University of Strathclyde

University of Strathclyde
Oilthigh Srath Chluaidh (Gaelic)
Motto	The Place of Useful Learning
Established	1796 Anderson's University ; 1964 granted University Status by Royal Charter The University of Strathclyde
Type	Public
Chancellor	Lord Hope of Craighead
Principal	Professor Jim McDonald
Convenor of the Court	Fraser Livingston
Admin. staff	3,200
Students	26,000[1]
Undergraduates	16,185[1]
Postgraduates	9,815[1]
Location	Glasgow, Scotland, UK
Campus	Urban
Affiliations	AACSB AMBA EQUIS ECIU
Website	http://www.strath.ac.uk/

The University of Strathclyde (Scottish Gaelic: Oilthigh Srath Chluaidh), Glasgow, Scotland, is Glasgow's second university by age, founded in 1796, and receiving its Royal Charter in 1964 as the UK's first technological university. It takes its name from the historic Kingdom of Strathclyde.

History

The university founded in 1796 through the will of Professor John Anderson, professor of Natural Philosophy at the University of Glasgow who left instructions and the majority of his estate to create a second university in Glasgow which would focus on "Useful Learning" – specialising in practical subjects - "for the good of mankind and the improvement of science, a place of useful learning". The University later named one of the two campuses after him.

In 1828, the institution was renamed Anderson's University, partially fulfilling Anderson's vision of two universities in the city of Glasgow. The name was changed in 1887, to reflect the fact that there was no legal authority for the use of the title of 'university'.^[2] As a result the Glasgow and West of Scotland Technical College was formed, becoming the Royal Technical College in 1912 , and the Royal College of Science and Technology in 1956 concentrating on science and engineering teaching and research. Undergraduate students could qualify for degrees of the University of Glasgow or the equivalent Associate of the Royal College of Science and Technology (ARCST).

Under Principal Samuel Curran, internationally respected nuclear physicist (and inventor of the scintillation counter), the Royal College gained University Status, receiving its Royal Charter to become The University of Strathclyde in 1964, merging with the Scottish College of Commerce at the same time. Contrary to popular belief, The University of Strathclyde was not created as a result of the Robbins Report - the decision to grant the Royal College university status had been made earlier in the 1960s^[3] but delayed as a result of Robbins Report. The University of Strathclyde was the UK's first technological university reflecting its history, teaching and research excellence in technological education. In 1993, the University incorporated Jordanhill College of Education.

The university has developed its reputation and grown from approximately 4,000 full-time students in 1964 to over 20,000 students in 2003, when it celebrated the 100th anniversary of the laying of the foundation stone of the original Royal College building. Today, the university is a major educational centre, the largest postgraduate provider in Scotland and one of the largest in the UK (HESA 2006)for post-graduate studies and research, with students from around 90 countries.

Organisation

Departments are organised into four faculties:

• Humanities & Social Sciences
• Engineering
• Science
• Strathclyde Business School

The university delivers teaching to over 25,000 full-time and part-time students: 15,000 undergraduates and 10,000 postgraduates^{[citation needed]}. Another 34,000 people take part in continuing education and professional development programmes. The university's main campus, John Anderson Campus, is located in the centre of Glasgow, near George Square, and it has an education campus in the suburb of Jordanhill, at the site of the previous Jordanhill Teacher Training College.

Campus development

Andrew Ure Halls of Residence

Currently, the University contains two campuses, John Anderson Campus and the Jordanhill campus. Each campus changed very little from its humble beginnings to the creation of the University of Strathclyde in 1964. The centrepiece building has long been the massive Royal College Building, begun in 1903, and building work took nine years to complete.

The 1960s and 1970s saw a huge programme of new academic buildings being built, and in line with contemporary fashion at the time with other university expansion programmes of the period many of these buildings were built in the distinctive (and controversial) Brutalist architectural style - the McCance (1964), Stenhouse (1974) and Architecture Buildings (1969) all being good examples of this. The 1980s concentrated on developing the student residences. Below is a synopsis of the campus history, along with the current occupiers of each building in brackets:

• 1912 Completion of Royal College Building
• 1958 James Weir Building (Mechanical, Design, Chemical and Manufacturing Engineering) - extended in 1960.
• 1959 Students' Union Building
• 1959 Opening of Marland House by the General Post Office. Would later become the Graham Hills Building.
• 1962 Thomas Graham Building (Chemistry)
• 1963 McCance Building (Houses central administration, History, Politics, Registry)
• 1965 Livingstone Tower (Mathematics, Statistics, Languages and Computer Sciences(CIS) )
• 1967 Colville Building (Civil Engineering, Metallurgy, Physics)
• 1969 Architecture Building
• 1971 John Anderson Building (Physics, Civil Engineering)
• 1972 Wolfson Centre (Bioengineering), Birkbeck Court residences
• 1973 Collins Building (Collins Gallery, Senate/Court suites)
• 1974 Stenhouse Building (Law)
• 1974 Construction of the Callanish sculpture and landscaped area (popularly known as "Steelhenge")
• 1975 University Centre (Refectory, Staff Club, Sports Centre)
• 1976 Todd Centre (Pharmacology)
• 1977 William Duncan Building (Strathclyde Business School)
• 1981 Curran Building created from former Collins warehouse (houses Andersonian Library)
• 1983 EAC Building (later Lord Hope Building)
• 1984 Lord Todd restaurant, acquisition of the Barony Hall
• 1987 Acquisition of Marland House from British Telecom, and is later renamed Graham Hills Building.
• 1990 Opening of James Blyth and Thomas Campbell student residences
• 1991 Opening of Chancellors' Hall student residences
• 1992 Graduate Business School building opens
• 1997 Opening of James Goold Hall of Residence
• 1998 John Arbuthnott Building (Strathclyde Institute of Pharmacy and Biomedical Sciences)
• 2001 Acquisition of the Rottenrow maternity hospital site
• 2002 Thomas Graham Building extension completed
• 2004 Rottenrow Gardens Opened
• 2010 Work completed on new Biomedical Sciences building on Cathedral Street

The University is embarking on a major campus renewal project, estimated to take 15 years and cost £300m. The key elements of this will be the sale of the Jordanhill site and the relocation of its departments to the John Anderson Campus. The McCance/Livingstone Tower/Collins complex of buildings will be demolished whilst the James Weir and Colville buildings will be extensively refurbished. A new sports centre building on Cathedral Street is also proposed to replace the one currently housing the sports union.

A new biomedical sciences building was opened in early 2010. It was designed by Shepparrd Robson, and is a purpose-built centre which aims to bring the multi-faceted disciplines of the Institute together under one roof. The building is central to the Institute’s aims of delivering speedier, more efficient drug discovery in a pioneering, world-class centre for research and development. Sited on Cathedral Street in Glasgow, the 8,000m2 building is the gateway to the University campus and city centre from the motorway.

Research Assessment Exercise 2008

The university dropped six places to number 50 in the UK league table published by the Times Higher Education Supplement (THES).^[4] although it did rank highly in a number of areas in the same newspaper article - 8th in the UK for Pharmacy, 12th for Business and management studies, 17th for Chemistry, 13th for Law, 21st for Electrical and Electronic Engineering and 12th for Allied health professions and studies. However the RAE 2008 led directly to cuts in the university's research funding in 2009.^[5]

UK rankings

	2012	2011	2010	2009	2008	2007	2006	2005	2004	2003	2002	2001	2000	1999	1998	1997	1996	1995	1994	1993
Times Good University Guide			37th=[6]	35th	44th	40th	32nd	37th	36th=	41st	39th=	43rd	43rd	45th	42nd	43rd	42nd=	33rd=	25th=	40th=
Guardian University Guide		25th	38th[7]	29th[7]	31st	-	45th	67th	89th	61st
Sunday Times University Guide	36th			39th[8]	43rd	43rd[9]	47th	48th	45th	48th	49th	49th	47th	38th	46th
The Complete University Guide		35th	40th[10]	31st[11]	41st[11]
The Daily Telegraph						41st=[12][13]					43rd
FT										37th		36th	38th	39th

Royal College Building

The Royal College Building, is the oldest building on the John Anderson Campus. Started in 1903 and completed in 1912, it was partially opened in 1910 and at the time was the largest educational building in Europe for technical education. Originally built as the Glasgow and West of Scotland Technical College Building, it now houses Bioscience, Chemistry, and Electronic and Electrical Engineering. The building is currently undergoing major internal renovation following the relocation of the Pharmacology and Bioscience departments to new accommodation in the John Arbuthnott (SIPBS) building, and the installation of a new heating system.

IET Power Academy

Strathclyde is the only Scottish university that offers the IET Power Academy engineering scholarships to its engineering students.^[14]

Notable academics and alumni

See also Category:People associated with the University of Strathclyde

Academics

• Colin R. McInnes Professor of Space Systems Engineering
• Alastair McIntosh - Visiting Professor of Human ecology in the Department of Geography and Sociology
• David Judge, Professor of Politics in the Department of Government.
• David Hillier, Professor in Accounting and Finance Department.
• Richard Rose - Professor of Politics and Director, Centre for the Study of Public Policy, 1966–2005
• Richard Susskind - Law Professor
• Kim Swales - Economics
• Robert Van Der Meer - Management Professor
• Dr Duncan Graham - Professor of chemistry and Deputy Director of WestChem

Alumni

• Elish Angiolini, Lord Advocate
• John Logie Baird, inventor of television
• Lord Bracadale, Senator of the College of Justice, Lord Commissioner of Justiciary
• Ed Byrne, comedian
• Annabel Goldie, Leader of the Conservative Party in the Scottish Parliament.
• Alex Gray, author
• Frank Hadden, former coach of the Scotland national rugby union team
• Hugh Hendry, Founder and manager of hedge fund Eclectica Asset Management
• Tom Hunter, billionaire entrepreneur
• Sanjay Jha, Co-CEO, Motorola, Inc., Chief Executive Officer, Motorola Mobile Devices^[15]
• Amar Latif, entrepreneur, world traveller and TV personality (Alumnus Of The Year 2006)
• Helen Liddell, minister in Blair government and former British High Commissioner to Australia
• David Livingstone, explorer and missionary
• Antoin MacGabhann, Irish architect
• Mouzhan Majidi, architect and CEO of Foster and Partners
• Gail McGrane weather meteorologist for BBC Scotland
• Ann McKechin, Member of Parliament
• Jim Murphy, Labour Member of Parliament and former Secretary of State for Scotland.
• Iain Neil, Executive Vice President of Panavision
• Sandra Osborne, Member of Parliament
• Lord Peebles, Senator of the College of Justice, Lord Commissioner of Justiciary^[16]
• Patrick Prosser, Computer scientist
• Ainun Nishat, academician
• Shaf Rasul, millionaire businessman
• Chris Sawyer, computer game developer
• Brian Souter, co-founder of the Stagecoach Group
• Iain Stewart, Geologist and TV Presenter
• Omar Abdullah, Politician in India (Chief Minister of J & K state)
• Chris Pendergast, Gaelic footballer
• Alan Gatherer, CTO High Performance Multicore Processing, Texas Instruments.
• Alex Kapranos, lead singer of Franz Ferdinand (Alumnus Of The Year 2005)
• Brian Woolfson, radio presenter for Real Radio (Scotland)
• Dougie Donnelly, BBC Sports presenter

See also

• Careers Scotland Space School
• University of Strathclyde Students' Association
• Social Networking and UK Libraries

References

1. ^ ^{a b c} "Table 0a - All students by institution, mode of study, level of study, gender and domicile 2006/07". Higher Education Statistics Agency online statistics. http://www.hesa.ac.uk/index.php?option=com_datatables&Itemid=121&task=show_category&catdex=3#institution. Retrieved 2009-01-25. 
2. ^ http://phys.strath.ac.uk/information/history/photos.php
3. ^ http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/69524
4. ^ http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/Journals/THE/THE/18_December_2008/attachments/RAE_2008_THE_RESULTS.pdf
5. ^ http://www.ucu.org.uk/index.cfm?articleid=3805
6. ^ Times University Guide 2010
7. ^ ^{a b} The Guardian University Guide 2009
8. ^ Sunday Times University Guide 2010
9. ^ "University ranking based on performance over 10 years" (PDF). London: Times Online. 2007. http://extras.timesonline.co.uk/pdfs/univ07ten.pdf. Retrieved 2008-04-28. 
10. ^ The Independent University League Table 2010
11. ^ ^{a b} "The Independent University League Table". The Independent (London). 2008-04-24. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/higher/the-main-league-table-2009-813839.html. Retrieved 2010-05-27. 
12. ^ "University league table". The Daily Telegraph (London). 2007-07-30. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=HXFCSGXMNVABTQFIQMFCFGGAVCBQYIV0?xml=/news/2007/07/30/ncambs430.xml. Retrieved 2007-10-29. 
13. ^ Daily Telegraph University League Table
14. ^ http://www.theiet.org/about/scholarships-awards/power-academy/qualify.cfm
15. ^ "Motorola Biography - Sanjay Jha". http://www.motorola.com/content.jsp?globalObjectId=9087. 
16. ^ http://www.journalonline.co.uk/News/1005871.aspx

External links

• University of Strathclyde website
• David Livingstone Center for Sustainability website
• James Goold Halls of Residence
• Livingstone Tower
• Glasgow Digital Library at the University of Strathclyde
• Strathclyde Students' Union website
• EDWARD VII LAYS FOUNDATION STONE (1903) (archive film of King Edward VII laying the foundation stone for the Glasgow and West of Scotland Technical College (University of Strathclyde) - from the National Library of Scotland: SCOTTISH SCREEN ARCHIVE)