Jump to content

Goldsmiths, University of London

Coordinates: 51°28′26″N 0°02′15″W / 51.4739°N 0.0374°W / 51.4739; -0.0374
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by 109.150.18.36 (talk) at 11:34, 6 May 2016 (→Notable alumni). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

"Goldsmiths" redirects here. For other uses, see Goldsmith (disambiguation).

Goldsmiths, University of London
File:Goldsmiths Crest.png
TypePublic
Established1904, Constituent College of University of London
1891 – Goldsmiths' Technical and Recreative Institute
Endowment£2.5 m (as of 31 July 2013)[1]
ChancellorHRH The Princess Royal (University of London)
WardenPat Loughrey
Students10,090 (2022/23)[2]
Undergraduates6,500 (2022/23)[2]
Postgraduates3,590 (2022/23)[2]
Location
London
,
United Kingdom
CampusCampus
Colours
AffiliationsUniversity of London
Association of Commonwealth Universities
Websitewww.gold.ac.uk

Goldsmiths, University of London is a public research university specializing in the arts, design, humanities, and social sciences. It is a constituent college within the University of London. It was founded in 1891 as Goldsmiths' Technical and Recreative Institute by the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths in New Cross, London. It was acquired by the University of London in 1904 and was renamed Goldsmiths' College. The word College was dropped from its branding in 2006, but "Goldsmiths' College", with the apostrophe, remains the institution's formal legal name.[3]

The university has a history of contributing to arts and social sciences. Its Department of Art is widely recognised as one of Britain's most prestigious, producing the YBA's art collective and over 20 Turner Prize nominees. Goldsmiths is also known for design, psychology, drama, sociology, music, politics, media and cultural studies, languages and literature, visual cultures, anthropology and educational studies.

Nearly 20% of students come from countries outside the UK, and 52% of all undergraduates are mature students (aged 21 or over at the start of their studies). Around a third of students at Goldsmiths are postgraduate students.

In the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise Goldsmiths came 9th in the UK for world-leading research (shown by the top 4* grade). The Department of Sociology performed particularly strongly, and was placed joint first with three other institutions. And in the Department of Media and Communications 80% of activity was in the highest two bands.

History

The Richard Hoggart Building

In 1891, the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths, one of the City of London Livery Companies, founded Goldsmiths' Technical and Recreative Institute (more commonly referred to simply as the "Goldsmiths' Institute"[4]). The Goldsmiths' Company was established in the 12th-century as a medieval guild for goldsmiths, silversmiths and jewellers; as such, the university is proud to remain connected with its original educational roots. The Livery Company dedicated the foundation of its new Institute to "the promotion of technical skill, knowledge, health and general well-being among men and women of the industrial, working and artisan classes". The original Institute was based in New Cross at the former Royal Naval School building. (This building, which was designed by the architect John Shaw Jr, is now known as the Richard Hoggart Building and remains the main building of the campus today.)

Goldsmiths College students at the University of Nottingham in 1944

In 1904, the Institute was merged with the University of London and was re-established as Goldsmiths' College. (The apostrophe was removed in 1993, and the word 'College' dropped in a rebranding in 2006). At this point Goldsmiths' was the largest teacher training institution in the country. Training functions were later expanded to include refresher courses for teachers, the University Postgraduate Certificate in Education and an Art teacher's Certificate course. The College also ran its own Nursery School. Shortly after the merger, in 1907, Goldsmiths added a new Arts building, designed by Sir Reginald Blomfield, at the back of the main building. During the Second World War it was decided to evacuate the faculty and students of the College to University College, Nottingham, a decision which proved wise both at the time and in hindsight, since the main building was struck by an incendiary bomb and gutted in 1940 (and not finally repaired until 1947).

During the 1960s Goldsmiths attracted a rapid expansion in its number of students. It is during this period that Goldsmiths began to establish its reputation in the arts and social science fields, as well as offering a number of new teacher training qualifications. The original main building was expanded, and the Lockwood Building, Whitehead Building, Education Building, Warmington Tower and St James's Hall were all built during this period in order to accommodate the influx of new students. The university also acquired a number of historic buildings in the surrounding area, including the splendid former Deptford Town Hall and Laurie Grove Baths buildings. The Richard Hoggart Building, Deptford Town Hall and the Laurie Grove Baths all retain Grade II listed building status.

In 1988, Goldsmiths became a full College of the University of London and in 1990 received its Royal Charter. Among its wardens have been Richard Hoggart, Andrew Rutherford and Ben Pimlott. The current Warden is Pat Loughrey.[5]

Campus and location

Deptford Town Hall Building

Goldsmiths is situated in New Cross, a highly populated area of south-east London with a considerable art and music scene. The area is well served by London Overground trains at New Cross and New Cross Gate. These former East London Line stations were integrated into the London Overground network in May 2010 with services northbound to Highbury and Islington; and southbound to Crystal Palace and West Croydon from New Cross Gate only. National Rail services still run from both New Cross and New Cross Gate stations to central London termini (i.e. London Bridge, Cannon Street and Charing Cross).

The main building, the Richard Hoggart Building, was originally designed as a school (opened in 1844) by the architect John Shaw, Jr (1803–1870). The former Deptford Townhall Building, designed by Henry Vaughan Lanchester and Edwin Alfred Rickards, acquired in 1998 and is now used for academic seminars and conferences. In addition to this Goldsmiths has built several more modern buildings to develop the campus, including the RIBA award-winning Rutherford Building completed in 1997, the Ben Pimlott Building designed by Will Alsop and completed in 2005, and the New Academic Building which was completed in 2010.

The library, or the Rutherford Building, has three floors and gives students access to an extensive range of printed and electronic resources. The third-floor library is believed to house the largest collection of audio-visual material in the UK. Goldsmiths' students, like all other students in the University of London, have full access to the collections at Senate House Library at Bloomsbury in central London.

The Ben Pimlott Building

The seven-storey Ben Pimlott Building on New Cross Road, complete with its distinctive "scribble in the sky" (made from 229 separate pieces of metal) has become a signature of modern Goldsmiths. It contains studio and teaching space for the Department of Art, as well as housing the Goldsmiths Digital Studios[6] and the Centre for Cognition, Computation and Culture.[7]

The New Academic Building, situated next to the green, is now home to the Media and Communications department and the Institute for Creative and Cultural Entrepreneurship (ICCE).[8] Facilities include a new 250-seat lecture theatre, seminar and teaching rooms, as well as a cafe with outdoor seating.

Academic profile

The Library

Faculties and departments

Goldsmiths is best known for courses and research relating to creativity and culture, and has a reputation for producing visual artists, particularly those collectively known as YBA.

Art

Its Art Department is widely recognised as one of Britain's most prestigious and culturally important, producing the YBA's art collective, 29 Turner Prize nominees, and 7 winners. This reputation was largely established by the influence of Michael Craig-Martin, Richard Wentworth, Jon Thompson, Anton Ehrenzweig and Nick De Ville as teaching staff.[citation needed]

Visual Cultures

Goldsmiths Visual Cultures Department continues to be innovative in dramatically expanding what might constitute the field of the visual and how we might engage with it. Key figures include Irit Rogoff, Gavin Butt, Eyal Weizman and Kodwo Eshun.

Sociology

Goldsmiths' Sociology Department has been important in the recent development of the discipline in the UK and internationally, with leading sociologists such as Paul Gilroy, Bev Skeggs, Nikolas Rose, Celia Lury, Les Back, Kate Nash and Jeffrey Alexander, working in the department in recent years.

Design

The Department of Design's approach to design practice grew from a concern for ethical and environmentalist design. This developed alongside research by John Wood, and others, which informs their research into metadesign. TERU, the Technology Education Research Unit, has been instrumental in understanding how design & technology works in schools, how to encourage learners towards creative interventions that improve the made world, and how to help teachers to support that process. The Writing Purposefully in Art and Design Network (Writing-PAD) has its main Centre at Goldsmiths. The Network now spans some 70 institutions across the art and design sector with 6 national and 2 International Writing PAD Centres.

Cultural studies

Goldsmiths is well known for cultural studies. The Media and Communications Department, as well as the Centre for Cultural Studies, includes some of the leading scholars in this field including James Curran, Scott Lash, Angela McRobbie, Sara Ahmed. Goldsmiths is consistently highly ranked by The Good University Guide as the top London education institute for the study of media, communications, music and visual arts.[citation needed]

Anthropology

The Department of Anthropology teaching staff are figures such as Keith Hart and David Graeber. The Goldsmiths Anthropology Department is also well known for its focus on visual anthropology. The realm of continental philosophy is represented with academics such as Saul Newman, Alberto Toscano and Jean Paul Martinon as well as Visiting Professors Andrew Benjamin and Bernard Stiegler. In the area of Psychology there is Chris French who specialises in the psychology of paranormal beliefs and experiences, cognition and emotion.[9] Saul Newman - notable for developing the concept of post-anarchism - is currently leading the department of politics.

English & Comparative Literature

The English & Comparative Literature Department is one of the university's largest and it covers English, comparative literature, American literature, creative writing and linguistics. Current academics include Bart Moore-Gilbert, Blake Morrison, Chris Baldick, Uttara Natarajan and Peter Dunwoodie. Its work in comparative literature developed after a merger with the Department of European Languages, later joined by its Creative Writing section.

Music

The Department of Music has a number of distinguished alumni, including Malcolm McLaren, Katy B, James Blake, Tunday Akintan, Rosie Lowe, and John Cale. The Research Centre for Russian Music, director Alexander Ivashkin, is internationally renowned for its archives devoted to Prokofiev and Schnittke, and unique collections including of music by Stravinsky, and Russian Piano Music first editions.[citation needed]

Educational studies

The Department of Educational Studies is well known for research and teaching around themes of cultural diversity, language and learning, and art and learning. It teaches undergraduate, masters and doctoral courses, and is home to a large programme of initial teacher education (primary and secondary), based on partnership arrangements with over 1500 schools and colleges.

Rankings

Rankings
National rankings
Complete (2025)[10]49
Guardian (2025)[11]50
Times / Sunday Times (2025)[12]66
Global rankings
QS (2025)[13]501-550

League tables based on the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise all place Goldsmiths within the top 35 research-intensive universities in the UK: 33rd in the Times Higher Education, 34th in The Guardian and 24th in The Independent. The 2008 RAE placed Goldsmiths 9th in the UK overall for the world-leading quality of its research.

In the University guide 2011 by The Guardian, the Anthropology Department of Goldsmiths was ranked as 3rd in UK, following Oxford and Cambridge.[14] Goldsmiths Also stands 7th in the University guide 2014 league table for Art and Design by The Guardian.[15] The Complete University Guide has placed Goldsmiths, University of London in the UK’s top 10 universities in two subject areas in 2014. The Department of Art and the Department of Design came in the top 10 of the Art & Design subject table,[16] and the Department of Media and Communications came in the top 10 in the Communication & Media Studies table.[17]

In April 2015 Goldsmiths' media and communications department was named the second best in the UK and twenty-second world-wide.[18]

Student life

Sports, clubs and traditions

Sports teams and societies are organised by the Goldsmiths Students' Union. The Union runs 18 sports clubs, 11 of which compete in either University of London Union or BUCS leagues. In May 2011 Goldsmiths won the Arts Varsity Challenge Cup against University of the Arts London (UAL), for the third year running.

The Students' Union runs 35 societies, ranging from political societies and identity-based societies (for example the Jewish society and the LGBT society) to interest-based societies (the Film Society and the on-campus radio station Wired are the two largest Societies) and more. An amateur opera company based in the university, Opera Gold, draws its cast from Goldsmiths members past and present. [citation needed]

In 2015 the university's Islamic Society received press attention for disrupting a speech by ex-Muslim Maryam Namazie organised by the university's Atheist, Secularist and Humanist Society.[19][20][21]

Student media

Goldsmiths has a long-standing history of student-led media platforms. Smiths Magazine ([smiths][22]), The Leopard newspaper,[23] and Wired Radio (Wired[24]). The student media is run independently by students at the college.

Student housing

The university owns 7 halls of residence which offer accommodation for students:

  • Batavia Mews
  • Chesterman House
  • Dean House
  • Loring Hall
  • Surrey House
  • Surrey House Annexe
  • Raymont Hall

Several of the halls include electricity bills and gas bills as part of rent. Free internet is also offered in some of the halls. Visiting international students are generally assigned accommodation in Loring Hall, Dean House or Chesterman House. Loring Hall currently holds around 400 students.

Students' Union

Main article: Goldsmiths Students' Union

The union provides, among other things, catering facilities, a chaplaincy, a medical clinic, an advice service on academic and welfare issues, and a state of the art gym for students' use.[25]

The Students' Union "Stretch" Bar, which links across Dixon Road from the Richard Hoggart Building, hosts numerous entertainment events including Quidz pub quiz on Mondays, Open Mic Night, Film Club Night where a themed film serial is aired in the huge pull down screen in the SU, and the 'Club Sandwich' club night open between 10 pm and 3 am on Wednesdays. The SU also provides a walk-home and special night bus service for students who live in the borough. The Stretch has several 40 inch High Definition LCD screens, and shows the latest music videos and news, football is also shown on some nights. [citation needed]

Politically, the Students' Union has taken an increasingly activist stance in recent years, campaigning on "cuts" to university arts and humanities budgets, tuition fee increases, and Palestine. In 2010/11 the Union ran a successful Save the Nursery campaign, after the warden announced plans to close the Goldsmiths nursery services. Between October and December 2010, students active in the Students' Union organized several sit-ins ("occupations") in university buildings, protesting against proposed increase in tuition fees and cuts to higher education budgets. [citation needed]

In October 2014, the union faced critical coverage, from student newspaper The Tab after voting down a proposal to commemorate Holocaust Memorial Day, with Education Officer Sarah El-alfy describing it as "Eurocentric" and "colonialist." [26][27] El-alfy offered to help put forward a redrafted version of the motion for the following Student Assembly meeting. The Union issued a statement claiming "Redrafting motions and re-entering them at a later date isn’t unusual in Students’ Unions and shouldn’t be misinterpreted as opposition."[28][29]

In 2015 the student union Welfare and Diversity Officer, Bahar Mustafa, caused a public controversy by banning white people and men from a student union event.[30][31] Bahar Mustafa caused more public controversy through her justification of the ban,[32][33] and through her use of the hash tag #KillAllWhiteMen. A group of students petitioned for a vote of no confidence in her, but the petition was signed by less than 3% of the student body and therefore failed to trigger a referendum.[34][35]

Notable alumni

Main article: List of Goldsmiths College alumni

Goldsmiths' alumni have been influential in the fields of art, design, visual arts, film, journalism, literature, theatre, music, politics, history, and sport.

Alumni of the Department of Art include Mark Wallinger, Damien Hirst, Antony Gormley, Sam Taylor-Wood, Lucian Freud, Mary Quant, Bridget Riley, Sarah Lucas, Gary Hume, Steve McQueen, and Gillian Wearing. The Department of Music's better known alumni include Malcolm McLaren, Katy B, James Blake, Tunday Akintan, Rosie Lowe, and John Cale.

See also

References

  1. ^ http://www.gold.ac.uk/media/2012-13-financial-statements_reduced_optimised_publish.pdf
  2. ^ a b c "Where do HE students study?". Higher Education Statistics Agency. Retrieved 23 September 2024.
  3. ^ "Rebranding FAQs". Goldsmiths, University of London. Archived from the original on 25 February 2007. Retrieved 6 March 2007. it is now known as Goldsmiths, University of London.
  4. ^ "Goldsmiths' College archives". Aim25.ac.uk. 29 September 1905. Retrieved 26 April 2010.
  5. ^ "Revealed: BBC boss who landed £866k payoff and walked straight into another public-sector job". Daily Mail. London.
  6. ^ "Goldsmiths Digital Studios".
  7. ^ "Centre for Cognition, Computation and Culture".
  8. ^ "ICCE".
  9. ^ Wignall, Alice (18 January 2005). "What it's like to work at... ...Goldsmiths College, University of London". The Guardian. Retrieved 24 July 2013.
  10. ^ "Complete University Guide 2025". The Complete University Guide. 14 May 2024.
  11. ^ "Guardian University Guide 2025". The Guardian. 7 September 2024.
  12. ^ "Good University Guide 2025". The Times. 20 September 2024.
  13. ^ "QS World University Rankings 2025". Quacquarelli Symonds Ltd. 4 June 2024.
  14. ^ "Anthropology". The Guardian. London. 8 June 2010.
  15. ^ "Design". The Guardian. London. 13 November 2013.
  16. ^ "Art & Design - Top UK University Subject Tables and Rankings 2014". Retrieved 16 July 2015.
  17. ^ "Communication & Media Studies - Top UK University Subject Tables and Rankings 2014". Retrieved 16 July 2015.
  18. ^ "Goldsmiths news, Goldsmiths, University of London". Retrieved 16 July 2015.
  19. ^ http://www.secularism.org.uk/news/2015/12/islamist-students-try-to-disrupt-ex-muslim-maryam-namazies-talk-on-blasphemy-at-goldsmiths-university
  20. ^ http://www.standard.co.uk/news/education/goldsmiths-islamic-society-students-disrupt-human-rights-activists-speech-a3129066.html
  21. ^ http://www.independent.co.uk/student/news/muslim-students-from-goldsmiths-university-s-islamic-society-heckle-and-aggressively-interrupt-a6760306.html
  22. ^ "SMITHS Magazine".
  23. ^ "The Leopard newspaper".
  24. ^ "Wired: Student radio for Goldsmiths College". Wired.gold.ac.uk. Retrieved 26 April 2010.
  25. ^ "Save Goldsmiths Nursery campaign".
  26. ^ http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/london-university-row-over-eurocentric-colonialist-holocaust-memorial-rejection-1470389
  27. ^ http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/.premium-1.621459
  28. ^ "University union rejects 'eurocentric' Holocaust Memorial Day". Jewish News. 17 October 2015. Retrieved 24 May 2015.
  29. ^ "Goldsmiths University Row As Holocaust Motion Voted Down Over 'Colonial' Fears". Huffington Post UK. 16 October 2015. Retrieved 24 May 2015.
  30. ^ Agency (23 April 2015). "White people and men told 'please don't come' to student protest against inequality". The Telegraph. Retrieved 19 May 2015.
  31. ^ Moyer, Justin Wm. (24 April 2015). "Excluding whites and men from diversity event at British university elicits anger". The Washington Post. Retrieved 19 May 2015.
  32. ^ Rush, James (12 May 2015). "Goldsmiths Students' Union diversity officer explains she cannot be racist or sexist because she is an ethnic minority woman". The Independent. Retrieved 19 May 2015.
  33. ^ "'I can't be racist if I'm from an ethnic minority'. Discuss". BBC. 13 May 2015. Retrieved 19 May 2015.
  34. ^ "We call for a vote of no confidence on the current Welfare and Diversity Officer" (PDF). Goldsmiths Student Union. Retrieved 19 May 2015.
  35. ^ Rush, James (27 May 2015). "Bahar Mustafa: Goldsmiths Students' Union diversity officer to keep her job after vote of no confidence petition fails". The Independent. Retrieved 12 July 2015.

51°28′26″N 0°02′15″W / 51.4739°N 0.0374°W / 51.4739; -0.0374

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Goldsmiths,_University_of_London&oldid=718912170"