Lancaster University

Lancaster University

Motto Latin: Patet omnibus veritas
Motto in English
 "Truth lies open to all"
Established 1964
Type Public
Endowment £5.95 million (2010/11)[1]
Chancellor Alan Milburn
Vice-Chancellor Mark Smith[2]
Visitor Her Majesty The Queen
Academic staff
 1490[3]
Administrative staff
 3,025
Students 12,525[4]
Undergraduates 9,020[4]
Postgraduates 3,505[4]
Location Bailrigg, City of Lancaster, England
54°00′37″N 2°47′08″W / 54.01028°N 2.78556°WCoordinates: 54°00′37″N 2°47′08″W / 54.01028°N 2.78556°W
Campus Bailrigg
Accra, Ghana (overseas campus)
Colours

"Quaker Grey" and red

                   


                   


Affiliations N8 Group, ACU, AACSB, AMBA, NWUA, EQUIS, Universities UK
Website www.lancaster.ac.uk

Lancaster University, officially The University of Lancaster,[5] is a public research university in Lancaster, Lancashire, United Kingdom. The university was established by Royal Charter in 1964,[6] one of several new universities created in the 1960s. Three of the newly established institutions were founded as collegiate universities, namely Lancaster, the University of York and the University of Kent.

The university was initially based in St Leonard's Gate in the city centre, until moving to a purpose-built 300 acres (120 ha) campus at Bailrigg in 1968.[6] The campus buildings are arranged around a central walkway known as "The Spine", which is connected to a central plaza, named "Alexandra Square" in honour of its first chancellor, Princess Alexandra.

Along with the universities of Durham, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle, Sheffield and York, Lancaster is a member of the N8 Group of research universities. In 2014, Lancaster University celebrated its 50th anniversary with a series of events throughout the year, involving alumni, staff, students and local community members.[7]

History

After the Second World War higher education became an important concern of government as it tried to cope with the demands of an expanding population and the advent of a new technological age. Between 1958 and 1961 seven new plate glass universities were announced including Lancaster.

The university was established by Royal Charter in 1964. The charter stipulated that HRH Princess Alexandra of Kent be the first Chancellor. She was inaugurated in 1964. The ceremony also saw the granting of various honorary degrees to dignitaries including Prime Minister Harold Wilson. Princess Alexandra retired as Chancellor in 2004 and was the longest serving chancellor of any British university. On her departure, she gave approval for a Chancellor's Medal to be awarded for academic merit to the highest-performing undergraduates and postgraduates. Each year presentations are made to up to five graduates of taught masters' courses, and up to six to the highest-performing undergraduates.

The university accepted its first students in October 1964 and there were initially 13 professors, 32 additional members of teaching and research staff, 8 library staff and 14 administrators on academic grades. The motto, "patet omnibus veritas", (Truth lies open to all), was adopted. The first science students were admitted in 1965.

The university was temporarily based in the city. A lecture theatre and the university's first Junior Common Room were based in Centenary Church, a former congregational church beside the old factory premises of Waring & Gillow, which were used to accommodate the new students. Many new students were housed in Morecambe. The Grand Theatre was leased as a main lecture room and 112 and 114 in the St Leonard's Gate area became teaching and recreational rooms. The library occupied the old workshops of Shrigley and Hunt on Castle Hill.

Campus

Bailrigg

Alexandra Square with Bowland Tower (2009)

The purpose-built campus occupies Bailrigg, a 360-acre (0.563 sq mi; 1.457 km2) site[8] donated by Lancaster City Council in 1963.[9] The campus buildings are located on a hilltop, the lower slopes of which are landscaped parkland which includes "Lake Carter" duck pond and the university playing fields. Lake Carter is named after Charles Carter, the first Vice Chancellor of the university, and it was built in the early 1900s.[6] The site is three miles (5 km) south of the city centre. The campus buildings are arranged around a central walkway known as "The Spine".[10] The walkway runs from north (County College) to south-west (Graduate College) and is covered for most of its length. The main architect was Gabriel Epstein of Shepeard and Epstein.,[9] on a barren hilltop on a windswept day in 1963 the two architectural partners surveyed the future site of the university, Peter Shepeard recalled that day:

"We went up there on a windy day, and it was freezing cold. Every time we opened a plan it blew away. And we said Christ! What are we going to do with these students, where are they going to sit in the sun and all that? Well, we decided, it's got to be cloisters. All of the buildings have got to touch at the ground. We then devised this system and it had an absolutely firm principle: it had a great spine down the middle where everybody walked. That led everywhere. The cars were on the outside, on both sides. When you came into the spaces things were square, they were rectangular courtyards and they were all slightly different. There were two or three essentials: one was that the covered way had to be continuous, the buildings had to be three or four storeys high and connecting to the next one. I thought it worked very well."[11]

In contrast to some of the other campus universities, Bailrigg was designed to integrate social, residential and teaching areas. Another major feature of the design was that there would not be a large central Students' Union building, but that the individual colleges would be the centre of social and recreational facilities.[12] Vehicular and pedestrian traffic is separated: this is achieved by restricting motor vehicles to a peripheral road with a linking underpass running east-west beneath Alexandra Square. The underpass accommodates the Bailrigg bus station and was refurbished in autumn 2010. Car parking is arranged in cul-de-sacs running off the peripheral road.

Charles Carter building

Construction of the Bailrigg campus began in November 1965, with the first building completed a year later. The first on-campus student residences opened in 1968.[9] Alexandra Square is the University's main plaza.

Named after the first chancellor, HRH Princess Alexandra, it is situated at the centre of the original campus and contains the library in the south-west corner, designed in 1964 by Tom Mellor and Partners, the first phase opening in September 1966, the second in July 1968 and the third in January 1971.[13] The library was extended in 1997 and in 1998 the Ruskin Library designed by Sir Richard MacCormac was opened. On the west side of the square is University House as well as various banks and shops. To the south-east of the square is the tallest building on campus: the fourteen-storey Bowland Tower, which contains accommodation and disguises the boiler room chimney.

One of the most distinctive of the Bailrigg buildings is the free-standing University Chaplaincy Centre. Opened on 2 May 1969, the architects were the Preston-based firm Cassidy & Ashton. The building has a trefoil plan with a central spire where the three circles meet. The university's former logo is based on the spire. A plan existed to have a twin campus with another eight colleges to the east of the M6 motorway at Hazelrigg. this would have been linked to Bailrigg by a flyover. The plan was abandoned in the 1970s during a period of financial difficulties.

South-west campus

The university began expansion onto the lower slopes of Bailrigg with the development of new buildings for Graduate College in 1998, which is now part of "South-West Campus". Development continued with the construction of "InfoLab 21" and "Alexandra Park" which now houses Lonsdale College, Cartmel College and the en-suite rooms of Pendle College.

The decision to expand onto what is now known as South-West campus was met with protests that it would drive up accommodation prices, both on and off campus. Other complaints were that the site was greenfield, with residents of nearby Galgate being worried about "the impact of the new buildings", flooding of the local area due to increased run-off from the site and increased traffic flow on the A6 and other local roads. The development of InfoLab 21 also met objections with the proposed building being described as a "Dalek factory".[14] Another concern related to the limited amount of new social space. The older accommodation sometimes consisted of approximately 15 students sharing communal bathrooms and kitchens. The communal kitchens were often a source of social interaction, while the new en-suite areas have fewer students per kitchen, and private bathrooms.

Services

The Bailrigg campus hosts a range of shops and services. Services on campus include Bailrigg post office, Barclays Bank, Santander Bank, UNI TRAVEL (a travel agent which sells rail and bus tickets), a health centre, a pharmacy and a dental practice. Shops on campus include a SPAR supermarket, LUSU Shop, LUSU Central (a small supermarket), a Subway, a charity shop (the proceeds of which go to Cancer Care and St. Johns Hospice), a WHSmith, a Greggs, a book shop and an ice cream parlour.

LUSU Living

Chancellors Wharf

Chancellors Wharf

Chancellors Wharf is the name of Lancaster University's off-campus accommodation for students. It consists of three buildings by the Lancaster canal on Aldcliffe Road. The location is near "The Water Witch" pub, B&Q, central bus routes, Lancaster Royal Infirmary and the city centre. It is open to members of all of the University's colleges. Residents remain members of their various colleges, with Chancellors Wharf itself being only a hall of residence.[15]

Cultural venues

Outside the Jack Hylton music rooms

At the north end of campus, the University’s Great Hall Complex comprises three venues open to both students and the public; the Peter Scott Gallery, the Nuffield Theatre and the Lancaster International Concert Series. In 2009, these three organisations were combined as one department by the University – initially termed ‘The Public Arts’ but later renamed ‘Live at LICA’ – with Matt Fenton at the head since their unification.[16]

The Ruskin Library

The Peter Scott Gallery is open to the public free of charge. The Gallery is located on the Bailrigg campus and houses the University's international art collection, which includes Japanese and Chinese art, antiquities, works by twentieth century British artists including works by artists from the St Ives School, Sir Terry Frost, Wilhelmina Barns-Graham, Barbara Hepworth and William Scott. Among other British artists whose work is represented are Norman Adams, Patrick Caulfield, Elizabeth Frink, Kenneth Martin and Winifred Nicholson. Within the last fifteen years works by Andy Goldsworthy, Peter Howson and Albert Irvin have been acquired. The university collection also includes prints by significant European artists such as Dürer, Miró, Ernst and Vasarely.

Lancaster International Concert Series is the main provider of classical music in north Lancashire and Cumbria. Concerts are held within the Great Hall. Between October and March each year the series offers a varied diet of music which includes: orchestral concerts, chamber music, events for young people, jazz, family concerts and world music. On the initiative of Professor Tony McEnery, Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, music as a subject for study at Lancaster was abandoned in 2013.

The Nuffield Theatre, a black-box theatre, is one of the largest and most adaptable professional studio theatres in Europe. It presents public performances in the fields of theatre, contemporary dance and live art from some of the best-known and respected companies from the UK and abroad. The focus of the work is new and experimental practice, a focus it shares with many of the teaching and research interest of Lancaster Institute for the Contemporary Arts (LICA). The Nuffield presents up to 30 visiting professional shows a year, plus public performances by students from Theatre Studies, and the University’s student theatre and dance societies and a range of local community organisations.

The Ruskin Library houses archive material related to the poet, author and artist John Ruskin. It is open to the public, although only a small part of the collection is on public display at once. The building was constructed in 1997 by architect Richard MacCormac. The Whitehouse Collection housed in the Ruskin Library is the largest holding of books, manuscripts, photographs, drawings and watercolours by and related to John Ruskin in the world.

Organisation and administration

The Council of Lancaster University is the governing body, consisting of mainly lay members along with representatives of staff and students. It is responsible for the proper management and financial solvency of the university, with major policy decisions and corporate strategy being subject to its approval. The Senate of Lancaster University is the principal academic authority. It oversees academic management and sets strategy and priorities, including the curriculum and maintenance of standards.

Colleges

Fylde Accommodation
Lonsdale College quadrangle (looking towards the back of Lonsdale House)

The university has nine colleges. Formerly, these were quasi-autonomous bodies providing for accommodation, welfare, social-life and student discipline, but are currently centrally controlled. All members of the university are members of a college, although in recent years academic staff have had decreasing involvement.[17] Most colleges have about eight or nine hundred members and all on-campus accommodation is linked to a college, with blocks or individual flats being linked to one college or another each year according to demand.[17] The colleges were governed by a syndicate, including a principal (originally a senior academic but nowadays more usually a middle-ranking administrator or IT professional), a Dean and assistant deans (responsible for student discipline), together with a Senior Advisor, heading a team of College Advisors. These were previously known as Senior Tutor and College Tutors, but the titles were changed in 2011 to Advisor to avoid possible confusion with "Academic Advisors" in students' academic departments. Collectively, the colleges are run by their individual SCR (Senior Common Room) and JCR (Junior Common Room), the latter being made up of student members of the college.

The university has eight undergraduate colleges,[17] seven of which are named after regions of the traditional county of Lancashire, and County College is named after Lancashire County Council, which financed its construction. There is a ninth college for graduates.

Name Foundation Named after
Bowland College1964Forest of Bowland
Cartmel College1968Cartmel peninsula
The County College1967Lancashire County Council
Furness College1966Furness region
Fylde College1968The Fylde peninsula
Graduate College1992Status as a postgraduate college
Grizedale College1975Grizedale Forest
Lonsdale College1964Lonsdale Hundred (River Lune and its valley)
Pendle College1974Pendle region

The college buildings accommodate a number of academic departments, but are primarily social and accommodation facilities, each with its own bar, which forms part of the university's Commercial Services and is open when profitable.

List of Chancellors

List of Vice-Chancellors

Visitor

The Visitor of the University of Lancaster is Her Majesty The Queen. The visitor is the final arbiter of any dispute within the university, except in those areas where legislation has removed this to the law courts or other ombudsmen. Student complaints and appeals were heard by the visitor until the Higher Education Act 2004 came into force.[19] All student complaints are now heard by the Office of the Independent Adjudicator for Higher Education.

Academic profile

The four faculties are:

Postgraduate Statistics Centre

Reputation and rankings

Rankings
ARWU[21]
(2014, national) 		30-33
ARWU[21]
(2014, world) 		301-400
QS[22]
(2014/15, national) 		25
QS[22]
(2014/15, world) 		156
THE[23]
(2014/15, national) 		18
THE[23]
(2014/15, world) 		137
Complete[24]
(2016, national)		 11
The Guardian[25]
(2015, national)		 10
Times/Sunday Times[26]
(2015, national)		 =12

At the time of writing (2014) Lancaster University has for some years been placed within the top 15 by UK newspaper league tables and in the top 200 worldwide by the main global rankings (see information box for current rankings). The average entry standard at Lancaster is around 439 UCAS points, with almost all courses requiring at least AAA or AAB at A-level as of 2013. This rise in entry standards has courted controversy amongst on campus unions, particularly UCU, who have cited it as the cause of a drop in applications for entry into the 2013-14 academic year.[27]

Joint programmes

Lancaster University has entered into a dual degree program with the COMSATS Institute of Information Technology (CIIT), Lahore. It simultaneously offers two degrees, from CIIT and Lancaster University. Students will be alumni of both Universities.This is the first programme between a UK and a Pakistani university.[28] [29]

Programmes abroad

In October 2013, Lancaster University announced the opening of a branch campus in Accra, Ghana, to serve the population of Ghana and all of Africa, providing a British university-level education locally to those students.[30] The campus will be operated in partnership with Trans National Education Ghana Limited, and will offer undergraduate and graduate programmes in management, business, international relations, computer science, law and psychology along with an MBA programme.[30]

Research

In 2012, Lancaster University announced a partnership with the UK's biggest arms company, (BAE Systems), and four other North-Western universities (Liverpool, Salford, UCLAN and Manchester) in order to work on the Gamma Programme which aims to develop "autonomous systems". According to the University of Liverpool when referring to the programme, "autonomous systems are technology based solutions that replace humans in tasks that are mundane, dangerous and dirty, or detailed and precise, across sectors, including aerospace, nuclear, automotive and petrochemicals".[31]

Student life

Lancaster University Student Union shop building, from the south with Bowland Tower behind.

Students' Union

Lancaster University Students' Union ("LUSU") is the representative body of students at the university. Unusually, there is no main union building – instead the union is organised through the eight college JCRs, each of which has its own social venues and meeting spaces. The union is, however, allocated an administration building by the university. SCAN (acronym for Student Comments And News) is the Students' Union newspaper and was established in 1967, making it the oldest student media on campus. LUSU owns a nightclub in Lancaster called The Sugarhouse, operates two shops on the campus, namely LUSU Shop and LUSU Central and also an off campus housing agency LUSU Living.

Sugar House Nightclub

LUSU also helps to support LUSU Involve, a volunteering unit allowing Lancaster University students to become involved with communities locally and internationally.

There are over 200 different societies operating within Lancaster University. Common areas include sports, hobbies, politics, academic, culture and religion. There are several fairs during the Freshers period in which various clubs and societies promote themselves. Bailrigg FM is the student radio station and Take 2 Cinema is on-campus cinema, based in Bowland College Lecture Theatre.

Sport

Every summer term the students take part in the Roses Tournament against the University of York. The venue of the event alternates annually between Lancaster and York. The competition takes its name from the 15th-century civil war, the War of the Roses, and is organised by the universities' respective student unions, LUSU and YUSU.

Other sporting activities are focused on inter-college competition. All colleges at Lancaster have teams who compete in football, netball and pub sports on a weekly basis. The colleges also compete for the Carter Shield (a large variety of sports, involving all nine colleges) and the George Wyatt Cup (involving all colleges competing in pool, darts and dominoes). In 2004, the Founder's Trophy was played for the first time between the university's two founding colleges, Bowland and Lonsdale. The university also has a representative club, Furness Rovers, in division 2 of the North Lancashire and District Football League.

Lancaster University Athletics Club (LUAC) was formed in May 2011. The start of the 2011/12 academic year saw the first athletes join the club and by the end of the year receive awards for LUSU 'Society of the Year 2012' and were winners of the Lancaster Athletics Cup 2012. In the 2012/13 academic year the club was given the opportunity to compete in BUCS and Roses along with other sporting societies at Lancaster University.[32]

Religious groups

The Chaplaincy Centre, with its iconic spire and three lobes

The Lancaster University Chaplaincy Centre is located at the north end of campus incorporating various religious groups such as Christian (Anglicans, Catholics, Orthodox, Quaker, Mormon), Jewish, Buddhist, Hindu,[33] as well as various religious societies such as the Bahá'í, the Chinese Christian Fellowship, the Postgrad and Mature Students Group and the Pagan society which hold regular events and meetings.[33] The Islamic Prayer Rooms are located across from the Chaplaincy Centre, in Ash House.

Notable people

Alumni

Business

Media

Arts

Politics and Law

Sport

Education

References

  1. ↑ "Report and accounts 2010/11" (PDF). Lancaster University. Retrieved 12 June 2012.
  2. ↑ Lancaster University. "Lancaster appoints Professor Mark Smith as new Vice-Chancellor". Retrieved 4 January 2012.
  3. ↑ Anon. "University of Lancaster Annual Report" (PDF). University of Lancaster. p. 45. Retrieved 3 January 2011.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 "Table 0a – All students by institution, mode of study, level of study, gender and domicile 2010/11" (MICROSOFT EXCEL SPREADSHEET). Higher Education Statistics Agency. Retrieved 19 July 2012.
  5. ↑ "Charter, Statutes and Ordinances of the University of Lancaster" (MICROSOFT WORD DOCUMENT). Retrieved 28 July 2009.
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 Origins and Growth - Lancaster University
  7. ↑ "Help us celebrate the University's 50th Anniversary Year in 2014!". Lancaster University.
  8. ↑ "Our Campus". Retrieved 14 November 2012.
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 page 115, Building the New Universities, Tony Birks 1972
  10. ↑ Emma Vickers and Emma Edwards (May 2002). "The Spine". History of Lancaster University. Lancaster University. Retrieved 14 June 2008.
  11. ↑ page 119, 'Peter Shepeard' edited by Annabel Downs, 2004, Landscape Desin Trust, I.S.B.N. 0-415-35110-3
  12. ↑ page 120, Building the New Universities, Tony Birks 1972
  13. ↑ The Library Building: University of Lancaster 1972
  14. ↑ Booth, Steve (27 September 2002). "Greenfield Development Planned From Lancaster to the University". Virtual Lancaster. Retrieved 14 June 2008.
  15. ↑ Chancellors Wharf
  16. ↑ , Matt Fenton's profile at LICA
  17. ↑ 17.0 17.1 17.2 Anon. "University of Lancaster – Colleges". University of Lancaster. Retrieved 27 February 2008.
  18. ↑ "The Rt Hon Alan Milburn will start as Lancaster University's Chancellor from 1 January 2015". Lancaster University. 30 April 2014. Retrieved 29 January 2015.
  19. ↑ Section 20 of the Higher Education Act 2004
  20. ↑ Faculty of Health & Medicine
  21. ↑ 21.0 21.1 "Academic Ranking of World Universities 2014". Shanghai Ranking Consultancy. Retrieved 15 August 2014.
  22. ↑ 22.0 22.1 "QS World University Rankings 2014/15". Quacquarelli Symonds. Retrieved 19 September 2014.
  23. ↑ 23.0 23.1 "Top European Universities 2014-15". Times Higher Education. Retrieved 2 October 2014.
  24. ↑ "University League Table 2016". The Complete University Guide. Retrieved 27 April 2015.
  25. ↑ "University league table 2015 - the complete list". The Guardian. 2 June 2014. Retrieved 5 June 2014.
  26. ↑ "The Times and Sunday Times University League Tables 2015". Times Newspapers. Retrieved 22 September 2014.
  27. ↑ http://www.lancaster.ac.uk/users/ucu/campaigns/EGM.htm
  28. ↑ Lancaster University Dual Degree Programme
  29. ↑ COMSATS Dual Degree Programme
  30. ↑ 30.0 30.1 "The first British University branch campus in Ghana will open its doors to students this month" (Press release). Lancaster University. 18 October 2013.
  31. ↑ University of Liverpool - School of Engineering
  32. ↑ Lancaster University Athletics Club
  33. ↑ 33.0 33.1 http://www.lancaster.ac.uk/depts/chap_cen The Lancaster University chaplaincy Center website

Bibliography

External links