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Brunel University of London

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Brunel University
File:Brunel logo.jpg
TypePublic
Established1966
Endowment£1.8 million [1]
ChancellorLord Wakeham PC
Vice-ChancellorProfessor Chris Jenks
Students15,150[2]
Undergraduates10,150[2]
Postgraduates5,000[2]
Location
London
,
England
CampusSuburban
AffiliationsAssociation of Commonwealth Universities
European University Association
Websitehttp://www.brunel.ac.uk/
File:Brunel.JPG
Statue of Brunel at the University

Brunel University is a university situated in West London, England.

History

Brunel is one of a number of UK universities created in the 1960s following the Robbins Report on higher education (often called the plate glass universities).

Originally Acton Technical College, based in Acton on the outskirts of London, it was decided in 1957 that the college should split into two sections – Acton Technical College continued to cater to technicians and craftsmen, whereas Brunel College of Technology (named after Isambard Kingdom Brunel, the British engineer) was dedicated to the education of technologists.

In 1961 it was awarded the status of College of Advanced Technology, and it was decided that Brunel College should expand at another site in order to accommodate the extra buildings that would be needed. Uxbridge, Hillingdon was chosen to house the new buildings, and work hadn’t even started before the Ministry of Education had officially changed the College’s status. From April 1 1962 it was officially named Brunel College of Advanced Technology – it was only the 10th Advanced Technology College in the country, and the last to be awarded this title.

The first buildings were due to be finished in 1967. However, in 1963 it was decided that the College should become a technological university, and the Royal Charter was awarded on the June 9 1966 giving university status. Uxbridge was now a campus of Brunel University.

A view of Brunel University, Uxbridge.

The University continued to use both campuses until 1971, when it left the Acton site, and for the next nine years used only the Uxbridge campus.

In 1980 the University merged with Shoreditch College of Education, located at Cooper's Hill, Runnymede since 1951. This became Brunel's second campus, although in later years it contained only halls of residence. In 1995 the University expanded again, integrating the West London Institute of Higher Education, and adding campuses in Osterley and Twickenham. This increased the number of courses that Brunel University was able to offer – traditionally its strengths had been engineering, science, technology and social sciences. With the addition of the West London Institute, departments such as arts, humanities, geography & earth science, health and sports science were added, and the size of the student body increased to over 12,000.

Then Brunel put together a £250 million Masterplan,[3] to sell of the sites at Runnymede, Osterley and Twickenham, using the revenue to renovate and update the buildings and facilities at Uxbridge. Works already carried out include the library extension, a state-of-the-art sports complex, renovated students' union facilities, a new Heath Sciences teaching centre, and many more halls of residence. Still to be completed are a new teaching block and exhibition space for the School of Engineering and Design and Business School, a halls of residence 'village' to replace the Isambard flats, and the chancellory building.

In recent years Brunel University has been the subject of controversy as its approach to higher education has been both market-driven and politically conservative. The decision to award an honorary degree to Margaret Thatcher in 1996, following the University of Oxford's refusal to do so, provoked an outcry by staff and students, and as a result the ceremony had to be held in the House of Lords instead of on campus. In the late 1990s, amid the excitement of the merger with the West London Institute, the Departments of Physics, Chemistry, and Materials Engineering were closed. In 2004, the then Vice-Chancellor Steven Schwartz, initiated the reorganisation of the university's faculties and departments into schools, and also announced the closure of the Department of Geography and Earth Sciences[4]. The present Vice-Chancellor, the sociologist Christopher Jenks[5] who took office in 2006, may be developing a less market-and rankings-driven approach.

Halls of residence

Kilmorey Hall at Uxbridge.

Many of the halls of residence around the Uxbridge campus are named after bridges that Isambard Kingdom Brunel either built or helped to design; other halls are named either directly after him, or after other notable engineers or scientists. For example:

League tables

Brunel's league table rankings have taken a hit in recent years. In the past Brunel has performed well in both The Guardian and The Times tables at least in part due to the university's good performance in the Teaching Quality Assessment (TQA). However, the compilers of both league tables have moved away from using the TQA and now use National Student Survey (NSS) results to calculate the rankings. Brunel has performed poorly in the NSS, which measures student satisfaction, and this has had a knock-on effect on its placing in the league tables. The poor student satisfaction ratings in the NSS can be attributed to a combination of factors including: the recent closure of some academic Departments, a shift in emphasis from teaching quality to research, and to the campus's four-year long status as a building site.

The Guardian Good University Guide 2007/8 ranks Brunel 50th overall out of 122 institutions in the UK - a drop of 18 places from the 2006/7 rankings.

The Times Higher 2007/8 also places Brunel 51st overall in The Times league table.

According to the Sunday Times league table, Brunel graduates are ranked 13th nationally in terms of highest average graduate starting salaries.[6]

Brunel University has received good TQA scores, with every subject scored receiving a score of 20/24 or better.[7] It was the 40th placed British institution.

In the most recent RAE (2001) the university achieved scores typically clustered at 3a-4 (on a scale of 1-5*) for Arts and Social science subjects; and 5 for physical and applied sciences.[8]

The Times Higher Education Supplement (THES) world university rankings 2007 placed Brunel University at 292 in the world, the first time the university had entered the listings. [9]

Formula Student

Brunel was one of the first UK universities to enter the Formula Student[10] engineering competition. It is an annual event in which universities from around the world compete in static and dynamic events using formula style racing cars designed and manufactured by students.

The Brunel Racing[11] team is composed of undergraduate and postgraduate students, each being allocated an area of the car to develop. The students on MEng Mechanical Engineering courses act as team leaders and manage BEng students throughout the year to ensure a successful completion of a new car each year.

Brunel Racing were UK Class 1 Formula Student Champions in 2002, and were the leading UK team at Formula ATA 2005, the Italian Formula Student event. In 2006 Formula Student Event, Brunel Racing were also the highest finishing UK competitor using E85 (fuel comprising of 85% ethanol and 15% petrol.)

The university also runs a second racing team, comprising exclusively of post-graduate students from the MSc Automotive and Motorsports Engineering course, called Brunel Masters Motorsports.[12] The 20 students on this course are from 10 different countries, with various cultural backgrounds and a with a wide range of industry experience.

The BMM team were the UK Class 2 Formula Student Champions in their first year, 2005.

Brunel's Formula Student teams have won prizes at the annual competition every year since they first entered in 1999.

Notable alumni

Politics

Sports

Media

Other

Trivia

  • The Uxbridge campus has been used as a filming location for several feature films and television programmes:
  • Some scenes from A Clockwork Orange: featuring the 1960s Brutalist architecture. Lecture Theatre 'E' was used for the 'aversion therapy' scene; the interior has been renovated since. The atrium of the John Crank building was also used as the handover point from the prison officers to the doctors in the medical institute. Additionally a bedroom in Chepstow Hall was used as the hospital room for Alex's recovery at the end of the film, as of 2006 the rooms were still identical to the film.
  • number of episodes of 1970s police drama series The Sweeney.
  • an episode of The Comic Strip Presents first series entitled Summer School, where the area in front of the Lecture Theatre is turned into an Iron Age settlement.
  • An episode of Inspector Morse used the Chemistry building and the Lecture Theatre as a hospital.
  • Scenes for the Channel 5 soap opera Family Affairs were shot inside and outside the Students Union building.
  • Scenes for the "Sleeper" episode of The New Avengers were filmed on campus in 1976 and broadcast in January 1977.
  • Several films used the Runnymede campus as an outside location, particularly in the 1940s-1960s:

References

  1. ^ "Financial Statements 2005-2006" (PDF). Brunel University. Retrieved 2007-04-26.
  2. ^ a b c "Table 0a - All students by institution, mode of study, level of study, gender and domicile 2005/06". Higher Education Statistics Agency online statistics. Retrieved 2007-03-31.
  3. ^ http://www.brunel.ac.uk/about/facts/masterplan
  4. ^ http://www.brunel.ac.uk/about/acad/ges
  5. ^ http://www.brunel.ac.uk/research/profiles/sssl/jenks
  6. ^ http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,8405-1246744,00.html
  7. ^ http://www.brunel.ac.uk/about/facts/teaching/
  8. ^ http://www.hero.ac.uk/rae/rae_dynamic.cfm?myURL=http://195.194.167.103/Results/openInst.asp
  9. ^ http://www.topuniversities.com/worlduniversityrankings/results/2007/overall_rankings/top_400_universities/
  10. ^ http://www.imeche.org.uk/formulastudent/
  11. ^ http://www.brunelracing.co.uk/
  12. ^ http://www.bm2racing.com/
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