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University of Bradford

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University of Bradford
File:Bradford logo.jpg
MottoGive invention light
(from Shakespeare's Sonnet 38)
Making Knowledge Work
(The unofficial motto on the logo)
Established1966
ChancellorImran Khan
Vice-ChancellorProf Chris Taylor
Students10,000 Total
Postgraduates2,300
Location
Bradford
,
United Kingdom
ColoursClaret and Grey/Gold
AffiliationsEQUIS, AMBA
Websitewww.brad.ac.uk

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 at least partially due to a dispute over the name of the new institution, as any change of name would necessitate a new charter. The two institutions resumed the competition and co-operation between them. 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%, with comparatively few independent-schooled students enrolled. The student drop-out rate is 15%. 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 / replacement halls of residence, sports facilities and a cancer therapeutics research centre. Shearbridge Halls were closed, and their demolition commenced during December 2006. The Richmond Building is currently being refurbished internally and resurfaced externally, and a very large new atrium opened in October 2006[1].

The university became a Fairtrade University in December 2006.[2]

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

The Vice-Chancellor is Professor Chris Taylor who holds the post from 1st October 2001 to 30th April 2007 when he retires from the university.

The Vice-Chancellor designate is Professor Mark Cleary who will start on 1st May 2007 coming from the University of Plymouth where he is the Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academic) currently.

Chris Taylor took over from Professor Colin Bell, who was Vice-Chancellor between 1998 and 2001 and who was later Vice-Chancellor at the University of Stirling. Bell died suddenly in April 2003 and the University of Bradford now holds an annual memorial lecture in his name discussing widening participation.

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. It has recently merged with the School of Life Sciences.

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

The second-largest school in the university 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.

The School was originally known as the "School of Computing and Mathematics" and contained the university's department of Mathematics, and although this no longer exists this area is now covered by the Maths Unit within the Computing Department. It was renamed Informatics when Computing was joined by the EIMC department. 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. Its staff, and the undergraduate degree courses ran by it, were folded into the Computing and EIMC departments.

The EIMC department has close links with the nearby National Media Museum and in 2005 opened a new Digital Arts Centre offering the latest computer technology for animation, photography, imaging, and printing. In the early nineties, it was one of the first departments to offer BSc courses in media technology, going on to introduce some of the firts animation and computer games degrees and more recently expanding to offer a new range of similar BA courses. Previous graduates have gone on to become notable and high-profile members in their field. For the computing-based courses the student population is mostly male.

A core part of the school is the Informatics Innovations Unit, which offers the expertise of specialists within Informatics to commercial and social enterprises. This collaboration is part of a Government initiative called Knowledge Transfer, which also includes partnerships with national and international companies. The IIU is also home to Simula, which own one of the most sophisticated Motion capture setups in the UK. Their 14 camera Viacon system is used for teaching, student project work on Informatics courses, community workshops and has also been used commercially to create animation for video games including Driver Parallel Lines, World Snooker Championships and GTR.

The EIMC department has a recording studio known as The Blue Room. It was here that local band Rudolph Rocker recorded the track "Voodoo Lady", as used in the BBC TV series The League of Gentlemen. Jeremy Dyson, one of the League's writers and a member of the school's academic staff perform in the group.

The School of Lifelong Education and Development

Offers mostly part-time and specialist degrees, focusing 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 accredited 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, the 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 [1], 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,. [2]

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 University has also started Law courses for the first time as well as MSC Total Performance Quality Management at a post graduate level.

The School of Social and International Studies

Offers courses in social sciences and humanities, and is home to the internationally-renowned Bradford Centre for International Development (BCID) and the 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. It is also a leading research base for European Studies, which is focused within the Centre for European Studies.

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 [3]. It has also used the slogans Be Inspired and Confronting Inequality, Celebrating Diversity in recent promotional material.

Students' Union

See also: University of Bradford Union

The University of Bradford Union (UBU) is run by an executive of six full-time sabbatical officers, elected annually, and up to eleven part-time executive officers elected every six months. The Union logo has recently been modernized to a row of four circles, which was launched in 2005.

It is located in the Communal Building on campus. It is politically active (nominally to the left) and runs regular campaigns. There are two venues for night time events, Escape and The Basement. The Basement hosts the infamous Friday Night Disco (FND) each week.

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.

The largest student involvement in their Union comes in the forms of the sports clubs through the Athletics Association and societies.

The student union also has Ramair, one of the UK's longest running student radio stations, broadcasting on 1350AM and online. The student magazine is Kinetic, which replaced Scrapie in 2005.

Alumni

See also: Category:Alumni of the University of Bradford

University

News items

Template:Universities in Yorkshire and the Humber

  1. ^ http://www.brad.ac.uk/admin/pr/pressreleases/2007/forty.php
  2. ^ http://www.brad.ac.uk/admin/pr/pressreleases/2007/fairtrade.php
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