University of East Anglia

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University of East Anglia
Shield of the University of East Anglia.png
Shield of the University of East Anglia
Established 1963
Type Public
Endowment £6.3 million[1]
Chancellor Rose Tremain[2]
Vice-Chancellor Edward Acton[3]
Visitor The Lord President of the Council ex officio[4]
Admin. staff 3,910[5]
Students 17,290[6]
Undergraduates 12,780[6]
Postgraduates 4,515[6]
Location Norwich, Norfolk, United Kingdom
52°37′18″N 1°14′30″E / 52.62167°N 1.24167°E / 52.62167; 1.24167Coordinates: 52°37′18″N 1°14′30″E / 52.62167°N 1.24167°E / 52.62167; 1.24167
Campus 362 acres (1.46 km²)[7]
Colours

Black and Blue[8]

   
Affiliations 1994 Group
ACU
Universities UK
Website www.uea.ac.uk
Uea horizontal logo.png

The University of East Anglia (UEA) is a public research university based in Norwich, United Kingdom.[9] It was established in 1963, and is a founder-member of the 1994 Group of research-intensive universities.[10] In 2013 the University was ranked 23rd in the UK by The Times, 22nd by The Sunday Times, 24th by The Guardian and 20th by The Complete University Guide. It was also ranked 1st for student satisfaction by the Times Higher Education magazine in 2013.

Contents

History [edit]

Earlham Hall, childhood home of Elizabeth Fry, is now home to Norwich Law School

Earlham village centre is not far from the university. The University of East Anglia opened in October 1963, not on its present campus, but in the "University Village" on the other side of Earlham Road, a collection of prefabricated structures designed for 1200 students, laid out by the local architectural firm Feilden and Mawson. There were no residences. The Vice-Chancellor and administration were based in nearby Earlham Hall.[11]

In 1961, the first vice-chancellor, Frank Thistlethwaite, had approached Denys Lasdun, an adherent of the "New Brutalist" trend in architecture, who was at that time building Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge, to produce designs for the permanent campus.[11] The site chosen was on the western edge of the city, on the south side of Earlham Road. The land, formerly part of the Earlham Hall estate was at that time occupied by a golf course.[12] Lasdun unveiled a model and an outline plan at a press conference in April 1963, but it took another year to produce detailed plans, which diverged considerably from the model. The first buildings did not open until late 1966.

Constable Terrace, one of the university's halls of residence

Lasdun put all the teaching and research functions into the "teaching wall", a single block 460 metres long following the contour of the site. Alongside this he built a walkway, giving access to the various entrances of the wall, with access roads beneath. Attached to the other, southern, side of the walkway he added the groups of terraced residences that became known as "Ziggurats". In 1968, Lasdun was replaced as architect by Bernard Feilden, who completed the teaching wall and library, and created an arena-shaped square as a social space of a kind not envisioned in his predecessor's plans.[11] Many of the original buildings now have Grade II* listed status, reflecting the importance of the architecture and the history of the campus.

In the mid-1970s, extraction of gravel in the valley of the River Yare, which runs to the south of the campus, resulted in the university acquiring its own lake or "Broad" as it is often referred to. At more or less the same time, a bequest of tribal art and 20th century painting and sculpture, by artists such as Francis Bacon and Henry Moore, from Sir Robert and Lady Lisa Sainsbury resulted in the construction of the striking Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts at the western end of the main teaching wall, one of the first major works of architect Lord Foster.

In 2005 the university, in partnership with the University of Essex, and with the support of Suffolk County Council, the East of England Development Agency, Ipswich Borough Council, Suffolk College, and the Learning and Skills Council, secured £15 million funding from the Higher Education Funding Council for England for the creation of a new campus in the Waterfront area of Ipswich, called University Campus Suffolk or UCS.[13] The campus opened in September 2007.[13]

In January 2010 the University of East Anglia opened UEA London, a purpose built teaching facility near Liverpool Street Station in the City of London to provide facilities for more than 1,000 students.[14][15]

In November 2009, computer servers at the Climatic Research Unit (a research institute within the University) were hacked, and the stolen information made public. Over 1,000 emails, 2,000 documents, and source code were released. Because the Climate Research Unit is a major repository for data regarding man-made global warming their release directly prior to the 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference attracted international attention and led to calls for an inquiry.[16] As a result, no less than eight investigations were launched in the both the UK and US, but none found evidence of fraud or scientific misconduct.[17]

50th Anniversary [edit]

The University of East Anglia celebrates its 50th anniversary in 2013[18]. Over the weekend of 28-29 September 2013, an anniversary Festival Weekend will be held on campus for current and previous staff and students and members of the public. Rose Tremain, alumna and a former tutor of Creative Writing at UEA, will be installed as Chancellor of the University at an official ceremony in June 2013.

Campus [edit]

The Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts was designed by Lord Foster to house the art collection of Sir Robert and Lady Lisa Sainsbury, whose daughter attended UEA

Notable features of the UEA campus include Earlham Hall, childhood home of Elizabeth Fry which is where the Norwich Law School was originally based, however Earlham Hall is currently undergoing a major refurbishment and restoration with the Law School being located in the Blackdale building during this time. The Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts at the western end of the main teaching wall designed by Lord Foster to house the art collection of Sir Robert and Lady Lisa Sainsbury, and "Sportspark", a multi-sports facilities built in 2001 thanks to a £14.5 million grant from Sport England Lottery Fund.[19] Other features include the large university lake or "broad" at the southern edge of campus and "The Square", a central outdoor meeting place flanked by concrete steps.

In terms of accommodation the university campus has eight en-suite residences, namely Constable Terrace, Nelson Court, and Britten, Paston (where BNOC Ojay Nwosu resided), Colman, Victory, Kett and Browne Houses. The residences are named after Horatio Nelson, John Constable, Benjamin Britten, Jeremiah Colman, Horatio Nelson's ship HMS Victory, Robert Kett, Sir Thomas Browne and the Paston family who wrote the Paston Letters. The university also offers en-suite accommodation at the University Village, located next to the university campus. There are also four non en-suite residences on campus, namely Norfolk and Suffolk Terraces also known as the "Ziggurats", and Orwell and Wolfson Close. The university also manages Mary Chapman Court, a hall of residence in Norwich city centre.[20]

Facilities on campus include the "Union Pub and Bar", a concert and disco venue called "The LCR", a canteen called "The Campus Kitchen", a cafe/coffee shop called "The Blend", a bar/coffee shop called "The Hive", a graduate bar called the "Graduate Students Club" and "The Street" with a 24-hour launderette, the Union Food Outlet, Union Paper Shop, Union Post Office, a coffee shop called "Cafe Direct", branches of NatWest and Barclays, and a Waterstone's book shop. Most of these are situated in the centre of the campus, next to The Square.

The campus is linked to the city centre and railway station by frequent buses, operated by First, via Unthank Road or Earlham Road. First also operate frequent buses from the campus to the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital and to Bowthorpe.

Academics [edit]

Faculties and Schools [edit]

The University offers over 300 courses across four Faculties and 23 Schools of Study.[5] They are as follows:

Faculty of Arts and Humanities [edit]

The Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts

Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences [edit]

UEA Drama Studio
  • Norwich Medical School [10]
  • Allied Health Professions [11]
  • School of Nursing Sciences [12]

Faculty of Science [edit]

Faculty of Social Sciences [edit]

Rankings
ARWU[21]
(2012, national)		 20-30
ARWU[21]
(2012, world)		 201-300
QS[22]
(2012/13, world)		 236
THE[23]
(2012/13, national)		 27
THE[23]
(2012/13, world)		 145
Complete[24]
(2014, national)		 20
The Guardian[25]
(2013, national)		 24
The Sunday Times[26]
(2013, national)		 22
The Times[27]
(2013, national)		 23


Admissions [edit]

In 2013 the ratio of applications to acceptances was 6.7 to 1. 69.6% of graduating students achieved First-class honours or Upper second-class honours.[28] In 2011 the proportion of students admitted to the University from independent schools was 14%.[29]

Rankings and reputation [edit]

The results of the Research Assessment Exercise (RAE), published on 8 December 2008, showed that over 50% of the University’s research activity was deemed to be "world leading" or "internationally excellent", with 87% in total being of "international standing".[30] The university's research in the domains of American and Anglophone Area Studies, Communication, Cultural and Media Studies, and in Development Studies placed its respective Schools within the top three nationally.[31][32][33] UEA also boasts the highest percentage of national world leading research in History of Art, Design and Architecture.[34] Research in Earth Systems and Environmental Sciences along with Pharmacy places UEA within the top ten nationally.[35][36] The previous 2001 RAE ranked the Schools of Communication, Cultural and Media Studies, Environmental Sciences and History at 5*, the highest possible research ranking. The Schools of Architecture, Biological Sciences, Chemistry, English Language and Literature, History of Art, Law, Philosophy, Pure Mathematics and Social Work were ranked at 5.[37]

The postgraduate Master of Arts in Creative Writing, founded by Sir Malcolm Bradbury and Sir Angus Wilson in 1970, is regarded as the most respected in the United Kingdom, and admission to the programme is competitive.[38] The course has gone on to produce a number of distinguished authors, including Ian McEwan, Kazuo Ishiguro, Anne Enright, Tash Aw, Andrew Miller, Owen Sheers, Tracy Chevalier, Trezza Azzopardi, Panos Karnezis, and Suzannah Dunn. The German émigré novelist W. G. Sebald also taught in the School of Literature and Creative Writing, and founded the British Centre for Literary Translation, until his death in a car accident in 2001.[39] Experimental novelist Alan Burns was the University's first writer-in-residence.[40]

The Climatic Research Unit, founded in 1972 by Hubert Lamb in the School of Environmental Sciences[41] has been an early centre of work for climate change research. Publications include the recent study on anthropogenic polar warming. The School was also stated to be "the strongest in the world" by the Chief Scientific Adviser to the UK Government, Sir David King during a lecture at the John Innes Centre in 2005.[42]

Union of UEA Students [edit]

UEA at the 2011 Henley Women's Regatta
Main article: Union of UEA Students

The UEA Union has a selection of sports clubs and societies ranging from football and American football clubs to the student newspaper Concrete.

UEA:TV (previously named Nexus UTV), the campus television station, creates internet content, due to analogue broadcasts being no longer used, and their shows include news, comedy, documentaries and various other programmes, and is one of the oldest still-running student television stations in the country having been established in 1968.[43]

Livewire 1350AM, the award-winning campus radio station, which transmits to air on 1350AM in the vicinity of the University, as well as broadcasting on the internet, was established in 1989.

A more recent society, The Campus Sustainability Initiative, founded The Sustainability Initiative Fund, where UEA students each pay a £1 per year sustainability fee with the proceeds going towards sustainable projects on campus such as implementing renewable energies or energy conservation projects. The initiative was supported by UEA students in a campus referendum with a 78 percent majority, and the project was inspired by a similar initiative at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

The UEA Student Union operates many of the services on the university campus, which are open to all members of the university community and the general public. Connected to both "The Street" and "The Square" is one of the most popular Union venues, the "Union Pub and Bar", which underwent extension and refurbishment at the cost of £1.2 million in 2002. Other bars include "The Hive" (which, due to efforts from the Students' Union, was refurbished for the start of the 2004/05 academic year), and the "Graduate Students Club". In the same building is The LCR, known in full as either The Large[44] or Lower[45] Common Room. The LCR is home to weekly campus discos, as well as the many touring gigs. The students' union also run The Waterfront venue off campus in Norwich's King Street.

Notable alumni [edit]

Main article: List of University of East Anglia alumni
Baroness Amos
Lord Strathclyde
Caroline Flint
Sir Robert Fulton
Ian McEwan
Kazuo Ishiguro
Matt Smith
Gareth Malone
Sir Paul Nurse

Members of the House of Lords [edit]

Members of the House of Commons [edit]

Foreign Politics [edit]

Diplomatic Service [edit]

Armed Forces & Policing [edit]

Literature [edit]

The Arts [edit]

Media [edit]

Science & Academia [edit]

Business & Economics [edit]

Sport [edit]

Religion [edit]

Nobel laureates [edit]

There are two Nobel laureates who were either students or academics at UEA.

Name Prize Year Rationale Affiliation
Richard Synge Chemistry
1952
 For the invention of partition chromatography Professor of Biological Sciences (1968–1984)
Sir Paul Nurse Physiology or Medicine
2001
 For the discoveries of key regulators of the cell cycle PhD (1973)

Chancellors [edit]

Vice-Chancellors [edit]

Notable academics [edit]

See also Category:Academics of the University of East Anglia

UEA has benefited from the services of such notable academics as the following:

References [edit]

  1. ^ "University of East Anglia Financial Statements 2010-2011" (PDF). Retrieved 2012-08-28. 
  2. ^ BBC News - Novelist Rose Tremain appointed as new UEA chancellor
  3. ^ "University appoints new Vice-Chancellor". University of East Anglia. Retrieved 2009-05-08. 
  4. ^ "Institutions for which the President of the Council acts as Visitor". Privy Council Office. Retrieved 2007-12-20. [dead link]
  5. ^ a b "UEA Facts and Figures". Retrieved 2012-08-28. 
  6. ^ a b c "HESA - All students by institution, mode of study, level of study, gender and domicile 2010/11". Higher Education Statistics Agency. Retrieved 2012-08-28. 
  7. ^ "An International University". University of East Anglia. Retrieved 2012-08-28. 
  8. ^ The History of the University of East Anglia, Norwich. Continuum International Publishing Group. Retrieved 2008-10-29. 
  9. ^ "UEA - History". University of East Anglia. 2007. Retrieved 2008-10-03. 
  10. ^ "1994 Group Member Institutions". Retrieved 2008-05-05. 
  11. ^ a b c Muthesius, Stefan (2000). The Postwar University: Utopianist Campus and College. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. pp. 139–149. ISBN 0-300-08717-9. 
  12. ^ Wilson, Bill; Nikolaus, Pevsner (2007). Norfolk 1: Norwich and North- East. Buildings of England (second ed.). Yale University Press. p. 347. ISBN 0-300-09607-0. 
  13. ^ a b "HEFCE back University Campus Suffolk bid". Retrieved 2008-05-05. [dead link]
  14. ^ Home - UEA
  15. ^ "Norwich university opens London campus". BBC News. 4 April 2011. Retrieved 3 May 2012. 
  16. ^ "Climategate: Scientists, Politicians War Over Hacked E-Mails"
  17. ^ The eight major investigations covered by secondary sources include: House of Commons Science and Technology Committee (UK); Independent Climate Change Review (UK); International Science Assessment Panel (UK); Pennsylvania State University first panel and second panel (US); United States Environmental Protection Agency (US); Department of Commerce (US); National Science Foundation (US)
  18. ^ "UEA 50 Years" (web). Retrieved 2013-05-13. 
  19. ^ "Sportspark" (PDF). Retrieved 2008-08-08. [dead link]
  20. ^ "Mary Chapman Court". Retrieved 2008-08-10. 
  21. ^ a b "Academic Ranking of World Universities 2012". Shanghai Ranking Consultancy. Retrieved 23 August 2012. 
  22. ^ "QS World University Rankings 2012/13". Quacquarelli Symonds. Retrieved 19 September 2012. 
  23. ^ a b "Top European Universities 2012". Times Higher Education. Retrieved 4 December 2012. 
  24. ^ "University League Table 2014". The Complete University Guide. Retrieved 30 April 2013. 
  25. ^ "University guide 2013: University league table". The Guardian. 21 May 2012. Retrieved 22 May 2012. 
  26. ^ "The Sunday Times University Guide 2013". Times Newspapers. Retrieved 30 September 2012. (subscription required)
  27. ^ "The Times Good University Guide 2013". Times Newspapers. Retrieved 30 September 2012. (subscription required)
  28. ^ University of East Anglia - Complete University Guide
  29. ^ "The Complete University Guide". Retrieved 2012-07-17. 
  30. ^ http://www.uea.ac.uk/rae/rae2008/
  31. ^ http://submissions.rae.ac.uk/Results/qualityProfile.aspx?id=47&type=uoa/
  32. ^ http://submissions.rae.ac.uk/Results/qualityProfile.aspx?id=66&type=uoa/
  33. ^ http://submissions.rae.ac.uk/Results/qualityProfile.aspx?id=43&type=uoa/
  34. ^ http://submissions.rae.ac.uk/Results/qualityProfile.aspx?id=64&type=uoa/
  35. ^ http://submissions.rae.ac.uk/Results/qualityProfile.aspx?id=17&type=uoa/
  36. ^ http://submissions.rae.ac.uk/Results/qualityProfile.aspx?id=13&type=uoa/
  37. ^ "Institution: H-0117 University of East Anglia". Higher Education & Research Opportunities in the UK. Retrieved 2008-09-10. 
  38. ^ http://www.uea.ac.uk/creativewriting%7Cwork=University of East Anglia
  39. ^ http://www.uea.ac.uk/lit/eventsnews/events/SebaldConference%7Cwork=University of East Anglia
  40. ^ Ian McEwan (1995). "Class Work". 
  41. ^ http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/about/history/%7Cwork=Climatic Research Unit
  42. ^ http://www.uea.ac.uk/env=University of East Anglia
  43. ^ "Nexus University TV". Retrieved 2007-03-03. 
  44. ^ "www.stu.uea.ac.uk/ents/venues". Retrieved 2007-03-03. 
  45. ^ "www.ueastudent.com/freshers/adoc.2005-08-16.3617". Retrieved 2007-03-03. 

Further reading [edit]

Dormer, P. and Muthesius, S. (2002) Concrete and Open Skies: Architecture at the University of East Anglia, 1962-2000. Unicorn Press.
Sanderson, M. (2002) The History of the University of East Anglia, Norwich. Hambledon Continuum.

External links [edit]

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