model of many US universities, as it does not receive state funding via HEFCE.[2] It has formal charity status, as a non-profit making institution dedicated to the ends of research and education. Buckingham offers bachelor's degrees, master's degrees, and doctoral degrees through five 'Schools' (or faculties) of study. It is ranked 21st out of the 116 universities in the UK in The Times Good University Guide 2012 (see the section on League Tables below).
The Schools of Law and Science are situated in the upper campus; the river-side campus covers Humanities, Business, Social Sciences, Biomedical science, and Education. As the University is expanding, it has acquired a new site on the west side of the river, hence increasing the capacity of the river-side campus as a whole. Teaching on some master's degrees takes place in London, in Grosvenor Place, at the home of one its partner institutions: the European School of Economics. Prominent academics include: philosopher Roger Scruton, philosopher and educationalist Anthony O'Hear, educationalist Alan Smithers, the former Chief Inspector of Schools Chris Woodhead, the cancer specialist Karol Sikora, the historian and political scientist Geoffrey Alderman, and the expert in UK Intelligence Anthony Glees.
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Some of the founding academics migrated from the University of Oxford,[3] disillusioned or wary of aspects of the late-1960s ethos. On 27 May 1967, The Times published a letter from Dr J. W. Paulley, which said: "Is it now time to examine the possibility of creating at least one university in this country on the pattern of [the] great private foundations in the USA".[4] Three London conferences followed which explored this idea.[5]
Subsequently the university was incorporated as the University College of Buckingham in 1976, and received its Royal Charter from the Queen in 1983.
Its development was influenced by the libertarian Institute of Economic Affairs, in particular, Harry Ferns and Ralph Harris, heads of the Institute. In keeping with its adherence to a libertarian philosophy, the university's foundation-stone was laid by Margaret Thatcher, who was also to be the university's Chancellor (nominal and ceremonial head) between 1993 and 1998. The University's first three Vice-Chancellors were Lord Beloff (1913–1999), former Gladstone Professor of Politics at the University of Oxford; Sir Alan Peacock, the economist, founder of the Economics department at the University of York, and Fellow of the British Academy; and Sir Richard Luce, now Lord Luce, the former Minister for the Arts.
The University's four schools are Law, Humanities, Business, and Science and Medicine. Each of these is presided over by a Dean.
One feature of the University that has attracted notice is its continuation of the tradition of "tutorial" teaching (i.e. very small group teaching)[6] which its founders brought over from the University of Oxford. While there are seminars and lectures, much of the teaching is done in small groups of 4 to 8 students, with one member of staff. The staff-student ratio is 1:7.8, which is high among UK universities.[7] The Times Good University Guide (2009) notes that "one-to-one tutorials, which have almost died out elsewhere, with the exception of Oxbridge...are quite common at Buckingham".[5]
The quality of the University's provision is maintained, as at other UK universities, by an external examiner system (i.e., professors from other universities oversee and report on exams and marking), by an academic advisory council (comprising a range of subject-specialist academics from other universities), and by membership of the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (QAA).
The Department of Education has two aspects, research and vocational: it conducts research into education and school provision (see above), and also maintains various PGCE courses, for teacher training. The Department of Education is home to some of the most prominent educationalists in Britain, including Professor Chris Woodhead (former head of Ofsted), Professor Anthony O'Hear (director of the Royal Institute of Philosophy), and Professor Alan Smithers. Its postgraduate certificate in education – which deals with both the state and the independent sector – is accredited with Qualified Teacher Status which means that it also qualifies graduates to teach in the state sector.
The University was created as a liberal arts college, and the major humanities subjects such as history and politics are offered with economics as a degree in international studies. Economics, however, is available as a stand-alone degree. So too is English literature, as a single honours subject, and in combinations with English Language, or Journalism, and related areas. The Professor of Economics, and Dean of Humanities, Professor Martin Ricketts, is the chair of the Institute of Economic Affairs Academic Advisory Council.
Some degree programmes at Buckingham, Law for example, place greater emphasis on exams as an assessment method rather than coursework, but in general its degree programmes balance assessment between exams and coursework.[8]
The cancer specialist Karol Sikora is Dean of the School of Medicine. The School offers postgraduate MD programmes for qualified doctors in a range of specialisations, but is not approved by the General Medical Council as it does not yet offer an undergraduate medical qualification (Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery).[9]
The School had an association with the alternative medicine community via a Diploma course in integrated medicine. This was later withdrawn under pressure from David Colquhoun,[10] a campaigner against pseudomedicine. Sikora is a Foundation Fellow of Prince Charles' now-defunct alternative medicine lobby group the Foundation for Integrated Health[11] and Chair of the Faculty of Integrated Medicine, which is unaffiliated with any university but also includes Drs Rosy Daniel and Mark Atkinson, who co-ordinated Buckingham's "integrated medicine" course.[10] Daniel has been criticised by David Colquhoun for breaches of the Cancer Act 1939, regarding claims she made for Carctol, a herbal remedy with no utility in treating cancer.[10] Prof. Andrew Miles is on the scientific council of the College of Medicine[12] an alternative medicine lobby group linked to the Prince of Wales.[13] Sikora is also a "professional member" of this organisation.[14]
Sikora is very critical of cancer care available on the National Health Service. During President Obama's campaign for healthcare reform, he appeared in a Republican Party attack ad in the United States criticising the NHS.[15] The ad led Imperial College to seek legal advice to stop Sikora from claiming to be a professor of cancer medicine at Imperial; a claim that he had made repeatedly over the previous five years.[16]
Professor of Theoretical Medicine at the school is Bruce Charlton, controversial editor of the journal Medical hypotheses, who has recently been dismissed as editor by publisher Elsevier[17][18] over the publication of a paper by AIDS denialists claiming that HIV is not responsible for AIDS[19] and concerns over the lack of peer-review at the journal.[20][21]
The university offers traditional degrees over a shorter time-frame. Students at Buckingham study for eight terms over two years, rather than nine terms over three, which (with extra teaching) fits a three-year degree into two years. From September 2009, tuition fees for full-time UK and EU undergraduate students will be £8,040 per year for these two-year Bachelor's degree programmes. For non-EU students, fees will be equivalent to £13,500 p.a. Because Buckingham's degrees take only two years to complete, the university views its courses as cost-effective compared to ordinary UK university courses, once living expenses and the income from an extra year's employment are taken into account.
Dr Terence Kealey, published an article on 4 June in the Daily Telegraph newspaper[22] arguing that getting better-funded and more effective universities means charging higher fees.
The University is ranked 21st out of the 115 universities in the UK in The Times Good University Guide 2012.[23]
In 2011 it was ranked 28th in Times Higher Education's "Table of Tables" 2011.[24] In 2011, The Independent, in association with its Complete University Guide 2011-12, ranked Buckingham as the 42nd best university out of 116 institutions in the UK.[25] The Sunday Times University guide for 2012 included Buckingham in its league tables in 56th position out of 122 UK higher education institutes[26].
Times Higher Education reported that the University's 2008 graduates had the highest employment rate after six months.[27]
In recent years the University has consistently ranked highly in student satisfaction surveys. For example, Times Higher Education reported that Buckingham was ranked first in 2006,[28] 2007[29] and 2008[30] in the NSS or National Student Survey of student satisfaction. This is a census, albeit controversial, of final-year undergraduates conducted by IposMori, the polling organisation, to determine satisfaction levels at UK universities.[31] The survey relates to the whole student experience, from the experience of classes, and lecturer feedback, to the quality of pastoral care. In 2009, the University of Buckingham dropped to second place and in 2010 returned to first place.[32][33]
The most recent league tables of individual university departments in The Guardian University Guide 2012, produced by The Guardian newspaper, ranked the Business department as 15th (out of 116) in the country, English as 7th (out of 106), Economics as 8th (out of 69) and Law as 27th (out of 95). It is not represented in any other field and insufficient data was submitted to rank Buckingham's Psychology department.[34]
Buckingham University does not rank in the top 400 universities globally as rated by Times Higher Education[35], nor does it appear in the top 700 universities ranked globally by Quacquarelli Symonds[36], nor does it rank in the top 500 universities rated by the Academic Ranking of World Universities.[37] However, it is ranked at 6,974 out of 12,000 universities in the Webometrics Ranking of World Universities.[38]
The University's Royal Charter, unlike those of other universities, provides for three sovereign bodies, the third one (in addition to the usual Council and Senate) being the Academic Advisory Council, which is a group of external academics that audits the academic staff.
When the national Quality Assurance Agency (QAA) was created, the University felt it should join, even though - as Britain’s only independent University – it is markedly different from the state-funded universities that the QAA otherwise audits.
The University has emerged as a critic of the QAA. Professor Geoffrey Alderman, in his inaugural lecture at the University of Buckingham Teaching Quality Assessment, League Tables and the Decline of Academic Standards in British Higher Education[39] demonstrated that degree inflation had taken off in the 10 years of the QAA’s existence. This lecture provoked a wide national debate [40] which encouraged the House of Commons Select Committee to review quality and related issues.[41]
The University got "broad confidence" (the highest band) in its first QAA audit in 2003.[42]
Honorary graduates include: the Rt Hon Frank Field, the Labour MP; Sir Steven Redgrave, the Olympic oarsman; Baroness Noakes, the Conservative politician (opponent of Identity cards); Sir Stuart Hampson, former head of the John Lewis Partnership; Sir Christopher Ondaatje, the publisher, writer, and philanthropist; and the journalist Charles Moore; Baronness Helena Kennedy, the distinguished barrister; and Nigel Lawson, Lord Lawson of Blaby, former Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Prominent alumni include: Bader Ben Hirsi, Brandon Lewis, Olagunsoye Oyinlola, Mark Lancaster, the MP for Milton Keynes North, Chris de Lapuente (Global President & CEO of Sephora, part of the LVMH Group) and Graham Roos who, since 2011, has been appointed the University's first Creative Artist in Residence.
Prominent international alumni include Pravind Jugnauth MP in the Mauritius parliament, former Deputy Prime Minister, and the Leader of one of Mauritius's main parties, the Militant Socialist Movement; racing driver Marc Gené, winner of the Le Mans 24-Hour Race in 2009; Tun Mohammed Hanif bin Omar (Deputy Chairman of Genting Berhard, and Inspector-General of the Royal Malaysian Police for 20 years until January 1994).
Author V. M. Xavier presented special cultural performances at student functions in the 1980s.
The University awards undergraduate and graduate (Masters/MBA) degrees to students who have studied at the European School of Economics and at the Sarajevo School of Science and Technology.
The immediate past- Chancellor is Sir Martin Jacomb, Chairman of Canary Wharf Group PLC, and Share PLC (in Aylesbury), and the director of other companies including Oxford Playhouse Trust. He was Chairman of Prudential PLC from 1995 to 2000 and last year retired from the boards of Rio Tinto Group and Marks & Spencer. Former Chancellors of the university have been Margaret Thatcher who retired in 1999, and Lord Hailsham of St Marylebone.
Lord Tanlaw was appointed to succeed Sir Martin as Chancellor in May 2010.
The current Vice-Chancellor is Dr Terence Kealey, formerly of the Department of Clinical Biochemistry at Cambridge University, who has held the post since April 2001. Kealey is known for his research challenging the idea that education and science are public goods needing public subsidies. He wrote an academic book on the subject in 1996 The Economic Laws of Scientific Research which he repackaged and updated for a general audience in 2008 as Sex, Science and Profits.[43]
Kealey sparked a sexism row in September 2009. The Times Higher Education had commissioned, for its issue of 17 September 2009, seven articles of 500 words each on the seven deadly sins of academia. The seven sins were sartorial inelegance, procrastination, snobbery, lust, arrogance, complacency and pedantry, and the commissioning editor, Matthew Reisz, wrote that the contributors "entered into the spirit and offered amusing examples of their sins in action …". The illustrations in the magazine reflected the humour of the feature. Kealey wrote on lust, and he adopted a satirical tone, claiming that young female students were a "perk" for male academics and they should "look but not touch".[44] Over the next week the Times Higher Education website filled with comments about the article, many expressing shock but some expressing support. On 23 September the London Daily Telegraph ran a story about the article[45] and the backlash was swift from academics.[46] Kealey was criticised by the University and College Union and the National Union of Students who said his comments displayed an “astounding lack of respect for women”.[47] At the same time Kealey was defended by scholars such as Professor Mary Beard of Cambridge University who in her online blog for the Times newspaper wrote that it was instantly clear that the piece was satire.[48] Kealey wrote a defence of his piece in the Daily Telegraph[49] and he was also defended by the editor of the THE[50] but nonetheless he wrote a piece in the Times Education Supplement three weeks later in which he said that it is a mistake for a scholar to write ambiguously, which must generally preclude the use of satire, irony, humour or parody in academic writing.[51]
In February 2010, Kealey proposed the establishment of a new independent university, modelled on American liberal arts colleges, that would concentrate on undergraduate teaching rather than research.[52][53] The plan is currently being considered by the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference (HMC), whose 243 members include independent schools such as Eton, Winchester and St Paul's. Kealey believes that complaints about impersonal teaching and oversized classes at many traditional universities mean there will be strong demand for higher education with staff-student ratios similar to that provided by independent secondary schools.
The University of Buckingham Press publishes in the areas of law, education, and business through its journal articles, books, reports and other material. In 2006 the press relaunched The Denning Law Journal[54] and it is now available in print and its whole archive is online.[55] It also publishes three other journals: The Buckingham Journal of Language and Linguistics,[56] The Journal of Prediction Markets,[57] and The Journal of Gambling Business and Economics.[58] It has a co-publishing arrangement with The Policy Exchange[59] for its Foundations series.
The university has close links with colleges abroad including the Sarajevo School of Science and Technology, an independent university college in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Teaching takes place in Sarajevo. After completing a bachelor's degree, master's degree or PhD students receive a diploma from both universities.
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