Academic staff 1,490 Phone +44 1524 65201 Vice-chancellor Mark E. Smith | Established 1964 Total enrollment 13,336 (2015) | |
 | ||
Motto Latin: Patet omnibus veritas Motto in English "Truth lies open to all" Endowment £5.47 million (2013/14) Undergraduate tuition and fees Domestic tuition: 9,000 GBP (2015), International tuition: 17,470 GBP (2015) Notable alumni Similar University of Leeds, University of Manchester, University of Sheffield, University of York, Durham University Profiles | ||
Lancaster university virtual tour
Lancaster University, also officially known as the University of Lancaster, is a public research university in Lancaster, Lancashire, England. The university was established by Royal Charter in 1964, one of several new universities created in the 1960s.
Contents
- Lancaster university virtual tour
- History
- Bailrigg
- South west campus
- Health innovation centre
- Services
- Chancellors Wharf
- Cultural venues
- Organisation and administration
- Colleges
- List of chancellors
- List of vice chancellors
- Visitor
- Academic profile
- Admissions
- Reputation and rankings
- Joint programmes
- Programmes abroad
- Research
- International Foundation Year
- Students Union
- Sport
- Religious groups
- Business
- Media
- Arts
- Politics and law
- Education
- References
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. 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.
Lancaster is one of only six collegiate universities in the UK; the colleges are weakly autonomous. The eight undergraduate colleges are named after places of interest in the North West of England, and have their own campus residence blocks, common rooms, administration staff and bar.
It is currently one of only seven universities to be ranked in the top 10 across all national league tables of UK universities. Along with the universities of Durham, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle, Sheffield and York, Lancaster is a member of the N8 Group of research universities. Elizabeth II, Duke of Lancaster, is the Visitor of the University. The Chancellor is Alan Milburn.
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 choice of Lancaster as the site of the fourth new university was announced on 23 November 1961 in a written answer in the House of Commons.
The university was established by royal charter in 1964. The charter stipulated that 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 the 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 the 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.
In 2014, Lancaster University celebrated its 50th anniversary with a series of events throughout the year, involving alumni, staff, students and local community members.
Bailrigg
The purpose-built campus occupies Bailrigg, a 360-acre (0.563 sq mi; 1.457 km2) site donated by Lancaster City Council in 1963. 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. 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". 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. 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."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. 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.
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. 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. The library was extended in 1997 and underwent a phased refurbishment in 2014, which was completed in 2016. 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". 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.
Cartmel College is built around Barker House Farm, a listed 17th Century farmhouse and outbuildings that form the centre of the college.
Health innovation centre
The university is planning a "Health Innovation Campus" adjacent to the existing campus. Construction of the £41 million is due to begin by the end of 2017 and will be completed by September 2019. The campus will create 2,000 jobs and boost the local economy by around £100 million.
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 Central (a convenience store), a Subway, a charity shop (the proceeds of which go to St. Johns Hospice), a WHSmith, a hairdressers, Greggs, Costa, Blackwells, Go Burrito, Wok In, Juicafe, Sultan of Lancaster, Wongs, Wok In and an ice cream parlour open in the summer months.
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.
Cultural venues
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 overseeing this unification. In August 2015 Live at LICA was rebranded to 'Lancaster Arts at Lancaster University' to avoid confusion with the department of LICA, then director Jamie Eastman stated that; "This new name and logo communicates who we are, where we are and what we’re offering."
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. Under the leadership of Professor Tony McEnery, Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, music as a subject for study at Lancaster was abandoned in 2009.
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
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. 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. 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, 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.
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 Queen Elizabeth II. 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. All student complaints are now heard by the Office of the Independent Adjudicator for Higher Education.
Academic profile
The four faculties are:
Admissions
In terms of average UCAS points of entrants, Lancaster ranked joint 25th in Britain in 2014. According to the 2017 Times and Sunday Times Good University Guide, approximately 10% of Lancaster's undergraduates come from independent schools.
Reputation and rankings
In The Sunday Times 10-year (1998–2007) average ranking of British universities based on consistent league table performance, Lancaster was ranked joint 19th overall in the UK. As of recent years, the university has been placed within the top 10 by UK newspaper league tables and in the top 150 worldwide by the main global rankings (see information box for current rankings). It was also ranked the top university in the north-west of England for all nine years of recordings by The Complete University Guide. The average entry standard at Lancaster is around 423 UCAS points, with almost all courses requiring at least AAA or AAB at A-level as of 2016.
In 2014, its 50th year, Lancaster University was ranked 10th in the THE 100 Under 50, a list of the world's best universities under 50 years old. It also appeared in the lists of QS 50 under 50 in all the years before 2014 when it was under 50 years old.
Joint programmes
Lancaster University partnered with Sunway University, Malaysia to offer dual awards undergraduate program since 2006.
Lancaster University also 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.
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. The campus is operated in partnership with Trans National Education Ghana Limited, and offers undergraduate and graduate programmes in management, business, international relations, computer science, law and psychology along with an MBA programme.
Lancaster opened the Joint Institute for Environmental Research and Education (JIE) in Guangzhou, China in 2016, in partnership with the South China Agricultural University (SCAU). A joint Environmental Science undergraduate degree begins in September 2016 with students spending two years at each institution.
The Chinese Ministry of Education gave permission in April 2016 for Lancaster to establish Lancaster University College - Beijing Jiaotong University in Weihai, Shandong province.
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".
International Foundation Year
The International Foundation Year is a programme of academic subjects, study skills and English language preparation which is specifically designed to provide international students with a pathway to degree study at Lancaster University. Students in this programme receive regular assessments; this includes exams each term, coursework assessment, presentations and extended essays.
When students first join the International Study Centre, students will be required to select one undergraduate degree choice from one of the six programme routes available:
Once the student complete the programme and achieve the required grades (usually 70% overall), then the student can enter the first year of their chosen undergraduate degree at the Lancaster University.
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.
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.
Religious groups
The Lancaster University Chaplaincy Centre is located at the north end of campus incorporating various religious groups such as Christian (Anglicans, Catholics, Orthodox, Quakers), Jewish, Buddhist, Hindu, 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. The Islamic Prayer Rooms are located across from the Chaplaincy Centre, in Ash House.