Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals of the Universities of the United Kingdom (CVCP): part of the Modern Records Centre's main collection(HL, LM, DW notes)  Photocopies filed in Reinvention Office R.3.09 

(HL) MSS.399/3/00HE/1July 1982-8405/5/3 Local and Regional coordination of HERegional cooperation and the RACs  

CVCP 4/09/84 Speech by Christopher Ball, Chair of National Advisory Board (NAB): ‘Planning HE: Is there a regional dimension?’

- Replacement of Robbins Report, 1985 Green Paper- ‘Long Term Strategy for HE’

- HE demand remains strong and should be available to all able to benefit

- HE and the needs of society

- Cooperation between neighbouring institutions- joint courses, exchange of staff, ‘cooperation in expensive capital terms’ such as IT and library resources

CVCP File C26/4 

Council for Validating Universities 9/09/82

June 1982, Alec Ross (Chairman of CVU) met with Professor John Andrew, Christopher Ball and John Bevan (notes)

Conclusion: “There can be no question that the relationship between governments and universities are being changed”. Aware of this because engaged in validation- central planning and regional coordination.

Page 2: The Robbins Report (RR) and Robbins Principle (Consideration of British Industry (CBI) publicly accepted) 

Much has occurred since the RR through the growth of the university system which the report stimulated and also through the development of the Polytechnics.

Growth in new subject areas is a response to need of industry and commerce.

There has been a change in demographic trends and economic climate of country since the RR and now there is urgent need for a new overall policy for HE this century. 

Maximum cost effectiveness

Page 6: Autonomy enjoyed by individual institutions 

6/10/82 VCC

CBI submission to the Leverhulme programme of study into the future of HE

MSS.399/3/00HE/105/5/2 Organisation of HENational and regional coordination of the HE (DES Working Party) 09/1978- 06/1982 

-          05/5/5 Letter  to Geoffrey Caston, Secretary General 26/05/82 from Michael Shattock, Academic Registrar at Warwick

‘anxious to ensure the discussion […] not academic and out of touch with the realities which you and I have to live with’  

- A letter/ response to Michael Shattock, Academic Registrar at Warwick from Geoffrey Caston, Secretary General 10/ 06/82

Leverhulme programme  

Views about the importance of the discussion on structure and governance taking a realistic and politically practical form (about universities’ divisions on these issues for good and understandable reasons).

-          Christopher Ball (prominent figure)

Warden of Keble College, Oxford

Chairman of the LAHE Board

Education Junior Minister 11/12/81

 Photocopy no. 1: Nov 1981Council for National Academic Awards (CNNA) Introduction toResponse to Government’s consultative doc. On HE in England outside the universities: policy, funding and management. Photocopy no. 2 ??  

-          Education 28/ 08/81

Page 170: ‘In Quotes’

“Education is the Cinderella of English politics and now and then it seems attempts are made to starve her”/ 

C. Mathew Arnold: A Life by Park H…

 -          NUS logo text:  Sixty years serving students, 1992, NUS, 1982, A Force for the Future.  

MSS. 399/3/EXP/1Correspondence with UGC- University Expansion  -          Photocopy no. 3

Department of Education and Science

Education Press Notice: Universities’ Building Programme

 -          Photocopy no.4

CVCP Press Statement – money from government available for university building programmes for 1966-69

 Photocopy no. 5 (Booklet)NUS, Memorandum to the University Grants Committee on the Expansion of University Education 1960-1970  -            

MSS.399/3/STM/1

-          1964- 1974

Student Matters

 Student participation documents of ’64- ‘71 -          Photocopy no. 7

Page 3: David Adelstein, Crisis in HE: The Roots of Revolt   

-          08/1968 Joint statement from the CVCP and NUS

Photocopy no. 8

Pages 3 and 4: Student Participation in University Decision- making

  MSS.399/3/ SRHE/1 Society for research into HE ’64- ‘87 

-          Leverhulme seminar on structure and governance in HE

Warwick, 13-15/ 09/82

M. Shattock- convenor

Binary and post- binary policy.  -          Photocopy no. 6 NUS, The Future of the Universities   

(DW) MSS.399/3/BDG/31966-1974NO3. BUILDING, UNIVCOSTS OF NEW BUILDINGS 

1968 Edition ‘New University Buildings: Costs and Erection Period’. Committee of Vice- Chancellors

 

YEAR	BUILDING	COST
1964-66	Library (Stage One)	£743, 889
1964-65	Arts- Warwick Arts building (interim), with interim science labs, dining and common rooms and library	£526, 940
1967-69	Physics (Stage One)	£626,939
1965-66	Rootes Hall (Common Room)	£489-973

 

(LM) CVCP mss 399/3/00HE/1 05/3 – Organisation of Higher Education – Regional Advising Machinery in higher and further education – CLEA Proposals (CLEA – Commonwealth legal education association??)GPC Report 27/06/75

·         Discusses proposals to create regional co-ordination of higher education. It considered the following;

1.       Developments in specific fields such as teacher training, adult education and liaison with health authorities.

2.       Co- ordination and planning for further education and higher education in the public sector.

(Background) White paper ‘Education: A framework for expansion’ 1972.

Concerned with the reorganisation of teacher education and training, main issues included ;

1.       Academic validation.

2.       Professional recognition.

3.       Co-ordination and higher education supply.

They wanted to establish new regional committees replacing area training organisations.

Developments:  In 1973 the advisory committee on the supply and training of teachers (under the chairmanship of the Vice Chancellor of Manchester University) advised the Secretary of State on the central responsibilities for teacher supply and training.

July 1975 – A summary of replies from UK Universities about the proposals. Co-operation with polytechnics.

·         There are informal arrangements for University and Poly staff, to teach at each other’s institutions in times of sickness, holiday ect.

·         At Oxford, poly students attend lectures, seminars at the university.

Joint courses.

·         Universities combining to run joint courses with each partner contributing.

Non academic – Joint Research.

·         At Newcastle, Durham and various other universities, there is shared computer access with polytechnics.

·         Many Universities shared careers and counselling services.

Health Services.·         Some universities ie Manchester have funding which allows Poly students from local areas to access their healthcare facilities.·         For some universities lack of polytechnic funds has blocked potential co-operation. Libraries

·         Universities limited in allowing universal access.

·         Some allow staff to use facilities but not students (i.e. Bristol).

·         Others such as Manchester, Leeds and Keele have highly advanced co-operation.

Other example of co-operation.·         Sharing sports and union facilities.·         Open universities using polytechnics for study rooms and labs.  Secretary of State’s speech to CLEA

‘ I attach great importance to ending the differences between home and overseas students, and in separating tuition fees from maintenance grants for purposes of assessing the parental contribution and excluding the fees from assessment for students on mandatory and comparable awards’

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

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

 

 

 'On Campus' Video - UWA/AV/1/12ii

 Leaflet

• Video on teaching methods especially in Maths in hope of inspiring Sixth Formers to go to university.
• Shot in Spring 1970, drawing on all aspects of student life, in particular the adjustment from school to university.
• At the time, 2000 students, 260 academic staff, 27 professors, and 65 research staff made up the university.

Video

• Student accomodation - focus on J block in Rootes building which was £4 per week, 60% students on campus, the other 40% in Coventry or Leamington.
• Rural location exaggerated as a plus point for studying at Warwick, perhaps an 'intellectual landscape'.
• Law lecture filmed - basic chalk and talk, students comment on missing lectures due to the difference in school and university structure i.e self directed study rather than forced.
• 'No work and all play' principle shattered by the reality of university pressures.
• Art on the walls - large abstract paintings, link with Sarah Shalgosky interview and use of modernism to portray a new, dynamic intellectual style of university.
• Before attending university it is seen as an apiration, following arrival and the loss of security of home, this leads to uncertainty and questioning of motivation to continue education in the first place.
• Active student body observed, busy union, protests, events and societies.
• Student union meeting filmed, very good attendance, observe a discussion of legal action being taken against student protestors on campus.
• University education portrayed as about the overall experience rather than just the work and academic aspect.
• Discussion of higher education and the influx of working class students - alot of debate, some students were very supportive of this but one male student filmed was against it completely arguing that the working class were needed for industry and did not need to expand their intellect.
• Interesting quote from a student;'Lectures are churned out to you and you expect to absorb it all, but you just can't.' HAS THIS CHANGED!??
• The definition of what it means to be a student is different for each individual, although the common factor in shaping this definition is that one is FREE to choose how one wishes to define themselves.

'The Warwick Video' 1989-1990 UWA/AV/1/52

• Prospectus video.
• Importance of Freshers' fair and non-academic life stressed.
• Students of mixed nationalities, classes, and races - more inclusive education.
• Very green campus, campus life stressed as a plus point of Warwick, significant?
• Highlight of interdisciplinarity of Warwick courses, best of the traditional and the new - has its spaces tried to reflect this intellectual commitment?
• Importance of links with industry and research.
• Warwick welfare system highlighted, interestingly exams presented as 'character building'.
• Video presented as a MARKETING PLOY rather than a realistic picture of student life as the 1970s video portrayed.

Notes by L.E

 

 

UWA/F/PP/4A/4 – Press Reports 1951 – 1959 

Financial Times December 1951

 

·         Argument that Coventry offers a perfect location for a new British technological university.

·         Described as a ‘mechanical centre of Britain’ and as having a good location due to its proximity to the ‘congeries of industrial cities’

 

Coventry Standard December 1953

 

·         Population of 262,000, which is bigger than Southampton, Dundee, Reading, all of which have universities.

·         Rapid population rise linked with industrial development.

·         Motor industry is ‘acknowledged centre in the whole country’.

·         Coventry already a centre for research thus, students would benefit from location.

·         In return local industry would be supplied with a stream of technicians, as a result may help with funding for a possible university.

·         Many businesses visit Coventry and study their methods of production.

·         It is one of only seventeen places with a Lord Mayor, fourteen of the other location have a university.

 

Further opinions

 

·         Alderman Stringer - part of City Council Policy Advisor Committee. He accepts the financial obstacles, however in support of a technological University.

·         Headmaster of Henry VIII Grammar school against proposal. Argues that present technical colleges are not suitable enough to rise to a university standard, especially not in Coventry as it does not have ‘ the tradition of higher education, nor the balanced social structure which would properly foster a university’.

·         S.J Harley – Chairman & managing director of Coventry Gauge & Tool LTD. Believes Coventry should unite with Birmingham to form a ‘still greater University…to serve Midland industry’.

·         Ernest Simpson – City librarian. Stresses that a possible university needs to balance technology and the arts. Accepts that local industry would fund science, doubts support for the arts.

·         H.B.W Cresswell (Lord Mayor) offered his support in favour of a University.

·         A.W Weekes – Secretary Coventry Engineering Employers Association – Doubts ‘whether there is a sufficient volume of people who want a university education in Coventry’.

·         W.L Chinn – Coventry Director of Education. Suggests that if a university is just developed to facilitate Coventry trade, it shows a ‘fundamental misunderstanding of the true function of a University’.

·         B.T.L Gardiner – Chairman of Coventry Education Committee. Believes technical colleges should be expanded so that one day they can award qualifications that will rank as highly as degrees. Sees no need for a university which supply vocational courses, for student who have no idea what they want to do with their life.

·         H. Rees. Argues that Coventry, Leamington, Kenilworth, Warwickshire, Rugby and Nuneaton could contribute students.  Claims there is no social link between Coventry and Birmingham thus, no reason why the presence of a Birmingham University should prevent Coventry having a University.

 

May 1954

 

·         Lord Mayor Cresswell elected president of the council for the establishment of a University in Coventry.

·         There were objections from the council.

·         Establishing a university would mean it would have to be self governing and have the power to award degrees comparable to else where. Students must be drawn from a wide area range, and they believe these factors are not possible.

April 1956 - Coventry Standard.

• Government selection of Rugby Technology College as a potential major Technology College in the country is described as 'the biggest slap in the face that Coventry has received in living memory'. Also the suggestion that students either go to Birmingham or Rugby is described as an ignominious corollary'.
• 'There is a great day ahead for this city if the people will only look to the dawn'

 Feburary 1958.

• John Hewitt Coventry art director
• 'Most professional peoplewho work in Coventry live on the outskirts or in Warwick, Kenilworth and Leamington...At night the city becomes a working class community'
• 'Coventry people have no great attachment to the arts'
• 'Coventry is a working class city of people with tv sets, washing machines and shiney motor cars'.

 The Coventry Evening standard

June 1958

• Government names Leamington Spa as a possible site for new University.

 October 1958

• Governments desire for more universities results in Coventry being reconsidered as a possible location.
• Coventry City Council consider possible sites for a university.
• Subject to the City Councils approval , Coventry Policy Advisory Committee are to ask the Planning and Redevelopment Committee to provisionally allocate an area of land for a possible University site.

 December 1958

• Coventry City Council earmark land bounded by Kenilworth and Gibbet Hill Road as a possible site.
• Estimate cost of building as 3-5 million pounds.
• A.G Ling and R.S Johnston design the tower of learning. A 21 floor story high building, which could contain 7 departments, with three floors each.
• However opposition to site due to it not being accessible enough.

September 1959

• National worry that there is too many students and not enough University places.

April 1960

• Agreed that a University in Coventry will be named University of Warwick and should be submitted to the University Grants Commission.
• Committee who will got to Grants Commission includes Lord Rootes, Arnold Hall and Bishop of Coventry.

Leamington Spa Courier

• University named Warwick in order for the University to encompasses all of surrounding area and so that Coventry 'does not hog the limelight'

 May 19th 1961

• University of Warwick approved,

 

 

 

Laura M

UWA/F/PP/4A/9 - Architectural Design, Dec 1958, Vol. XXVIII Coventry Rebuilds

Pg 502-University as part of Coventry rebuilds

• Idea for uni in 1958, University of Coventry name used here, link to Ruth interviews and Lanchester Polytechnic.
• Association of Uni Teachers, needed to be 63% increase in no. of student places at unis by 1966, Coventry could be part of this.
• Existing unis had reached full capacity, Association recommended 5 new unis.
• Arthur Ling and Stewart Johnston, architects with possible uni vision, emphasis on technology and humanities. 

Pg 506 - High Schools Today and Tomorrow, book review

• Advocating a new pedagogy implemented through 'free architecture'.
• Mentions A.S Neill and progressive school
• 'The state schools grow anually more gargantuan and more remote from the individual pupil, and academic requirements imposed from above entangle staff and pupils ever more inextricably.' Could this be applied to Warwick today?
• Book by Dr Bursch, specialist in school design and John Lyon Reid (school architect), on alternative school design to empower pupil and to express individuality. So how new is the 'new' pedagogy of social learning.

UWA/F/PUB/1 - The University of Warwick: A New University in a Modern City

• Intended to admit 300 students by 1965 - continuous process of expansion, reason for rural location? Ruth mentioned this in interview.
• 200 acres acquired initially but, 'the city has been asked whether it would be possible to earmark further land.'
• Interesting community links; '[...] it is our intention not only to plan the university comprehensively but also to consider its relation with the county and the city.'
• Students - encouragement of common rooms, dining rooms, to promote 'full identity with the university' = architecture and identity creation.
• PHOTOCOPY (see Laura E's file) of University of Warwick Academic planning Board, possible interview leads.
• Lanchester College of Technology opened in 1960.
• PHOTOCOPY (L.E file) view of Gibbet Hill farm and Warwick site plan, idea of what existed prior to the university.

UWA/F/PP/4A/10 - University of Warwick, Coventry: The University and The City, by Arthur Ling (City Architect and Planning Officer for Coventry), Nov 1962

• Report examining the size and content of the university, as well as impact on the city.
• Uni starting population of 3000, proposed expansion to 7000; this would generate a further 3800 and 7900 people resident in the area with families etc.
• Warwick wished to provide 80% of accomodation for students on campus to reduce road congestion - this was unheard of in early 60s for universities as most students lived in lodgings, Warwick intent on creating a strong sense of belonging, affiliation and INTERNAL IDENTITY?
• Uni's relationship with Coventry, argued for a link between the city's institutions and local people through extra mural departments in city centre, University Institute of Education in city centre, and possible links with Lanchester via shared social facilities.
• 'It seems most desirable in any case that the isolation of the university within the city should be AVOIDED and this could be achieved by linking the Gibbet Hill site with the city centre by means of university buildings on a lineal basis.'
• PHOTOCOPY (L.E file) of extension map.

Notes by Laura Evans