University of the West of England

The University of the West of England (abbrev. UWE, often pronounced "you-we") is a university based in the English city of Bristol. Its main campus is at Frenchay, about 5km north of the city centre with a smaller campus at St Matthias, a nursing school at Glenside in north-east Bristol and an Art school, Bower Ashton college, near Ashton Court in south-west Bristol There are also regional centres in Bath and Swindon, and an associate faculty specialising in agricultural and sports related courses in Hartpury, Gloucestershire. This satellite college has staged the European Young Rider Championship, a horse riding competition. With around 24,000 students and 1,000 academic staff, it is the larger of the two universities in the city (the longer established University of Bristol has 15,000). 86% of students at UWE are from state school. The well-stocked library on the Frenchay site is called the Bolland Library, named after Dr Robert Bolland, the first director of Bristol Polytechnic from 1969 to 1974. The main Frenchay campus is situated close to the M32 motorway and twenty minutes walk from the well-connected Bristol Parkway railway station; from there, Cardiff is half an hour away, and Birmingham one hour and fifteen minutes.

The chancellor of UWE is the Rt Hon Lady Justice Elizabeth Butler-Sloss, DBE.

Contents

1 Student Union 2 History 3 External links 3.1 News items

Student Union

UWESU, the student union, is based at the Frenchay Campus. It involves itself with sport, though is not overtly political. It boycotts Nestle. The Frenchay campus has a union shop, a jobshop, a launderette, a NatWest bank and three eating/drinking venues, and hosts a weekly student night, Crunchie. There is no sports centre or outdoor changing rooms at present, but a large floodlit artificial pitch. The Hartpury Campus rugby team, which has extensive sporting facilities on-hand, has had national success.

The student magazine, Westworld, is published each month and the newspaper, Western Eye, every fortnight. The student radio station, The Hub, is based in The Rackhay in the centre of Bristol and broadcasts twenty four hours a day on the internet, as most student radio stations now do, and 1449AM across Bristol. It was instigated quite recently in September 2004.

History

UWE was founded in 1970 as Bristol Polytechnic, but can trace its roots back to the foundation of the Merchant Venturers' Navigation School in 1595; part of this institution (to which the Universities of Bristol and Bath also partly owe their origins) became a technical college which, after merger with various other colleges, in turn became the polytechnic. Like the other former polytechnics, this gained university status and its present name as a result of the 1992 Further and Higher Education Act. The Bower Ashton site was formed in 1969 as the West of England College of Art. The St Matthias site was a former teacher training college, and became part of Bristol Polytechnic around 1976. The Avon and Gloucestershire College of Health (now the Glenside Campus) and the Bath and Swindon College of Health Studies joined in January 1996. Hartpury joined in 1997. UWE is now regularly rated as a top three "new university" in league tables. A new £75m site is currently being built at the Frenchay campus which includes a sports centre and rooms for 2000 students, being hoped to open in September 2006.

External links

• University of West of England Website (http://www.uwe.ac.uk)
• History of UWE (http://www.uwe.ac.uk/aboutUWE/history.shtml)
• UWE Students' Union (http://www.uwesu.net)
• Crunchie - student union weekly night. (http://www.uwesu.net/crunchie)
• Westworld - student magazine. (http://www.uwesu.net/westworld)
• Western Eye - student newspaper. (http://www.uwesu.net/westerneye)
• The Hub - student radio station. (http://www.thehub1449.com)
• Hartpury College, Gloucestershire. (http://www.hartpury.ac.uk)
• Unofficial Guide. (http://www.unofficial-guides.com/guides/uwe.html)
• Centre for Performing Arts. (http://www.uwe.ac.uk/cpa)

News items

• New sports academy opens at Hartpury in April 2005. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/gloucestershire/4406181.stm)zh:西英格蘭大學