University of Warwick
News and Information for students
|
University of Warwick | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Motto | Mens agitat molem "Mind over Matter" |
| Established | 1965 |
| Academic term | Term dates |
| Chancellor | Sir Nicholas Scheele |
| Vice Chancellor | Prof Nigel Thrift |
| Staff | 4,921 including; Academics 963 Researchers 809 |
| Students | 30,380[2] |
| Undergraduates | 20,330 [2] |
| Postgraduates | 10,050 [2] |
| Overseas students | 7625 |
| Apps to places | 8.8:1[1] |
| Men to Women | 0.75 |
| Location | Coventry, United Kingdom |
| Address | University of Warwick, Coventry, CV4 7AL |
| Affiliations | 1994 Group Russell Group Association of MBAs EQUIS Universities UK |
| Website | http://www.warwick.ac.uk/ |
Contents |
[edit] Introduction
The University of Warwick has enjoyed a varied history; from a small campus with under 450 students when it was founded in 1965, to becoming an internationally recognised research institution.
Warwick was thrust into the limelight in December 2005 when former President Bill Clinton went to visit the campus to give a speech on Tony Blair's recommendation. This favour with new Labour has led Warwick university to be branded; "University of Warwick Limited" for its focus on forming commercial funding relationships with Business. Students often have an uneasy relationship with this, suggesting that too much commercial input may eventually stifle innovation.
The University has 29 academic departments and over 40 research centers and institutes, in four faculties: arts, medicine, science and social sciences. It also has a strong business school and recently opened medical school.
The Warwick University Portal provides an access point to everything going on at the University of Warwick.
[edit] History
The University was incorporated in 1965 with the University of Birmingham Vice-Chancellor Sir Robert Aitken who acted as 'Godfather to the University of Warwick' [3]
Since its establishment in 1965, Warwick has expanded its grounds from 400 to 721 acres (2.9 km²) with many modern buildings and academic facilities, lakes and woodlands.
It has evolved with a wide and varied evolution; from a student university renowned for student politics
The campus originally consisted of distinctive Modern architecture, in deliberate contrast with the medieval and classical character of older Universities. The architecture was designed to symbolise the contrast with more institutional management methods, with distinctive Modern architecture and independence granted to academic departments.
Development of the campus has continued along this modern trend. The Warwick Arts Centre was founded in 1981. In 2005, the Medical School was founded and in 2006 significant redevelopment took place in rebuilding University House and developing a new maths and statistics building, and Computer science building.
[edit] Campuses
The University of Warwick campus was recently voted the best campus in the UK. The Warwick website describes it as
| “ | a lively, cosmopolitan place with its own shops, banks, bars and restaurants - an exciting place to live and work with everything you could need close at hand. | ” |
Among students however, the campus is often termed as 'the campus in the middle of nowhere' or 'the bubble' for its relative isolation from other towns and cities and focus of the social life on the campus.
Campus is home to students and staff from over 120 different countries and from all backgrounds, and is a great resource for the local community with excellent facilities such as Warwick Arts Centre and the University Sports Centre.
The campus is continually developing; the Warwick Digital Laboratory and the indoor tennis centre at Westwood campus are currently under development. The Library is being refurbished and work is scheduled to start refurbishment of the Students' Union next year. The University recently submitted a planning application to the local authorities for the development of the campus over the next ten years.
The campus occupies 290 hectares on three adjacent sites: Central campus, Gibbet Hill campus, Westwood campus.
[edit] Location
The University of Warwick is located 3 miles from Coventry, 8 miles from Warwick and 12 miles from Leamington Spa.
The University consists of 3 campuses
[edit] Central Campus
Central Campus [4]
[edit] Gibbet Hill Campus
[edit] Westwood Campus
[edit] Facilities
To the West of the campus is a sports centre with many facilities including several pitches, a running track and a multi-purpose sports hall. It takes roughly 15 minutes to walk from Westwood to the centre of main campus. Many of the subject buildings are closer and can be reached in around 10 minutes. It takes a little under 10 minutes to walk to Tesco and the nearby Cannon Park shopping centre.
[edit] Community
The Warwick has a strong campus community feel. It has the most clubs and societies of every university and there are a number of coordinated events that cover the whole campus and it's clubs and societies, including One World Week. On the downside, some students find it difficult to integrate or difficult to find friends outside of campus due to the relative isolation of the community to surrounding cities.
It's undergraduate halls and some postgraduate halls are mostly based on Central Campus, with many just a stones throw away from the students union.
[edit] Departments
The University of Warwick has four departments. The University was ranked fifth for quality of research out of 124 of the institutions which took part in the UK Funding Councils' 2001 Research Assessment Exercise.[1] Over 91% of the University's academic staff are located in departments with top research ratings of 5 or 5*.[citation needed] Warwick is particularly renowned for its research in business and management, economics, international relations (which operates the largest centre for globalisation in Europe), mathematics, statistics, english language and literature, and theatre studies in which it received top ratings of 5* in the Research Assessment Exercise.
[edit] Faculty of Arts
[edit] Faculty of Sciences
[edit] Faculty of Social Sciences
[edit] Faculty of Medicine
[edit] Students
[edit] Demographics
[edit] Costs
[edit] University Life
[edit] Social life
Undergraduate student life at Warwick is divided into two phases. In the first year, student life revolves around campus and, in particular, the Students' Union (with its sports clubs, societies and entertainment facilities). In the second and third years, as students move off-campus, the focus shifts to either Leamington Spa or Earlsdon in Coventry.
In the first year especially, the University of Warwick social life is based around central campus. The Union has also recently hosted such bands as Ash, Sugababes, The Kooks, Reel Big Fish, The Departure, The Subways, Idlewild, Hell is for Heros, The Automatic, Boy Kill Boy and The Killers.
The Students Union has a notoriously uncomfortable relationship with student drinking. At one point the Student Union adopted a 'sensible drinking policy' in which bars were discouraged in offering half price promotional drinks to discourage binge drinking among students. Drinks on campus are around £2.50 on most nights, which is higher than some of the cheaper bars on their promotional student nights at other places around the country (some offer drinks on promotional nights for just 50p.)
Warwick has often been termed 'the Warwick Bubble' by students and it is often viewed that student social life is entirely based around the campus. The Students Union endeavors to put on varied music nights including house, drum and bass, pop, cheese and RnB and Hip Hop but the result is that the students union often does not fill every room with events.
Although Coventry is closer, Leamington Spa tends to be the popular choice for second year students. Being a smaller town, it tends to be easier for students to live close to good amenities and be in close contact with each other.
Once students move to off campus accommodation, students often remain there in the final year. Some students decide to move back to campus in the final year.
[edit] Reputation
The University has developed a reputation for freedom given to academic staff members. Combining this with an aggressive and unapologetic commercial approach, gave Warwick a notoriety amongst other institutions.
In addition to this, Warwick is one of the few universities to hit its target for the proportion of state students admitted (86%). This is due to a distinctive policy of increasing access to higher education.
[edit] Rankings
Warwick is well placed in rankings of UK universities such as the The Sunday Times University Guide (7th place overall in 2007), The Times Good University Guide (7th place overall in 2008), Mayfield University Consultants Good University Guide (8th place overall in 2008) and The Guardian University Guide (8th place overall in 2008). According to the Sunday Times University Guide 2006, Warwick is the 5th hardest university in the UK to gain entry into with about ten applicants for every place.
In the two attempts at producing World University Rankings, Warwick ranked 57th according to The Times Higher Education Supplement in 2007 [8], up 16 places from last year's ranking.
In the World MBA rankings published by The Financial Times, Warwick ranked 14th in the world for Executive MBA and 36th for MBA. (13)
[edit] Research
In the last Research Assessment Exercise the University was the 5th highest-ranked research institution in the UK. [5]
In this, the University was ranked fifth for quality of research out of 124 of the institutions which took part in the UK Funding Councils' 2001. Warwick is particularly renowned for its research in business and management, economics, international relations (which operates the largest centre for globalisation in Europe), mathematics, statistics, english language and literature, and theatre studies in which it received top ratings of 5* in the Research Assessment Exercise.
[edit] Alumni
Notable alumni include politicians, journalists, writers, actors, directors and other prominent figures in the media.
[edit] References
[edit] Further Reading
- The University produces a semiannual magazine known as The Warwick Magazine[6]
- The weekly student newspaper, the Warwick Boar[7] is available in a print edition and selected articles are reproduced online at Flying Solo.
[edit] External Links
The University of Warwick official website is a good place to start.
The Warwick Science Park gives a helping hand to start up technology businesses.
There is a MySpace university account.
The Warwick Arts Center is the largest arts center in the Midlands.
[edit] Notes
- ↑ Times Good University Guide. London: Harper Colins Press 2006. ISBN 10-0-00-723148-2
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Table 0a - All students by institution, mode of study, level of study, gender and domicile 2005/06 (MS Excel Spreadsheet). Higher Education Statistics Agency online statistics. Retrieved on 2007-08-22.
- ↑ E. (2000). The First Civic University: Birmingham, 1880–1980 – An Introductory History. Birmingham: University of Birmingham Press. ISBN 1-902459-07-5.
- ↑ Map of central campus.
- ↑ Research Assessment Excercise.
- ↑ The Warwick Magazine. Retrieved on 2007-11-22.
- ↑ The Warwick Boar. Retrieved on 2007-11-22.