‘The New Universities’ in The Architectural Review Vol. CXL VIIIssue no. 878, April 1970

MRC reference UWA/B/14 (Hannah has a photocopy of some articles)

 

This issue follows a special issue (October 1963) looking at university architecture.

 

The new universities covered include the Universities of; Sussex, York, East Anglia, Essex, Kent at Canterbury, Warwick, Lancaster, Tech at Loughborough and Surrey, Brunel University and New Bath University of Technology.

 

The pictures of the universities all look very similar to one another- most likely due to economic reasons (buying materials in bulk etc.) and following the trend in design. Amongst the wide range of educational and architectural ideas- future growth is common.  

 

In relation to Warwick (p.277):

Architects- YRM

Quantity surveyors- Northcroft Neighbour and Nicholson

Main contractors- Sir Robert McAlpine & Sons Ltd

Plumbing and electrical services- Matthew Hall Mechanical Service Ltd

 

‘Community’ p.295: fostering communality and social learning outside the class room- reference to the kitchen and common rooms in Warwick departments.

 

‘University of Warwick Yorke Rosenburg Mardall EAST SITE Grey, Goodman & Partners’ p.273-4:

 

April 1970

 

Full-time students: 1,850

Floor area built: 770,102 sq ft

Existing floor area converted or renovated: nil

UGC grants for building: £4,884,169

Non- UGC funds spent on building: £943,616

 

First development plan for Warwick was published in 1964 by Arthur Ling and A. Goodman, the second was in 1966.

Both the early and later plans assumed that the campus might in the future grow to the size of an American state university- between 15,000 and 20,000 students.

[Today there are 16,734 full-time students and 5,075 members of staff]

MRC Ref: UWA/B/14 (HL's notes and has a photocopy)  Fisk, T. ‘Student Power’, The New Universities issue of The Architectural Review VOL CXL VII Issue no. 878 April 1970 pp.292-294 

Trevor Fisk was president of the NUS 1969

 

Sorbonne student riots 1968 – due to overcrowded classrooms and libraries and the separation of professors and students.

 

Although British students do not revolt as French students, university planners should not ignore common problems and attitudes that both French and British students have.

Previous architects could have taken certain views for granted- they were designing a community, with a sense of fellowship, separated from society to allow for concentration on academia and that students accept that the staff have privileges and better facilities.

 

When writing in 1970 it was noted that there had been a shift in the notion of community and common academic fellowship. This was still welcomed by some (‘campus intimates’) but others find too claustrophobic.

Staff privileges etc. are questioned.

 

Oct. 1969- Parliamentary Select Committee on Education and Science presented a report on student relations to the House of Commons. The report argued that there is such thing as a ‘student view point’ (despite individual student opinion differing greatly on many issues).

 

Students well aware of the expansion of university intake in the 1960s and unhappy about the way in which it was being brought about and critical of the following report:

 

The Robbins Committee report 1963- scheme for meeting the expansion

1)      Upgrade Collages of Advanced Technology to new technological universities

2)      Create some new universities

New universities underway before the report

 

The NUS put forward an entirely different scheme.

Apposed brand new universities created from scratch; for these would be, as Warwick is, in rural/ outer urban settings deliberately at variance with the prevailing pattern of Redbricks.

The separate administration, financing and design was rejected as was the LEA colleges.

 

NUS plan was similar to the Government’s in 1966 for comprehensive schools. The NUS’ slogan was ‘towards comprehensive universities’ whereby existing universities ought to be integrated with neighbouring LEA colleges. It was also recommended that building should be designed to be used by others when not occupied by students.

 

During the creation of the new universities there was no student population to be involved with the planning or design where as universities and their architects must include students in the planning and designing of universities and students must ask to be involved.

 

Politics of space- ‘us’ and ‘them’ and territorial tensions inside universities and between the university and the local community

 

Students want integration and equality, they are uneasy about an ‘educational community’ (which can be isolated and single minded) and the place of the teacher. There is some concern when designs reinforce the comparative status of teacher and student.

 

Undergraduate thoughts on university design only stretch to their residential and recreational areas. There are no specific thoughts on academic buildings. However when it comes to undergraduate thoughts on national planning for higher education are set out in a proposal (NUS).

 

Warwick designed its campus with student facilities on one side and teaching and administration on the other, ‘in between are several hundred yards of ‘no man’s land’’ which seems to suggest there could be tension between the ‘two sides’.

 

The article did note that Warwick had been ‘notably free of student unrest’ however there was some unrest in February 1970 (what was this?).

…………………..

 

‘The latest predictions point to some 750,000 students in higher education by 1980. If they enter colleges the design of which is totally inadequate to their needs and out of keeping with their aspirations, the blame will rest as much on today’s students for their silence, as on the college planners for interpreting that silence as consent’ 

 

CATH's notes on same article: taken for specific purposes of HES paper.

We can place the eachrly Warwick students' contestation of the spatial construction and organisation of their emerging university in the context of 1968 and the protests in Paris adn elsewhere. Trevor Fisk, NUS President in 1969 offers some possible reasons for student dissatisfaction: 'The democratic vacuum of Gaullism. The physical overcrowding of their classrooms and libraries had aroused them beyond endurance ... the students were alienated from their professors whom they rarly saw away from the academic lectern' (1970: 292). He contimues, 'Whatever the truth behind 'l'affarire de mai', there are perhaps two lessons for the university designer. At some level the physical environment was one stimuls to revolt. Some of the student's feelings were expressed as attitudes to the structure of their campus. The riot would have taken place, but it would not have arisen the same way in an other-wise designed environement ..The physical environement may not cause human actions, but it clearly shapes the form such actions take' (1970: 292).  

Although there was no equivalent rioting in the streets of Coventry or Leamington Spa from Warwick's students, there was certainly evidence of the ways in which the physical environment and the kinds of relations and hierarchies it supported, were at the heart of students' expereince of university and their subsequent dissatisfaction. In particular, there was concern with the divisions between students and teachers which were central to the design and building of the campus. Fisk comments that the innate superiority of staff (and the manifestation of these in exclusive staff only common rooms and facitilies) was largely accepted by previous generation of student and teachers, by the 1960s and 70s new expectations of academic comminity and knowledge exchange were emerging and architectures which failed to acknowledge this were rejected. This was true in the case of Warwick, perhaps heightened by the fact that the design and construction was not pre-existing but going on all around the campus' 'inmates' (as Fisk calls them). It is hardly surprising that studnets wanted some say in the design and organnisation of the future university, but as the architect's biographers note, consultation with users was a long way from the top-down, autocratic mode of working at that time (ref YRM book).

Nationally, students' generally strong opinions about university development, was noted by the Parliamentary Select Committee on Education and Science (in October 1969 - see Fisk, 1970:293). Although the lack of one unified 'student view' was noted, Fisk draws out what he suggests were 'general beliefs' and 'consistent attitudes towards the type of question which affects unviersity planning' (1970:293). These can be summarised as anxieties around the significant expansion of universities and student numbers following the Robbins report of 1963. Significantly for Warwick, there has been opposition  from the NUS prior to Robbins to the creation of new univerisites from scratch. In aprt this was becasue these would 'be sited in rural, or outer-urban, settings, deliberately at variance with the city-centre university pattern which had prevailed for the past century with the Redbricks' (p 293). The NUS supported comprehensive universites via integration with LEA colleages rather than new independetn structures. This impulse needs of course to be seen in the context of the shift in the 1960s under Labour to comprehensive schooling. For universities such as Warwick, the NUS was concerned at the lack of a student population to contest and constribute to the design and construction of new-builds (as of course the students had not yet been recruited).

What emerges from all the evidence at this time on students' multifaceted concerns, two things stand out: 'Students are uneasy about the notion of educational community and about the place of the teacher. They are uncertain about the isolation and academic singlemindedness of their universities. They feel the siting and design of their campuses often aim at reinforcing this sense of separation and undivided purpose ...' p. 294 

'In campus ... they feel anxiety when confronted by designes which reinforce the comparative status of teacher and taught. Integration and equality - although the meaning of these terms is as fiercely disputed amongst students as anywhere else - these are the principle goals' (p 294).

Interesting comments by Fisk that the specifi architectural requests from students tend to be about housing and recreation and the academic buildings and design tend to be discussed at the 'level of social theory' -(ie Cath at the level of 'ideals').

'One new university, Warwick, has been designed with all the students' facilities on one side of the campus, all the teaching and administrative areas on the other. In between there are several hundred yards of 'no man's land'. The whole arrangement seems to have been laid out to facilitate trench warfare between staf and students; the scheme nmight have been expected to re-inforce feelings of 'them' and 'us' and an alternative layout, with buildings dispersed randomly, should in theory promote a sense of community .. Expereince confounds the seeming idiocy of the design' (p 294). Fist here footnotes the later '1970 February unrest' - which we need to find out about from Warwick's archives and SU publications.

 Overall, Fisk argues for importance of student participation in questions of design -  cn we link here to the LG?

'Of the many stduents due to enter HE in years following 1969, 'If they enter colleges the design of which is totally inadequate to their needs and out of keeping with their aspirations, the blame will rest as much on today's stduents for their silence, as on the collehe planers for interpresting that silence as consent' (p 294).      

     

Notes on Henry Rees ‘A University is Born’: The Story of the Foundation of The University of Warwick (1989), Birmingham, Church Enterprise Print.

 

Notes by CL

 

This little book is a personal account by Henry Rees who it seems fist put forward the idea of the university and was instrumental in getting it approved and set up. He summarises all the meetings, reports and decisions from the initial germ of an idea to the first students arriving. It is useful to cross reference to the archive material and also is useful for:

-          Indicating useful newspaper articles, particularly Coventry Telegraph and Coventry Standard

-          A who’s who of the initial key players, including on p 79-82 a summary of the first profs and their backgrounds

-          The relationships with the City of Coventry and other bodies at the time

 

Things of note in particular:

 

6: Coventry Standard article commenting that all depts would be research active, ‘In all these research would play an important part. With its help we should learn more about ourselves, our city and its region’.

 

8-9 funny picture of a horse in a field ‘We hailed him as our first student’ and description of the site, ‘ We stopped the cr and admired the view. A level plateau sloped down to a clear stream, Canley Brook, bordered by an attractive copse, Tocil Wood. I was reminded of the setting of the University of Exeter …’ (9)

 

21: City Council Brochure ‘Proposed University College’ 1958 –

 

“This scheme has been prepared with the object of stimulating the conception of a university in Coventry and of showing how a positive architectural approach may assist in creating the environment necessary for the pursuit of knowledge.

 

In designing this university our first aim was to create a unified group of buildings which would provide the most inspiring environment for both study and leisure, creating conditions where the departments of learning would be closely linked with e buildings in which the students lived and spent their leisure time

 

There is ref to a ‘tower of learning’ which would be ‘some 200 feet high’ – a landmark and with views. and the picture on p 222 is fascinating – looks more like Birmingham than  Warwick.

   

The brochure also says, “Our design attempts to establish the University as a self-contained community complete in every respect, a place where the pursuit of knowledge and the life of the community would be synonymous” (see p 23)

 

The tower of learning is to be ’21 storeys high’. Rees comments on the designs and plans that, ‘A pleasant touch was that the buildings were oriented to line up with the direction of the spire of Coventry Cathedral: an echo of the redevelopment of the City Centre, where the main axis of the shopping precinct does exactly the same thing’ (p 23)

 

26: Coventry Standard article comments on how university would be almost completely residential and scheme breaks with tradition being ‘new and exciting’. Describes not ‘aping’ other universities and functionality of the design.

 

60: fear of a divided site (iif Engineering stayed at Lanchester College). Mr Templeman also notes that, ‘There would be a great advantage in dispensing with the conventional organisation into faculties and departments because of the rigid form this frequently imposes upon undergraduate teaching’   

 

71 Butterworth:

‘Coventry has pioneered in ‘system building’ which is a quick method of erecting buildings, and this has attracted the interest of the University Grants Committee. One of the architects who ought to be considered seriously ... is Arthur Ling ..’ He was one of the initial architects – what’s the relationship between him and YRM?? 

Once appointed one of the first things Butterworth did as VC was to cisit the US ‘ in order to visit modern university development and schools of business maangement’ (Rees p 73).

 

May 1963 digging began

 

76 ‘Three months later the building was occupied. The University had moved in, in the shape of a temporary typist (21^st August 1963) ...’

 

First profs all incredibly YOUNG – 7 of them in their 30s.

 

89 Lord Rootes “In Coventry the University of Warwick will match the new Cathedral; in Warwickshire it will be as great as Shakespeare. It is perhaps the most forward-looking university in the country’  (interesting quote – says something about its ambitions, sense of self, cultural value).

 

City Architect, “I do not think that in a city like Coventr we would want to clamp down on the number of cares in the university’ – an several car parks, with  ‘a large one in the central area’ were planned. Hmm.

 

East Site originally known as ‘First Site’ as served as a ‘university in inature’ for about 450 students. (92) 

 

5^th October 1965 The Times – “A good deal of radical thinking has gone into the curriculum. Courses are planned so that students can delay the choice of their specialist subject as long as possible. All undergraduates will take a course in the first year designed to encourage critical thinking and to show them the limits and possibilities of their own discipline’ (cited on p 99)

  

P 100 VC Butterworth welcomed new UGs by saying:

 

‘This university as a duty to the world outside .... It seems to me that things strong extrovert society is exactly the right place to put a university which believes it ought to have positive connections with society outside.  

HES presentation

HES slides

Ken Flint Interview·         Began working at Warwick in October 1976.·         First position was in environmental sciences and was based in the chemistry building. From 1985 onwards he was based in biological sciences on Gibbet Hill.Photo Identification

·         Picture 1: Identifies the yet completed library and science blocks, places the date of the picture at pre 1968, as these were completed by the time he arrived on campus and the chemistry degree began in 1968. Comments that the library tiles were already beginning to drop off.

·         Picture 2: Recognises typical ‘cladding’ of the building in the photo as being the Gibbet Hill Campus. Later Ken shows me the site of the photo in its modern carnation.

  ·         Between 1974 and 1980 the university began to grow and change rapidly. In this time social studies was built, it then calmed until around the mid 1980’s when development began again.  This cycle of building included the business school and extensions to existing buildings, including the Gibbet Hill wing which was built in 1984. Ken believes the university has building and development ‘spurts’. ·         Estimates that since 1976 there has only been one year when Warwick has not had some sort of major building works going on. ·         ‘Warwick has prided itself on being at the forefront of everything’ thus it has to move forward and modernise constantly. Even in the 1970’s Warwick had a reputation for being cutting edge and innovative.

·         The biggest change he has seen in teaching rooms is the change from ‘chalk boards, to white boards, to overheads and now to the use of powerpoint.’

·         In terms of how technology affects teaching, he feels staff have to change the way they teach to suit the equipment. However some subjects still need older equipment, he uses the example of teaching statistics on a chalk board, as you can easily erase and change things. Admits that ‘you could do that on PowerPoint, but I don’t want to learn.’ Although he does say that PowerPoint is great for other things and says it is expected that biology lecturers use PowerPoint.

·         A new development is students recording lectures and making podcasts.

·         Some staff do resent changes in technology as it means constantly having to adjust lectures and methods, which means less time on research comments

 

‘Every member of staff is hesitant to change the way they teach, partly because at Warwick, as you probably know, Warwick promotion ect are determined by research’

 

·         However believes staffs have to adjust to technology or it can be fatal for their careers.

·         Teaches different years differently. For first years it is important to lay ground work and get them ‘interested’ in the subject. For final years it is more important to have cutting edge material, thus the materials changes yearly for final years and rarely for the first years.

·         Laboratory rooms have changed dramatically and ‘look a lot different to when I first started’. Main difference is the presence of computers in the lab and the way all the equipment can be hooked up to laptops.

·         Smaller teaching includes workshops, tutorials and seminars.

·         Teaching of whole year groups has become more formal, as there larger intakes of students each year.  Since he started the number of students in a year group has grown from 50 – 240 students. Small group teaching has not changed, as it has always been groups of five and will remain that way. Belives groups of 5 are the best way to teach and would not increase size of tutorials past 5 students.

·         Prefers ‘students to lead the tutorial’ and for each student to take turns in leading the discussion. Sees his role as ‘facilitating the discussion’ rather than teaching it. Also uses this time for students to bring up any issues or problems they may be having with the course. 

·         Dedicates one seminar a term for students to choose what topic or research will be discussed.

·         Feels there is a big spilt between ‘town and gown’.  Thinks that the University has ‘done more damage to Leamington than good, because of the damage students’ cause’.  However sees students in Coventry as less of an issue, as Coventry has a history of students due to the polytechnic, whereas in Leamington it was a major change.

·         Although does mention some strength of the University, such as the arts and sports centre as good ways of attracting the community onto campus. Mentions local sport team coming to compete on campus and this makes good links.

·         Mentions the socialising after sports matches in the university bars mentions the ‘airport lounge’.  This resulted in many people not seeing the university as an elitist organisation, as perhaps they had previously assumed.

·         It has also created a lot of jobs for the local people, Ken knows several people who jobs in the university within the admin and estate departments.

·         Ken has personal links with many of the local colleges in the area and tries to spread the message of what Warwick University is all about.  Also occasionally has school students come in and take part in labs sessions.

·         Sees the development of learning grids ect as a result of students moving away from learning from books, to internet resources. Believes the library should be renamed the information centre, as there is no longer a need for a place that just has books.

·         When asked about the access and card only entrance to library he felt that ‘knowledge is universal, so the library should be universal and free of charge’.

·          Overall believes that the University ‘could do a hell of a lot more’ to forge good links with the community.

  

The University of Warwick. (1991) Making a University. A Celebration of Warwick’s First 25 Years

Printed by William Caple & Co. Ltd. Leicester. Compiled by Michael Shattock (possible interviewee)  

MRC reference UWA/B/12

Useful for 1960s, 70s & 80s Warwick. A compilation of photographs from the first 25 years of Warwick

Hannah has photocopies of some of the photos and captions from the ‘Academic Work’ section. Captions are useful in relation to staff and their departments.

 

Cath's notes on the same book, aso available in the library.

Shattock notes

 

P 13

Ling’s ideas – architectural and ‘viewed from living and communal perspective’, Chinn’s were about education. Walter Chinn a Quaker and a socialist – admired Tawney and Keele Uni. experiment.  Warwick not designed to be for local people. Chinn’s ‘Memorandum on the Creation of a University’ to the Education Committtee on 17 Oct 1958. said, ‘a university is by its very nature non-local in character’ UWA PP 4/4

P 14 idea of university part of dev of city centre – alongside Belgrade, Herbert – bringing cultutal and intellectual life into Manufacturing city. C How does this relationship between the manufacturing and cultural play out in the architecture?

P 17 disc about the name. Bishop Bardsley  (Bish of Cov) proposed University of Warwick. Some opposition following meeting – Richardson suggested ‘University of Arden’, Letts : ‘university of Coventry’CRO 1/1

P 18 desire for universities to turn out ‘balanced men’ rather than those with narrow/ necessary technical know-how. Chinn – progressive, supported comprehensives schools, wanted to see university which was comprehensive and covered wider spectrum of levels than trad university model

P 20 here suggests despite Oxbridge orientation of the Board, no desire to have colleagiate system, but C Hugh G H interview suggests otherwise – maybe this came later from Butterworth?

The Board saw university growing, ‘not be seeking to impose upon it at birth an artificial and romantic image of newness but by choice of staff with ideas on the development of their subjects; and by giving this limited staff the opportunity to create a university and its community’ (1963 UWA Com APB 1/1).   

P 22 Uniqueness of Warwick that it was only new uni to be founded in a manufacturing centre, ‘and perhaps for this reason the community – at the political, industrial and educational levels – was more involved, and invested more intellectual and, ultimately, financial capital in the university idea than in any of the other New Universities. ‘

Context in Coventry of conflicts between local and national interests and ideas about the university and what it would be. ‘In a very real sense the University was brought into existence by the generous support of the local authorities and a leading group of industrialists. It could not have happened without the initial leadership of Coventry but it was the very broadly based support of the community, as a whole, as evidenced in the success of the Foundation Appeal, which realised a national policy for founding new universities in the creation of what has become a national institution’ – List of contributors to Foundation Appeal on p 124.

P 25 ‘More than any of the New Universities, Warwick’s physical aspect illustrates the subordination of the discipline of planning to academic and social demands. The University has had three Development  Plans and has burst out of each of them ... ’

1960s YRM

1970s – filling in middles of Uni – Shepheard and Epstein and Renton Howard Wood

 1980s – massive building programme

See pp 26 -27 for the different plans.

We already have many of the pics – I am only highlighting those we don’t, which look good –

Pic 6 p 29 ‘The Long Walk between the Library and the Rootes Social Building’ – highlights the distance between buildings in the 1960s which students complained about. We were missing  p[ic like this when we did the Sheffield talk.

 

Pic 6 p 31, is 3B series no one by Bernard Schottlander 1968 one of first art works/ sculpture (red thing in rootes).

P 43 the new intake in 1965 – can we locate:

-          Helen Hunt (grad Phil and Politics; now Blackmore, special needs teacher)

-          Michal Jones ( French and European Lit , now Gen Adminsitrator at Wylfa Nuclear Power station on Angelsea

-          Pamela Boulton-Jones  (History,  now radiograopher)

-          Martin Foulser   (left at end of first year)

P 44 pic 3 – Hannah a picture here of the ‘founding professors’

 

P 3 – Nita Benn (nee Bowles) signing building agreement on behalf of union in 1974

P 59 ‘The fundamental task of a University is academic work: teaching, learning and research. Jack Butterworth use to say in his address to new students that the distinguishing feature of University teaching, particularly at Warwick where research flourished, was that it should take students “to the edge of knowledge in their discipline”.’ C interesting spatial metaphor. And important link research and teaching. What did Butterworth mean? Cath has p/copy of pages 60 -74 labelled, as much more explicitly about teaching and learning (spaces).  Perhaps area where v little change – as Shattock notes, ‘ 

Also a section with pictures relating to community teaching encompasses lecturing, laboratory classes, small group work, seminars, tutorials and projects. It may vary according to discipline and year; it may include off-campus reading weekends, day visits to places which relate to a  course, or a term in Venice; above all it is informal, critical and intellectually testing’ (p 59). Though ‘academic study remains an individual, not to say solitary, endeavour … ’ – has this changed with onset of social learning? Heroic image of lone scholar?    

 

Pp 95-110 by Bob Burgess – also a possible interviewee.

He notes parallel between ‘not only physical territory that was ripe for development but also academic territory’.  P 95.

They inherited so little, and had so much to create. – C

Notes that Asa Briggs, commenting on Sussex, said they were ‘redrawing the map of learning’.

‘ Jack Butterworth … enunciated his views to staff and students when he claimed that his fundamental philosophy was to establish a university based on research, teaching and service to the community. His position involved giving the founding fathers and their staff the opportunity to create the academic landscape: an opportunity that persuaded several people to come to Warwick …’ P 95

Professor Phillips-Griffiths (Griff) – founding prof of Maths – ‘When I discovered it was all wide open I agreed to come (to Warwick)’. (cited p 95 – from interview with Bob Burgess in 1990)

Butterworth, ‘Teaching and research in a university are complimentary, for in the best university experience ther is an intimiate connection between rsearch and teaching. Our students are taught by teachers who have regard to research, that is to say by techers who are acquainted with the frontiers of their subject and teach with the attitude of a research worker,  96 ( VC’s report to court 1969-1970 p 6)

 

-          Bit more to go on this, but I have p/copy ….

CL

 

UWA/F/PP/4A/5

Coventry Evening Telegraph - March 29th 1960

• University of Warwick presented to UGC with local support of church, education officials, local government and industry, but what about the 'standard local' support at grass roots level?
• University presented as an ASPIRATIONAL ideal; '[...] the raising of the cultural standard of life in this area by the establishment of a university ought to be an aspiration widely held.'

March 25th 1960

• Desperation for university places, opened the University of Sussex 2 years early in 1961 rather than 1963, Basil Spence as architect. Designed 'College House' as an intellectual centre for the university, arranged around a central courtyard with a modernist, clean, linear style. Similar to the aims of Eugene Rosenberg who designed Warwick?

October 13th 1960

• Programmes of expansion, 170,000-175,000 student places planned for mid-60s = architecture now based on packing as many students in as possible rather than 'intellectual swagger' creation?
• Interesting reflection on the curriculum, has it come full circle now? Aim to '[...] provide a general education on a broad inter-disciplinary course, with the minimum of specialisation at undergraduate level.'

December 1960 - January 1961

• 03/01/1961 - Henry Rees letter stressing the importance of a rural location. 1) If the university was placed in Coventry city centre, it could not be considered part of Warwickshire. 2) The UGC demanded a 200 acre site, and Kenilworth road site provides this and allows for the possibility of expansion. 3) Importance of a beautiful environment to encourage personal and intellectual development.
• The Barlow Report - suggested 6 new universities should be built to enable 170,000 student places to be available by 1970.
• Importance of new universities to experiment with the traditional degree structure to adapt to a changing labour market.

March 1961

• H. Walker - first suggestion of a university clearing house tro ensure all students who wished to go to university were able to, even if it was not their first choice of university that they were eventually placed at. Aspirational nature of going on to H.E is apparent here, also phrased as an 'enabling' service rather than a stigmatised last resort as clearing is today.

Birmingham Post, May 19th 1961

• University of Warwick as a symbolic and architectural centre for Coventry, with Cathedral representing spiritual life and university symbolising intellectual and technical progress since the war.
• Ling and Johnson, initial plans for Warwick = 670 resident students in 7 dorm blocks.
• University to be built on two levels due to the fall of the land, with an educational precinct and a social precinct, consisting of a 200ft tall 'tower of learning' in the centre to mark this 'symbolic identity' of Warwick for Coventry.

Coventry Evening Telegraph, May 19th 1961

• University architecture as a symbol of Coventry's development = 'Coventry's astonishing development in this century is punctuated by a series of impressive landmarks. SOme of them stand out like pinnacles.'

May 14th 1962

• Discussion of new universities and collegiate system, accepted at York as seen as more inclusive and personal, establishing solid links with tutors, university as a place of education NOT instruction.
• But critics, some of which were advocates of Warwick, argued this system was a mere reflection of the nostalgia of Oxford and Cambridge, and the driving force behind the new universities was the fact that they challenged this heritage.

November 1962

• Appointment of Butterworth as vice-chancellor, had ideas about the ethics and so the structure of the university itself. Wanted male and female students, international students, wished for most students to live on campus and for Warwick NOT to be a '9-5' university. Warwick as a round the clock SOCIAL and LEARNING SPACE; is this what the university strives for today?

Notes by L.E

 

 

HL notes 

Click to see Audio Visual Material catalogue. The following AV material has been kept behind and is useful for exhibit:

UWA/AV/2 1989 VHS The Warwick Video UWA/AV/1/52

19 minutes long

 

Advert in the case for open days (in the video prospective students are encouraged to attend an open day because not everybody enjoys the campus lifestyle):

 

27 September 1989

9 May 1990

16 May 1990

……………

 

Clarke Kerr received an honorary Warwick degree in 1985.

Kerr- an influential thinker in university education of the century

Footage of him discussing how university enriches lives and how too little is made of this quality of life

 

Good shots of campus and discussion of the countryside and Coventry. Leamington and Kenilworth mentioned.

 

Step by step guidance given about what to do when arriving at the campus for the first time.

 

A student describes the university as, ‘modern and friendly, much less bound up in tradition’.

 

Teaching: lecture footage and science demonstration with Prof. Keith Jenning (sp) of Physical Chemistry.

 

Seminars: chairs arranged in a circle with a small table where people rest their feet in the middle. Featuring John Halliday, Senior lecturer in Politics

 

Subjects/ courses:

Brian Ellis, Senior lecturer in Education and Jack Scans (sp), Professor of History discusses the wide range of interdisciplinary courses (joint hons) and the opportunity to combine a traditional single honours subject with a more modern one. Getting the best of the old and new

 

Visits staff in their departments:

Andy Woodhouse president of the SU

Clark Brundin VC

 

Carrie Arrowsmith (sp)

Julian Phillip

UWA/AV/2 mid-late 1980s VHS ‘Aerial shots of the University’ UWA/AV/1/57

Shows from Campus to Coventry city centre. No sound.

Could take snap shots or clips to use in exhibit but not sure about the technicalities of it.  

UWA/AV/3/1 1974 On Campus- Film of Campus and about student life at Warwick in 1969/70 a VHS copy is at UWA/AV/1/12iii

Directed by Stefan Sargent (now living in LA), Produced by Miss Beryl E. Stevens. Film awarded a Certificate of Merit in 1970 

Duration of 20 minutes, Shot in spring 1970, Intended audience- 6^th formers.  There is a booklet (UWA/AV/1/12ii) to accompany this- requested a photocopy (need to follow this up!)

The video is inspired by a student who wanted to demonstrate the difference in teaching methods (in Maths) between school and university. The UW welcomed the idea and extended it to university life. The video incorporates interviews and the views of students.It is stressed that a good qualification is not the B all and end all of the university experience- it provides a chance for personal development and to see the world. 

University development- opportunity to grow stressed.Shows a conversation in halls between a student and a cleaner about untidiness. 60% students reported to live in halls and the remaining 40% scattered in LMS (footage of Parade), Coventry, Kenilworth and Tile Hill.

Lectures and classes are shown to be a snooze fest with people filmed sleeping and a girl talks about this. Boy discuses how it is up to you when you work and how easy it is to put it off- manyana principle. A science experiment on the other hand appears to be enjoyable and there is laughing in a Math looking lecture. In an engineering workshop?? there is singing whilst using the machinery. Does this happen?Seminar group discussion filmed. Student in the library without shoes on their feet- comfortable 

Art around campus 

General Union of Students Meeting footage about supporting students who demonstrate (a very full meeting)  Notes which I am unsure about- HE program- why set up and to point about individuals and Western and Russian values… Need to watch again.

UWA CVCP

Some of the items in the Building Committee list may be 'closed' or unavailable to the public- especially anything to do with the falling tiles events of the 1970s because there was a legal dispute between the uni and the building company over them but we can send any other references we may be interested in, in the meantime in case permission is needed to view them- I will try some other references (inc. ones tile related just in case).

The following are interesting and might be useful especially if we come to write up our HES conference  paper.  

From The Sociology of Education archives pages (Higher Education), follow the link relating to student radicalism – the module resources for 'The Politics of Protest’ or try: http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/services/library/mrc/modules/docs/protest/#Paris and Prague

Follow: ‘1968: Paris and Prague’ for archives documenting the student revolt in Paris and the reactions of many to it

'Paris: May 1968' MSS.149/2/12/14/4 and Paris: 'The May upheaval 1968', 7 August 1968 MSS.154/3/LPO/20/27-36 

Far-left movements and student radicalism

Requested to see more of this: 'SE. What it is and how we fought it', 1967

'Agitator' pamphlet on the student sit-in at the London School of Economics, "written by some of those who participated in the struggle". [Included in the papers of Bob Purdie, Trotskyist; document reference: MSS.149/2/15/10] (available all next year and is not affected by the refurbishments).

Warwick University Students' Union 'Occupation News', 12 May 19751974/75- £182m slashed from Education Budget – on rent strike. Refer from nursery provision to the NUS. MSS.21/3429/10

History of Education: Collection: Society for Research into Higher Education (SRHE) 1966-77. Ref. Code SRH

Requested to see this: 'Participation and staff-student relations - a seven year study of social changes in an expanding college of education', M D Shipman. Mar 1969. MSS.323 box 1/14 (available all next year and is not affected by the refurbishments).

Requested to see this: 'The history of British universities 1800-1969, a bibliography', Harold Silver, S John Teague. Feb 1971. MSS.323 box 1/15 (available all next year and is not affected by the refurbishments).

Interesting article from critical gegraphy literature which show how ideas and ideals (he is looking at 'childhood') are constructed through architectural and building practices. He reviews the literature and uses an ethnographic study of a Stainer school in Wales to show how the ideas and ideals which Steiner education has of children (and education) are designed and realised int he building and the practices situated in the buildings.

There are lots of potentially useful parallels with our overall research questiosn and I found myself paraphrasing Krafly to reformulate his ideas in our own research context. For example:

What ideas and ideals about higher education, the university and the university student, are constructed through the design and building of the University of Warwick?

CL

What ideas and ideals about university pedagogy are constructed through the design and building of the University of Warwick?

In what ways do these idea(l)s and their possible manifestations into the built environment change over time?

What are the 'performative'  and 'gestural' features of the University's architectural forms?

The whole article can be accessed via the library's journal online system : Kraftl, P (2005) Building an Idea: the material construction of an ideal childhood, Transactions of the INstitute of British Gegraphers, 31 (4): 488-504.   

UWA/Photos/II.A.3/1 Buildings: social Studies c.1975-1977

UWA/Photos/II.B.2/1 Buildings: East Site - General 1960s-c.1970s
 
UWA/Photos/II.A.1/1 Buildings: Science Block and Computer Unit 1960s -
1970s

UWA/Photos/II.A.2/1 Buildings: Arts Block c.1970s

UWA/Photos/II.A.6/1 Buildings: Library 1960s - 1970s
 
UWA/Photos/II.B.1/1 Buildings: Maths Institute c.1970s