University College London
The Television & Movie Wiki: for TV, celebrities, and movies.
| University College London | |
| Image:UCL-logo-new.png | |
| Motto | Cuncti adsint meritaeque expectent praemia palmae "Let all come who by merit most deserve reward" |
| Established | 1826 |
| Provost | Prof Malcolm Grant |
| Location | London, United Kingdom |
| Students | 18,000 total (7,273 postgraduate) |
| Faculty | 3,800 |
| Member of | University of London, Russell Group |
| Homepage | http://www.ucl.ac.uk |
University College London, commonly known as UCL, is one of the colleges that make up the University of London. There are almost 25,000 staff and students at UCL, making the college larger than most universities in the United Kingdom. It is often referred to as the third oldest university in England[1], after Oxford and Cambridge. It is a member of the Russell Group of Universities, and a part of the 'G5' sub-group of 'super-elite' universities, along with Oxford, Cambridge, LSE and Imperial. UCL consistently ranks among the top five universities in the UK league tables. It has an annual turnover of over £550m, and accounts for more than 40% of the Russell Group's research funding. On September 27 2005 UCL was awarded the power to award its own degrees, although it continues to award degrees of the University of London.
The main part of the college is located in Bloomsbury, central London, on Gower Street. The nearest stations on the London Underground are Euston, Euston Square, and Warren Street.
Contents |
History
Jeremy Bentham
The philosopher Jeremy Bentham (1748 - 1832) is considered to be the spiritual father of UCL, as he played a major role in the development of the college. Whilst he is often credited with founding the college, Jeremy Bentham played no part in the establishment of the institution.
Jeremy Bentham was a strong advocate for making higher education more widely available, and is often linked with the University's early adoption of a policy of making all courses available to anyone (who could pay the fees) regardless of sex, religion or political beliefs.
A further reason for Jeremy Bentham's fame within UCL is due to the fact that his body is on display to the public. Jeremy Bentham specified in his will that he wanted his body to be preserved as a lasting memorial, and this instruction was duly carried out. This 'Auto-Icon' has become famous. Unfortunately, when it came to preserving his head, the process went disastrously wrong and left the head badly disfigured. A wax head was made to replace it, but for many years the real head sat between his legs. However, this head was frequently stolen and subjected to many student pranks, with students from rival King's College London often the culprits. The head is said to have at one time been found in a luggage locker at Aberdeen station, and to have been used as a football by students in the Quad. These events led to the head being removed from display and placed instead in the College vaults, where it remains to this day.
Other rumours surrounding the Auto-Icon are that the box containing his remains is wheeled into senior college meetings, and that he is then listed in minutes as 'present but not voting'. He is also said to have a vote on the council, but only when the vote is split, and that he always votes in favour of the motion.
When the Upper Refectory was refurbished in 2003, the room became renamed the Jeremy Bentham Room (sometimes abbreviated JBR) in tribute to the man.
Founding and development
Image:The London University by Thomas Hosmer Shepherd 1827-28.JPG
UCL was founded in 1826 under the name "University of London" as a secular alternative to the strictly religious universities of Oxford and Cambridge. It was founded from the beginning as a University, not a College or Institute. However its founders encountered strong opposition from the Church of England which prevented them from securing the Royal Charter that was necessary for the award of degrees, and it was not until 1836, when the University of London was established, that the college was legally recognised and granted the power to award degrees of the University of London[1].
The college was the first UK higher education institution to accept students of any race or religious or political belief. It was possibly the first to accept women on equal terms with men (the University of Bristol also makes this claim - as both were admitting students to University of London degrees at the time, it is quite possible that this was a simultaneous action), the first in England to establish a students' union (although men and women had separate unions until 1945), and the first to have professorships in chemical engineering, chemistry, Egyptology, electrical engineering, English, French, geography, German, Italian, papyrology, phonetics, psychology, and zoology.
In 1907 the University of London was reconstituted and many of the colleges, including UCL, lost their separate legal existence. This continued until 1977 when a new charter restored UCL's independence. In 1985 the main Gower Street building was finally finished - 158 years after the foundations were laid.
In 1973, UCL became the first international link to the ARPANET, the precursor of today's internet.
In August 1998 the medical school at UCL merged with The Royal Free Hospital Medical School to create the new Royal Free and University College Medical School.
Even today UCL retains its strict secular position, and unlike most other UK universities has no Christian chaplaincy or Muslim prayer rooms. Due to this policy UCL has also been known as "the godless institution of Gower Street".
UCL Union repeats this policy, and is also constitutionally forbidden from being tied to a political party. Candidates for positions cannot campaign on party tickets, to which many might attribute the repeated descriptions of UCL as relatively 'apolitical', especially in contrast to nearby institutions like LSE. But we might equally pin this on social/cultural tendencies within the student body and university administration.
Image:UCLlibrary.jpg The UCL Library is famous in its own right, its collection including a first edition of Newton's Principia.
In October 2002, a plan to merge UCL with Imperial College London was announced by the universities. The merger was widely seen as a de facto takeover of UCL by Imperial College and was opposed by both staff and UCL Union, the students' union; but what particularly angered many staff and students was the perceived lack of consultation before the proposal was made. At an Emergency meeting organised by University College London Union to discuss the merger and the union´s stance on it, the then provost Sir Derek Roberts stormed out of the Bloomsbury theatre, refusing to listen to a speaker who opposed the merger. He himself had just finished delivering a speech in favour. One month later after a vigorous campaign the merger was called off.
On 1 August 2003, Professor Malcolm Grant took the role of President and Provost (the principal of UCL), taking over from Sir Derek Roberts, who had been called out of retirement as a caretaker provost for the college.
Shortly after his inauguration, UCL began the 'Campaign for UCL' initiative, in 2004. It aimed to raise £300m from alumni and friends. This kind of explicit campaigning is traditionally unusual for UK universities, and is similar to US university funding. UCL had a financial endowment in the top ten among UK universities at £81m, according to the Sutton Trust (2002).
UCL was named Sunday Times University of the Year in 2004. The Sunday Times 2005 University Guide describes UCL as "physically and academically at the centre of the University of London. Mergers with a number of medical and other academic schools have created a multidisciplinary college that rivals Oxford and Cambridge for breadth, exclusivity and cutting-edge teaching and research."
Famous alumni
See also List of UCL Alumni
UCL alumni include legions of the "Great and Good", ranging from Mahatma Gandhi to the members of Coldplay. An historical bent towards the arts has tended to mean a higher output of authors, including Robert Browning and Raymond Briggs, than scientists and engineers, although it still has its fair share, such as Francis Crick, John Ambrose Fleming and perhaps most notably Alexander Graham Bell. Politicians figure highly in the lists, notably both the first prime minister of Japan, Hirobumi Ito and the current prime minister Junichiro Koizumi.
UCL buildings
Image:UniversityCollegeLondon.jpgUCL operates in many separate buildings. Whilst most of the buildings are concentrated in the Bloomsbury area of Central London (near Euston station), others can be found as far away as Old Street. Some of the buildings have been acquired through mergers with other colleges, and others have been newly built. The newest include the Engineering Wing on Malet Place and the Andrew Huxley Building within the Gower Street Site. UCL's newest buildings include the London Centre for Nanotechnology on Gordon Street, aimed for completion in 2006 and a new building for the School of Slavonic and East European Studies (currently at Senate House) which was opened (by Princess Anne and the President of the Czech Republic, Vaclav Klaus) in October 2005 on Taviton Street. The Institute of Cancer Sciences is currently undergoing construction at the site of the disused Nurses' Home on Huntley Street and is due for completion by early 2006.
Image:Kats.jpeg Image:Smallercruc.JPG Image:Draytonhouse.jpg Image:University College Hospital - New Building - London - 020504.jpg
Notable buildings:
- The Main Building also known as the Octagon (building) including the Quad, Cloisters and the Wilkins building
- 1-19 Torrington Place
- Bedford Way Buildings
- Bentham House (Endsleigh Street)
- The UCL Bloomsbury Theatre
- Campbell House East and West (Taviton Street)
- Chadwick House
- The Cruciform Building - a red-brick building notable for being built in a cross shape (Medicine)
- Drayton House
- Engineering Building (Malet Place)
- Ifor Evans & Max Rayne Student Residences (Camden Road)
- Foster Court (Languages)
- Frances Gardner House and Langton Close (Gray's Inn Road)
- Christopher Ingold Building (Gordon Street)
- London Centre for Nanotechnology (Gordon Street)
- Medawar (named after Peter Medawar)
- Ramsey Hall Student Residence (Maple Street)
- Rayne Buildings
- Rockefeller (Science)
- Schafer House Student Residence (Drummond Street)
- University College Hospital (recently re-built)
- UCLU (Gordon Street)
- Wates House (Endsleigh Gardens)
- DMS Watson Science Library
Museums and collections
UCL is responsible for several museums and collections in a wide range of fields across the arts and sciences:
- Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology: one of the leading collections of Egyptian and Sudanese archaeology in the world. Open to the public on a regular basis.
- Grant Museum of Zoology And Comparative Anatomy: a diverse Natural History collection covering the whole of the animal kingdom. Includes rare dodo and quagga skeletons. A teaching and research collection, it is named after Robert Edmund Grant, UCL's first professor of comparative anatomy and zoology from 1828, under whom Charles Robert Darwin studied. Open at limited fixed times and by appointment.
- Geology Collections: founded around 1855. Primarily a teaching resource and may be visited by appointment.
- Art Collections: these date from 1847 when a collection of sculpture models and drawings of the Neo-classical artist John Flaxman was presented to UCL. There are over 10,000 pieces dating from the 15th century onwards including drawings by Turner etchings by Rembrandt and works by many leading 20th century British artists. The works on paper are displayed in The Strang Print Room, which has limited regular opening times. The other works may be viewed by appointment.
- Institute of Archaeology Collections: Items include prehistoric ceramics and stone artefacts from many parts of the world, the Petrie collection of Palestinian artefacts, and Classical Greek and Roman ceramics. Visits by appointment only.
- Ethnography Collections: This collection exemplifying Material Culture, holds an enormous variety of objects, textiles and artefacts from all over the world. Visits by appointment only.
- Galton Collection: The scientific instruments, papers and personal memorabilia of Sir Francis Galton. Housed in the department of biology. Visits by appointment only.
- Science Collections: Diverse collections primarily accumulated in the course of UCL's own work, including the operating table on which the first anaesthetic was administered. Items may be a viewed by appointment.
UCL is developing a new facility called The Panopticon which will allow public access to its collections to be greatly improved. UCL Library's Special Collections, which encompass a large and diverse collection of rare books, incunabula and medieval manuscripts, including Jewish Collections of over 15,000 items, will also move into the new building. The Panopticon will feature permanent galleries for the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology, galleries devoted to the Art and Library Special Collections, a gallery for temporary exhibitions from the other collections, lecture theatres and study rooms. Planning permission was granted in 2004 and it is scheduled to open in 2009.
Campus networking
UCL provides students and staff with wired and wireless internet access at a number of locations on campus, through a service called RoamNet. However, access to this service requires the use of a proprietary Cisco VPN client, which is not supported on handhelds, non-Intel Linux systems, or other alternative platforms.
UCL user names are seemingly random: e.g. "ucxxxxx". According to the UCL Education and Information Support Division, network users in student halls are not allowed to participate in IRC, network game playing, or chain mail; or host services such as HTTP, mail, FTP, NNTP, or telnet; or run software that uses RPC-based services (such as NFS) or IP multicast services; connect more than one machine at a time to a single network jack, or attach any device other than their personal workstation to the jack. Plugging a machine into another active port without authorization will cause a security violation, and the port will be disabled. As of September 2005, the fee for activating a port in a room is 70 GBP per year, and cannot be refunded or issued at a discount for intervals of less than one year.
Filming at UCL
Due to its position within London and the attractiveness of the front quad, UCL has been frequently used as a location for film and television recording.
- Spooks (Series III, episode II) features the front quad and the Gustav Tuck Lecture Theatre
- The Mummy Returns uses bits of UCL to masquerade as the British Museum
- Batman Begins features the DMS Watson library as "Gotham Print Room".
- Thunderbirds used the main Quad and Building as the "Bank of London".
- Gladiator used the main Quad as a model for ancient Rome.
- Silent Witness uses the main Quad (carefully avoiding the Observatories), the main door, and the South and North Cloisters as well as the Octagon.
Interesting facts
- Life Thru a Lens, the debut album by Robbie Williams features UCL in the album artwork, including the front cover.
- There is a pub named the Jeremy Bentham, after the UCL auto-icon, in University Street, London.
- The current UCL provost, Professor Malcolm Grant, agreed to shave off his moustache if UCL students raised £1500 for Comic Relief, on Red Nose Day, 2005. Unfortunately for his moustache - of 33 years - students and staff duly donated over £2000.
- The spiritual father of UCL, Jeremy Bentham, is also famous for designing Prisons most notably the Panopticon
See also
External links
Footnotes
|{{{3|}}}
|{{qif
|test={{{{{{3|}}}}}}
|then=^
|else={{{3|}}}
}}
|a}} Whether or not UCL is the third oldest university in England is open to some debate. UCL is certainly not the third oldest higher education institution in the UK, predated, for example, by Aberdeen University in 1495. Within England, other older higher education institutions exist, for example what is now the University of Nottingham was founded in 1798. However, Nottingham only received its Royal Charter (conferring university status) in 1948, making it younger as a university. Conversely, King's College London (KCL) was founded after UCL, but received its Royal Charter before UCL, so technically, KCL is an older university. This is further confounded by the fact that neither UCL nor KCL are actually universities in their own right, but part of the University of London. All that can really be said is that UCL was part of a rapid expansion in universities in the UK, which also included Durham University. UCL was unique in the fact that it was secular.
es:University College de Londres it:University College di Londra ja:ユニヴァーシティ・カレッジ・ロンドン no:University College London zh:伦敦大学学院
