The age of university
At over 850 years old, Oxford is the oldest university in the country. Probably. Others can come up with cock and bull stories about predating the dinosaurs. Durham, for example, officially founded as recently as 1832, can claim highly tenuous descent from a bunch of monks living on Holy Island in the 8th Century with only the Venerable Bede and a few sheep for company.
Meanwhile, it’s even harder to say which is the youngest university since colleges are constantly being given the right to use the U-word in their names, but it still doesn’t necessarily make them universities.
For example, Southampton Institute has been known to call itself Solent University and allegedly has been rapped over the knuckles for doing so, but it’s got almost as much right as half the places legitimately allowed to call themselves So-and-so University College.
However, as far as atmosphere is concerned, there’s a big difference.
Apart from anything else, age brings stability. There are parts of some old universities that haven’t changed for centuries. At Stirling, for instance, the university admin offices are in an ancient castle. Meanwhile at St Andrew’s, there are rituals involving gowns and walking backwards that are so old people never stop to think about how silly they are. As for certain academics, rumours have it they’ve been doing the same lectures for millennia.
Age also brings reputations. People believe that if they’ve been doing it for a long time, they must have been doing it right. To which there’s some truth.
And age brings facilities. Not necessarily good ones, but facilities nonetheless. If a university’s been around for 150 years, it’s had all that time to get around to building a library, say, a students’ union building and accommodation. Problems, however, can crop up precisely because the building in question was put up decades ago and is about ready to be torn down and replaced — perhaps because it’s falling down or perhaps because it’s just not up to the job any more, not large enough or still relying on Bakelite electrics.
Take Durham again. Each year a few students at University College can live in a genuine Norman castle that has all the charm of a dream holiday but, in practice, the downside is that the place was designed in the days when people slept in chain mail and threw peasants on the fire to keep themselves warm.
Finally, age brings security. Many centuries of famous ex-students leaving endowments (or even just putting in a few good words in the right ears) have made some of the older Oxbridge colleges among the richest educational establishments in the country.
With a bit of financial security under their belts, older universities can often keep well up to speed, which, what with huge expansion in student numbers over the past couple of decades and new technological demands on universities, is a must.
Sure, they may have problems with old buildings (particularly sticky when it comes to making provisions for wheelchair users), but if they’ve got the space, they can add to them by building new ones alongside.
Meanwhile, youth brings vigour, a thrusting go-get-’em attitude. New methods of teaching, new types of course, new approaches to age-old ways of doing things.
No one can deny that the face of higher education has changed even more than Michael Jackson’s and in even less time. And a lot of the change has been led by new universities.
Some have been accused of being degree factories — overlooking the universal education to provide the university education. But the truth is that’s what a hell of a lot of students want, especially the kinds of students who’re as new to the higher education game as the new universities — mature students, working class students, female students, vocational students, local students. Before the sixties, they were like needles in the academic haystack.
Many of the newer universities were purpose-built from scratch and so the facilities do the job they’re supposed to do very effectively. On the other hand, they were often thrown up in a hurry and started falling apart before the paint was dry.
Some of the newest universities are still building and for a few years it may be like turning up in Majorca to find you’re sleeping in a cement mixer.
Derby, for instance, although it was founded as an institution in 1851 only became a university in 1992. We don’t think even they would claim that at the time they had the facilities to provide the kind of university they wanted to offer and so, ever since, they’ve been giving their Kedleston campus a facelift so radical it would make Cher squeamish.
If you’re building a university, your priorities are the basics first. Things like lecture halls, teaching rooms, offices, a library, staff salaries — that kind of stuff. Bars, welfare, computer rooms and student accommodation come next. It can take a while before they get around to sports facilities, theatres and shiatsu massage parlours.
Most of the new universities have got well beyond the basics, but it’s rare, for example, that students can live in college housing at a newer university as easily as they can at older ones .
These aren’t necessarily disadvantages. It depends whether living in was something you were after — and, anyhow, so long as they house anyone, they might house you — but it changes the atmosphere of the place.
Last updated on: 21 May 2008