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The University of Bradford is a university in Bradford, West Yorkshire in the United Kingdom.
History
The university has its origins in the Bradford Schools of Weaving, Design and Building which in 1882 became the Bradford Technical College. This was succeeded by the Bradford Institute of Technology in 1957, and in 1966 a Charter of Incorporation was granted to create the University of Bradford. In 1996 the university joined with the former Bradford and Airedale College of Health, which then became the School of Health Studies within the university. The Department of Physics was closed in the 1980s.
The Bradford Race Riots of 2001 lead to a sharp fall in applications to the university, however the situation has improved since and in 2005 undergraduate applications from home students was up by 35% on the previous year.
In 2003, a merger with the nearby Bradford College was proposed, to create a combined further and higher education institution; at the time, the university validated the college's degree courses and some resources were shared between the institutions. This plan was discarded later in the year and the two institutions resumed competition between themselves. In 2004, courses in Law and Human Resource Management were launched in direct competition with the college, leading the college to announce in 2005 that it was to seek validation of its degrees from Leeds Metropolitan University instead, of which it is now an associate college.
94% of students are from the state sector, though overseas students may count for most of the remaining 6%, leaving little room, if any, for independent-schooled students. 15% of students drop out, which is average though not low for UK universities. There are many overseas students at Bradford, especially in science subjects.
In 2005, a £79 million redevelopment of the campus was announced, which included new halls of residence, sports facilities and a cancer therapeutics research centre.
Chancellor
The current chancellor is the former Pakistani cricketer Imran Khan, who was installed on the 7th December, 2005. He took over from Baroness Lockwood of Dewsbury, who had served since 1997. Prior chancellors have included, in reverse order, Trevor Holdsworth (1992-1997), John Harvey-Jones (1986-1991) and Lord Wilson of Rievaulx (1966-1985).
Vice-Chancellor
At present, the role of vice-chancellor is filled by Professor Chris Taylor, who took office on the 1st October 2001. He took over from Professor Colin Bell, who was VC between 1998 and 2001 and who was later VC at the University of Stirling. Bell died suddenly in April 2003 and the university now holds an annual memorial lecture in his name discussing widening participation.
A new vice-chancellor is expected to be announced later in 2006.
Schools
The University of Bradford comprises eight Schools:
The School of Archaeological, Geographical and Environmental Sciences
Consists of the Department of Archaeology and Archaeological Sciences and the Department of Geography and Environmental Science. It specialises in areas such as Geoarchaeology and Biosciences.The School of Engineering, Design and Technology
Offers courses in the broad areas of mechanical, electrical, civil and medical engineering, as well as courses which focus on technology management. Recently the Ford Motor Company invested in new facilities for its Automotive Design and Engineering courses.The School of Health Studies
Formerly the Bradford and Airedale College of Health, this became part of the university in 1996. It is currently located on a separate site on Trinity Road, about 10 minutes walk from the main campus, but its facilities will be moved into new purpose-built premises onto the main campus in the coming years. Specialises in courses in nursing, physiotherapy, midwifery and radiography. A specialist drug therapy course is run by the department. The department's student demographics are largely female, with a higher proportion of older students.The School of Informatics
Consists of the departments of Computing, and of Electronic Imaging and Media Communications (EIMC). Informatics offers over 40 undergraduate degrees and postgraduate in various areas including computing, ICT, cybernetics, robotics and media. The School has a very lively research culture with over 100 students registered for MPhil/PhD. EIMC has links with the nearby National Museum of Photography, Film and Television and in 2005 opened a new Digital Arts Centre, offering an innovative degree in Computer Animation. Previous students include multi-award-winning Ben Smith and Jan Rigowski (Founders of Red Star Studios) as well as the following graduates. It is the second-largest school in the university. For the computing-based courses the student population is mostly male.It was originally known as the School of Computing and Mathematics and contained the university's department of Mathematics, but this was closed in the 1990s. A department of Cybernetics was established around the time of the mathematics department's demise, however it too was closed in 2005 for financial reasons, partly due to the failure of an undergraduate course in Animatronics. Its staff, and the undergraduate degree courses ran by it, were folded into the Computing and EIMC departments.
The School of Lifelong Education and Development
Offers mostly part-time and specialist degrees, focussing on areas such as community regeneration and social studies.The School of Life Sciences
Has the highest number of students of all of the schools, and offers degrees in areas such as optometry, Pharmacy and Biomedical sciences. In 2003 the Pharmacy department opened the Institute for Pharmaceutical Innovation (IPI). Bradford's Pharmacy course is also notable in the UK for being a sandwich course - instead of the usual four year course followed by a pre-registration year, Bradford students can instead opt for a five year course, with two six month placements, in the third and fifth years.The School of Management
The Bradford School of Management is located 3 miles away from the main campus on a 13 acre parkland campus, Emm Lane. It teaches courses in the realm of business, finance, accountancy, management and marketing. As of 2005 the department will commence teaching an acredited LLB Law degree. It has a number of Masters degrees, MBA programmes and doctoral programmes running alongside undergraduate programmes.Bradford University School of Management is also a leading European business school, regularly appearing as one of the top ten in league tables such as the Financial Times.It work with large corporates such as ASDA, the BBC and the airline, Emirates, as well as small businesses, providing management development, MBAs and research and graduate links.Its MBAs and undergraduates have some of the highest employment rates of any business school.
In 2005, School of Management ranked 4th in the world for value of MBA program and 2nd in UK and 5th in Europe for its Master program by Financial Times.
According to Financial Times European Business School Rankings 2005 School of Management achieved 20th out of 50 Best European B-schools and 10th in UK. FT comments that School of Management is in the top European League of B-Schools and represents the highest standards of British Business Education as the other nine British schools such as Saïd school of business (University of Oxford), London Business School, Cass school (City University) and Tanaka business school (Imperial College) etc,. [http://www.ft.com/cms/s/df04b4b6-6344-11da-be11-0000779e2340,dwp_uuid=ca94a182-6581-11da-8f40-0000779e2340.html
Its research is both international and interdisciplinary and has five main research groups covering all the main areas of management, and co-operative links and exchange agreements with 20 universities in America, Australia, Canada, Denmark, France, Holland, Spain and Sweden.
School of Management has full Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) accreditation for DBA and PhD programmes, portfolio Association of MBAs accreditation for MBA programmes and EQUIS accreditation as a School which only accredits to few best B-schools.
The School of Social and International Studies
Offers courses in social sciences and humanities, and is home to the internationally-renowned Department of Peace Studies. In September 2005 an undergraduate BA/BSc course in psychology accepted its first cohort of 78 students. It has been accredited by the British Psychological Society as conferring eligibility for the Graduate Basis for Registration.Motto
The motto which appears on most current University of Bradford publications is Making Knowledge Work, which relates to the institution's focus on courses that lead to employment.
In 2005 it was ranked 2nd in the country (after the University of Cambridge) by The Times University Guide for graduate employment and many of its courses have 100% records for graduates getting jobs within 6 months of graduating.
However, the motto inscribed beneath the official coat of arms is Give Invention Light, which is taken from Shakespeare's Sonnet 38 *. It has also used the slogans Be Inspired and Confronting Inequality, Celebrating Diversity in recent promotional material.
Students' union
The Union is run by an executive of 6 full-time officers who are all ex-students of the university and elected annually through a cross-campus ballot. These positions are:
- Academic Affairs Officer,
- Communications Officer,
- Internal Affairs Officer,
- Sports and Societies Officer,
- Treasurer and
- Women's Officer.
There are a further 11 part-time executive positions, however typically only a small number of these are filled. The executive committee is monitored by a council of up to 40 elected students, who meet around 6 times each academic year.
The University of Bradford Union is located in the Communal Building on campus. It is politically active (nominally to the left) and runs regular campaigns, as well as boycotting companies like Nestlé and Bacardi for their unethical business practices. The Union also has in the past had many politics related events such as Hug the World Week and Save the Human Week. There are two venues for night time events, Escape and The Basement, with The Basement being much larger venue but also used as a medium-sized venue under the name Colours. It has Ramair, one of the UK's longest running student radio stations, broadcasting on 1350AM and online. It holds the infamous Friday Night Disco (FND) each week. The student monthly magazine originally called Scrapie, (another biological reference to the Union's old symbol a sort of sheep's head) is now no longer published and has been replaced by Kinetic. The logo has recently been modernized to a row of 4 circles designed by Nathaniel Chang.
Until recently the Union ran two bars. On the first floor of the Richmond Building was the Biko Bar, named after Steve Biko, though this was closed in September 2005 due to construction work. The main Student Union bar is The Courtyard in the communal building, formerly known as JBs and before that the Mainline. Bradford does not have many good nightclubs and neither does the University attract many big-name bands, most of whom play at nearby Leeds. For connoisseurs of beautifully-flavoured curries, Bradford is second-to-none.
The student involvement in their Union comes in the forms of the sports clubs through the Athletics Association (commonly know as the AA) and societies. There is a wide variety of both, also with sufficient interest the founding or re-opening of a club or society is not difficult. The variety of sports available is largely due to the centralised funding and membership structure of the AA, this allows for smaller clubs which would not otherwise attract enough members to remain open. Actual athletics can be found at the Horsfall Stadium near Low Moor, close to Halifax Road.
Alumni
- John Hegley - Performance poet
- Roland Boyes - Labour MEP
- Ann Taylor - Labour MP & peer
- Rinchinnyamyn Amarjargal - Former PM of Mongolia
- Michael Clapham - Labour MP
- Stephen Hesford - Labour MP
- Milton Reame-James - Keyboards Cockney Rebel
- Riek Machar - Vice-president of Southern Sudan
- Nicholas Baines - Bishop of Croydon and broadcaster
- David Cowling - BBC & ITV Election Pundit
External links
- University of Bradford website.
- University of Bradford Union.
- Ramair radio station.
- Kinetic student magazine.
- Ice Hockey team
- Theatre in the Mill.
- Society of Operettas and Musicals.
- Unofficial Guide.
News items
- BBC News article on perpetrators of the 2001 riots.
- Mismanagement of university marketing funds.
- New cricketing chancellor.
- The 2001 riots and how Bradford University suffered.
- Bradford students study how beer is drunk.
- Selling the inexpensiveness of Bradford to students.
- Peace Studies, doves and riots.
- Two students aged 23 and 24 jailed for 4 and 9 years by Bradford Crown Court for assault using a knife and rape of a prostitute.
- Students of law and economics, both aged 23, have a chance to learn about prison life as they get 15 years each from Leeds Crown Court in August 2003 as part of a gang who robbed a Securicor van of £358,000 in Leeds in January 2002.
- Accountancy student gets community service from Bradford Crown Court for his part in the events of July 7th 2001.
- Sociology female student given six months by Bradford Crown Court in June 2001 for growing 150 cannabis plants in her basement.
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"University of Bradford"