University of East London

University of East London
Established	1992 – Gained University Status 1970 – North East London Polytechnic 1898 – West Ham Technical Institute
Type	Public
Chancellor	Lord Rix
Admin. staff	609 (Teaching Staff)
Students	26,315[1]
Undergraduates	19,520[1]
Postgraduates	6,795[1]
Location	London, England 51°30′28.69″N 0°3′49.93″E / 51.5079694°N 0.0638694°E / 51.5079694; 0.0638694Coordinates: 51°30′28.69″N 0°3′49.93″E / 51.5079694°N 0.0638694°E / 51.5079694; 0.0638694
Campus	Urban
Colours
Affiliations	Coalition of Modern Universities Association of Commonwealth Universities Universities UK
Website	http://www.uel.ac.uk/

The University of East London (UEL) is a university located in the London Borough of Newham, East London, England, based at two campuses in Stratford and Docklands areas. The university has more than 26,000 students from 110 countries worldwide.^[2]

History

West Ham Technical Institute (November 1898)

UEL can trace its roots back to 1892 when the newly formed Borough of West Ham decided to establish a technical institute to serve the local community. The institute was to be a “people’s university” in the words of John Passmore Edwards, speaking at the building’s opening ceremony. The college provided courses in science, engineering and art and also established its own internal degree courses in science and engineering, which were ratified by the University of London. In addition, it had a Women's Department.^[3]

As demand for technical education grew throughout the 1930s and 1940s, the county council created two further colleges at Walthamstow and Dagenham.^[4] In 1970, these three colleges^[4] (West Ham, Walthamstow, Dagenham) were combined as a merger of higher education colleges to create the North East London Polytechnic.^[5] Campuses were modernised and revitalised by buildings such as the Arthur Edwards building on the Stratford campus, completed in 1982.^[4]

In 1988, the North East London Polytechnic became a Higher Education Institution. It was renamed the Polytechnic of East London in 1989.^[5]

In 1992, the Polytechnic of East London became the University of East London. A "new university", the UEL's history of founding institutions exemplify the developments that took place in British further and higher education policy throughout the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries.^[6] The University of East London consisted of the Barking Campus (closed 2006)^[7] and the Stratford Campus. In 1999 the Docklands Campus was opened, the first new university campus built in London for over 50 years.^[8]

Campuses

Stratford Campus

University Square, Docklands Campus

The UEL Docklands Campus, The Square

The university is located on two campuses, at Stratford and Docklands. UEL also delivers a range of programmes and short courses at the Barking Learning Centre in a nearby borough.^[9] Off-campus, there are students registered on programmes with UK and non-UK academic partners.^[10]

Stratford Campus

The Stratford Campus is close to the 2012 Olympic Park. It is centred around University House, a 19th century listed building.^[11] The campus is home to the School of Distance and E-Learning, the Sir John Cass School of Education (which moved into its new centre in 2009), and the Schools of Health & Bioscience and Psychology. The Centre for Clinical Education in Podiatry, Physiotherapy and Sports Science was opened in January 2008. Operating in partnership with the National Health Service, the centre is London's only provider of podiatric education.^[12]

Duncan House is near to the campus. It is used by the university's human resource services and by the School of Law. It contains a library servicing the needs of those who attend the building.^[13] It is expected that in 2013 the School of Law will move from Duncan House to a new campus at the Stratford Island Centre. UEL's Institute of Performing Arts will move into the same building.^[14]

In 2011 UEL appointed architects to lead on the design of a new, replacement library at the Stratford Campus. The project has a budget of £13 million and a target opening date of 2015.^[14]

Docklands Campus

Further information: University of East London Docklands Campus

The University of East London Docklands Campus is the larger of the two campuses and is located in the redeveloped Docklands area of East London. The campus opened in 1999.

It is on the waterfront of the Royal Albert Dock, closed to commercial shipping since the 1980s and now largely used as a water sports centre and rowing course, for example for the London Regatta Centre.

London City Airport is across the dock from the campus. The Cyprus station of the Docklands Light Railway is adjacent to the campus, and offers links to Canary Wharf and central London.

The campus was short-listed for the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors' Building of the Year in 2001.^[15]

The centre for the Architecture and Visual Arts School was set up in 2004. Housing the architecture, fashion, textiles and graphic design departments, the AVA centre was the first major development on the Docklands campus after the student accommodation. Also based at the Docklands Campus are the Business School, the School of Computing, Information Technology and Engineering, and the School of Social Sciences, Media and Cultural Studies. The Business School and Knowledge Dock centre were opened on the site in February 2007.^[16][17] The Business School will^[18] incorporate the Petchey Centre for Entrepreneurship, named in honour of its benefactor, entrepreneur Jack Petchey.

New student accommodation opened in 2008 and the campus now has 1,200 student rooms, together with shops, cafés and a restaurant, launderettes and an open-air fitness suite. A sports centre is scheduled for construction with a planned opening in 2011. The campus library is housed in the Business School building.

UEL is an official pre-games training venue for the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic games. The Docklands Campus has been selected by the United States Olympic team as their base before and during the London 2012 Olympic Games.^[19]

A £21 million sports and leisure complex is scheduled to open at the Docklands Campus early in 2012, provisionally named the SportsDock.^[20]

Organisation and structure

UEL Student Housing Looking Towards Canary Wharf

Docklands Campus Student Accommodation

Degree programmes and other courses are taught at UEL by one of eight teaching Schools. In addition, there are three Schools that carry out administrative roles within the academic structure: the School of Combined Honours, the Graduate School and UELconnect, which manages Distance & E-learning and short courses:

Royal Docks Business School

This houses a range of business support, enterprise development services and conferencing facilities. The Knowledge Dock helps students start their own companies by supplying help and business start up incubators.^[21]

UELSports

This department has a range of facilities, some based on campus, and others at a range of professional and amateur sports clubs in East London and several local sports centres. UELSports teaches a range of undergraduate and postgraduate courses.

School of Law

Further information: University of East London School of Law

The University of East London School of Law is home to the Centre on Human Rights in Conflict.^[22] The School of Law teaches six undergraduate courses^[23] and ten postgraduate courses.^[24] The School is attended by over 1,000 students.^[25] The majority of the School's courses are taught at the University of East London's Duncan House, near to its Stratford Campus,^[25] however the Law School's Refugee Studies course is based at the University of East London's Docklands Campus.^[23]

The Centre on Human Rights in Conflict (CHRC) is a research centre based within the UEL School of Law^[26] which was founded in 2006 by Professor Chandra Lekha Sriram. The international nature of the research undertaken by the CHRC is evidenced by its collaborations with, for example, the universities of Lund and Uppsala, Sweden; the Regional Centre on Conflict Prevention, Jordan; and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.^[27] The researchers at the CHRC have been awarded grants from the European Union, the British Academy, the Leverhulme Trust, and UEL's Promising Researcher Scheme.^[28] Currently the centre's director is Prof. John Strawson.

School of Architecture and the Visual Arts

The School of Architecture and Visual Arts was set up in 2004.^[29][30] Housing the architecture, digital arts and visual communication, fashion and textiles, fine art, and visual theories and research departments, the AVA centre was the first major development on the Docklands Campus after the student accommodation.^[29]

Others

• School of Computing, Information Technology and Engineering
• Cass School of Education
• School of Health and Bioscience
• School of Psychology
• School of Humanities and Social Sciences.
• UELconnect

Degrees

UEL offers both undergraduate and postgraduate degrees. Undergraduate studies can be in the form of either single honours or combined honours degrees, most of which are available for study on either a full-time or part-time basis. With a combined honours degree, a student may choose to study two different subjects in one of two ways:

• Major/Minor combinations, where the student spends two-thirds of their time studying one subject and the remaining third on another. The award would be for example, BA (Hons) History with English Literature
• Joint combinations where two subjects are studied equally. The award would be for example, BA (Hons) History and English Literature

In addition, extended degree programmes are available for many of the single honour programmes. By taking an extended degree programme, students add a preliminary foundation year to the otherwise typically three-year programme.

UEL also offers a range of postgraduate degrees, including taught master's degrees, professional doctorates (which offer the title Dr but contain a significant taught element at advanced level, rather than being purely research based) and research degrees including MPhils and PhDs.^[31]

Partnership

UEL has an MBA programme in Malaysia via collaboration with Women's Institute Of Management Malaysia.^[32][33]

Study abroad programmes

The University of East London has student exchange programmes with numerous universities abroad, with financial support for those who participate through the Erasmus programme.^[34][35][36]

Academic profile

Docklands Campus

An audit in 2005 by the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education concluded that "broad confidence can be placed in the soundness of the University's present and likely future management of the quality of its programmes and the academic standards of its awards". It also made recommendations for improvement in certain areas.^[37]

Statistics announced in January 2011 by the University and Colleges Admissions Service showed that UEL had experienced a 13% increase in applications in the previous year, compared to a figure of 5% nationally.^[38][39]

UK University Rankings

	2012	2011	2010	2009	2008	2007	2006	2005	2004	2003	2002	2001	2000	1999	1998
People & Planet Green League	41st[40]	63rd[40]		98th[41]	82nd[42]
Times Good University Guide		108th[43]	108th[43]	109th[44]
Guardian University Guide	115th[45]	117th[44]	116th[46]
Sunday Times University Guide		107th[47]	107th[47]
Daily Telegraph					93rd[48]
Independent – Complete University Guide	113th[49]	113th[50]	106th[51]	105th[52]	93rd[53]
Financial Times											76th[54]	78th[55]

Student life

Stratford Library

Students' Union

The University of East London Students' Union (UELSU) is the university-wide representative body for students at the university. It exists to represent UEL students in university decision-making, to act as the voice of students in the national higher education policy debate, and to provide direct services to the student body. It is affiliated to the National Union of Students, which represents students nationwide. Elections are held every year to elect a new executive committee.^[56]

There are over 50 societies at UEL.^[57]

REFUEL is the student newspaper, and there is an e-zine called The UNIverse.^[58]

Student facilities

UEL has a library at each of its campuses, as well as at Duncan House.

There are a number of restaurants and on the campuses: five at the Docklands campus one of which being a bar, and four at Stratford.

There are ten halls of residence called the Student Village, located at the Docklands Campus.

Staff and students with children below school age can use the campus nursery, the Children’s Garden Early Years Centre, which is located on the Docklands campus.

Sports

UEL participates in many different sports for both male and female students. The university's sports clubs participate in the British Universities and Colleges Sport leagues.^[59]

Notable alumni

See also: Category:Alumni of the University of East London

The University of East London has several notable academic staff and alumni, including politicians, business people, authors, actors, musicians, and sports people.

References

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2. ^ "Top UK Universities - University of East London". http://topukuniversities.com/uk-education/page/2/. Retrieved Tuesday, 4 October 2011. 
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5. ^ ^{a b} "East London, University of (UEL) – A-Z Unis & Colleges, Getting Into University – Independent.co.uk". The Independent. 2007-07-27. http://www.independent.co.uk/student/into-university/az-uni-colleges/east-london-university-of-uel-754697.html. Retrieved 2008-03-17. 
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58. ^ "Refuel//University of East London Student Newspaper". University of East London (UEL). http://www.uelunion.org/refuelnews/news/index.php?page=article&news_id=243983. Retrieved Tuesday, 4 October 2011. 
59. ^ "UEL Sports". http://www.uel.ac.uk/sports/. 

External links

• Official website