Oxford Brookes University is a new university in Oxford, England.
It can trace its origins to 1865 when the former Oxford School of Art was established.
The university was renamed in 1992 to honour its former principal, John Brookes.
The university's School of Architecture is one of the largest in Britain.
In 2014 it was ranked 379th in the world according to the QS World University Rankings but is
not included in Times Higher Education's list of the top 400 universities in the world.
Oxford Brookes is the sixth largest employer in Oxfordshire, providing over 2,800 jobs
across the university.
History Oxford Brookes started in 1865 as the Oxford
School of Art, located in a single room on the ground floor of the Taylor Institution
at St. Giles.
In 1870 the School of Science was added and in 1891, under the administration of the City
Council's Technical Instruction Committee, it was renamed the Oxford City Technical School,
incorporating the School of Art, which remained distinct.
Plans were made to relocate to the former Blue Coat School for Boys on St. Ebbes.
In 1934 the School of Art and the Technical School were merged, and John Henry Brookes,
Head of the School of Art and Vice Principal of the Technical School, was appointed the
first principal of the merged institution.
By 1950 the college had 4,000 students.
A new campus was built on a site offered by the local Morrell brewing family.
Renamed "Oxford College of Technology", it opened on the new site in 1956.
Its first residence hall was established in 1960 and the college relocated to Headington
in 1963.
In 1970, it became Oxford Polytechnic, and in 1992, following enactment of the Further
and Higher Education Act, it became Oxford Brookes University, the only one of the new
universities to be named after its founder.
In October 2003 Oxford Brookes University became the first university in the world to
be awarded Fairtrade status.
In 2007 Graham Upton retired as Vice-Chancellor and his successor, Professor Janet Beer, was
inaugurated in September.
In July 2008 Shami Chakrabarti, Director of Liberty, replaced Jon Snow as Chancellor of
the university.
Campuses Oxford Brookes University has three main campuses
and a fourth in Swindon.
Headington campus The Headington campus is in a residential
area of Oxford.
It consists of the Gipsy Lane site, which is the main teaching site, the Marston Road
site, which houses the school of Health and Social Care, and the Headington Hill site
across the road from Gipsy Lane, where the Students' Union, the School of Law, the School
of Arts, the Drama Studio and main halls of residence are located.
It has six halls of residence: Crescent Hall, Cheney Student Village, Clive Booth Hall,
Clive Booth Non-Ensuite, Warneford Hall and Paul Kent Hall.
Wheatley campus The Wheatley campus is near Wheatley in the
Oxfordshire countryside, seven miles south-east of the city centre, and is where business,
IT, mathematics and engineering are taught.
Harcourt Hill campus The Harcourt Hill campus is situated on Harcourt
Hill on Oxford's western perimeter, two and a half miles from the city centre.
Education, Philosophy, Religion, Theology, Media and Communication, and many other subjects
are taught here.
It has two halls of residence: Harcourt Hill Hall and Westminster Hall.
A regular devoted bus service links the campus to other campuses at Headington and Wheatley.
The campus was formerly the site of Westminster College, Oxford, an independent Methodist
higher education institution which specialised in teacher training and theology.
The campus was leased to Brookes by the Methodist Church, and Westminster College became the
Westminster Institute of Education of Oxford Brookes University, located at the Harcourt
Hill campus.
Ferndale campus The Ferndale campus is in Swindon, about 30
miles south-west of Oxford.
Adult Nursing, Operating Department Practice and a range of Continuing Professional Development
courses are taught there.
It has its own Osteopathic training clinic on-site offering services to staff, students
and the public.
Redevelopment The university is redeveloping its campuses.
Plans include a new library and teaching building acting as a core for the Gipsy Lane campus
and an extension to the Abercrombie building for the School of the Built Environment.
The Students' Union, originally housed in the Helena Kennedy Centre in Headington Hill,
will be moved to the new development at Gipsy Lane.
The proposals were vigorously opposed by local residents in 2009 when presented to the local
planning committee, with many undesirable aspects of the large student population in
Oxford being discussed.
However, the plans for the new building were eventually approved and building work began
in 2010.
Academic profile In September 2011 Oxford Brookes moved from
8 schools to 4 faculties: Faculty of Business
Business School Oxford School of Hospitality Management
Faculty of Health and Life Sciences Department of Biological and Medical Sciences
Department of Clinical Health Care Department of Psychology, Social Work and
Public Health Department of Sport and Health Sciences
Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences School of Education
Department of English and Modern Languages Department of History, Philosophy and Religion
School of Law Institute of Public Care
Department of Social Sciences Faculty of Technology, Design and Environment
School of Architecture School of Arts
Department of Computing and Communication Technologies
Department of Mechanical Engineering and Mathematical Sciences
Department of Planning Department of Real Estate and Construction
Specialist study The Centre for Development and Emergency Practice
in the School of the Built Environment was awarded the Queen's Anniversary Prize and
is well known for its programme for humanitarian practitioners.
CENDEP provides an academic setting for the study of cities, humanitarianism and refugees.
Singer and activist Annie Lennox is patron of the Master's Course in Humanitarian and
Development Practice.
In 2007, the MSc in Primate Conservation was awarded the Queen's Anniversary Prize – a
national honour recognising the outstanding contribution by the MSc programme team and
the Department of Anthropology & Geography at Oxford Brookes.
Automotive engineering The Oxford Brookes School of Technology is
known for its automotive and motorsports technology/engineering courses leading to undergraduate BSc(Hons),
BEng(Hons) and MEng(Hons) degrees.
Due to the close links between the school and several Formula 1 teams around Oxfordshire,
the syllabus development for the undergraduate and post graduate courses are carried out
in collaboration with F1 teams.
Over the decade, the school has developed a niche for producing Formula 1 design and
race engineers, who go on to build championship winning cars, participating in the FIA Formula
1 Championships.
The school is also home and lead institution to Motorsport Knowledge Exchange which is
a Government-funded small cooperative of institutions, involved in delivering motorsport education
at a variety of levels from technician to post-graduate.
In 2007, Formula One world champion Fernando Alonso sponsored 12 Spanish postgraduate students
to study for an MSc in motorsport engineering or in race engine design within the Department
of Mechanical Engineering and Mathematical Sciences at the university.
The university boasts a teaching staff that includes Prof. Geoff Goddard, a former chief
designer at Cosworth.
The School of Technology at Oxford Brookes is one of the three core universities in Faraday
Advance, a partnership in advanced materials for transportation that develops future materials
and technology for low-pollution, high-efficiency, cost-effective transport.
The Functional Food Centre at Oxford Brookes University is the UK's first research centre
dedicated to functional foods.
The centre was originally the Nutrition and Food Research Group at Oxford Brookes, founded
in 2004, and was renamed in 2009.
Reputation and rankings Courses in architecture, real estate management
and history have earned recognition of quality.
The School of Architecture is one of the largest in Britain and is consistently ranked in the
top five schools in the UK.
In the 2008 survey by the Architect's Journal it was ranked fourth overall.
In the QS World University Rankings 2013/14 Oxford Brookes was ranked 374.
Oxford Brookes University is in the top 30 of institutions for the study of undergraduate
law in the Times/ Sunday Times Good University Guide, with Law courses placed at 28th out
of 100 UK university law schools - higher than several Russell Group law schools,.
Moreover, Law courses provided by Oxford Brookes also are ranked in the top 150-200 bracket
of the QS World University Subject Rankings.
In the most recent Research Assessment Exercise, over three-quarters of the university's research
was recognised internationally, with research in law, education, the arts, sciences and
health adjudged world-leading Partnerships
Oxford Brookes University's partnership with the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants
allows ACCA students to earn a BSc in Applied Accounting with the submission of a research
and analysis project work while taking their ACCA examinations.
Tsinghua University will recognise the Oxford Brookes University BSc Applied Accounting
degree.
This degree has been successfully developed in conjunction with ACCA and enables students
who have completed two parts of the ACCA qualification to apply for the Oxford Brookes degree.
Munich Business School is the German partner institution of the university.
The university is also in partnership with the Budapest based institution of International
Business School, Budapest.
IBS students can attend courses which, besides the Hungarian degree also provides OBU BA
degrees in different subjects, such as Marketing, Communications, etc.
The university is also affiliated with Nilai University College in Malaysia.
Affiliated subjects are computing, accounting & finance, business management, marketing
management and hospitality management.
All the subjects mentioned above are 3+0 programs.
Organisation Chancellors
Vice-Chancellors Student life
Student union Oxford Brookes Students' Union is the students'
union of the university and it exists to support and represent the students of Oxford Brookes.
It is a member-led organisation and all students are automatically members.
Accommodation
There are currently 11 Student halls of which there are 4 in Headington Campus, 1 in Harcourt
Hill Campus, 1 in Wheatley Campus and 3 more halls around Headington.
In addition, there are three privately operated Halls of Residence which are managed in partnership
with the university by housing associations: Slade Park Student Apartments, Sinnet Court
Student Apartments and Dorset House Student Apartments.
Cheney Student Village Clive Booth Student Village
Crescent Hall Westminster Hall
Lady Spencer Churchill Hall Paul Kent Hall
Slade Park Dorset House
Sinnet Court Notable alumni
By far the main alumni for Oxford Brookes University is Lynne Featherstone, Liberal
Democrat MP and Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for International Development, who
was by far the main person involved in the delivery of same-sex marriage in the United
Kingdom.
References
External links Oxford Brookes University – Official website
Oxford Brookes Students' Union