OXFORD BROOKES UNIVERSITY

'Oxford Brookes University' is a public university in Oxford, England.

Contents

Overview

Campuses

Oxford Brookes University - Halls of residence

Global partnership

Future plans

Notable Alumni

References

External links

Overview

The University has roots in Oxford that go back to 1865 (when it was known as the Oxford School of Art). The present student body is 19,000. It has managed to forge a presence in the city of Oxford as well as maintain a separate identity from nearby University of Oxford. Some cooperative bonds, however, have emerged between these two institutions, due in part to a friendship between Jon Snow (Chancellor of Oxford Brookes) and Chris Patten (Chancellor of the University of Oxford).
Oxford Brookes University pioneered the use of modular degree courses and has earned recognition for quality in publishing, engineering, modern languages, history, art, architecture and economics. The Oxford International Centre for Publishing Studies is one of several programmes at Brookes that has expanded the university's reputation abroad. Similarly, the national Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) assigned the Department of History its foremost international ranking (5
★ ).^[2].
The Centre for Development and Emergency Practice (CENDEP) 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^[3]
The Department of Architecture at Oxford Brookes is one of the largest in Britain and has been named as the leading school of architecture outside London in a new survey conducted by The Architect's Journal and second overall in the UK (AJ 4 May 2006 page 84.)

Campuses

Oxford Brookes University has three main campuses:
'Headington Campus' is located in Headington, a residential area of Oxford, one mile from the city centre. It consists of the Gipsy Lane site, which is the main teaching site, and the adjacent Headington Hill site over the road, where the Students' Union is located.
'Wheatley Campus' is set near Wheatley in the Oxfordshire countryside, seven miles south-east of the city centre, and is where business, IT,mathematics and more recently engineering subjects are taught.
'Harcourt Hill Campus' is situated on Oxford's western perimeter, two and a half miles from the city centre. Education, Philosophy, Theology, Media and Communication and many other subjects are taught here, in a landscaped setting overlooking the city. It was formerly the site of Westminster College, Oxford, the only independent Methodist higher education institution in Europe, which specialised in Teacher Training and Theology and whose students were awarded their degrees by the University of Oxford upon successful completion of their course. The 'campus' was purpose-built for the College's move from London to Oxford in the 1950s and was leased to Brookes by the Methodist Church. The College lives on in the Westminster Institute of Education at Oxford Brookes University, which is the school responsible for those subjects taught at the Harcourt Hill Campus by Brookes.
All three main campuses offer a range of sports and recreational facilities that can be used by all the students. Harcourt Hill and Wheatley provide catering whereas the rest offer excellent catering facilities, a library with an extensive range of reference books and journals, and 24 hour computer rooms along with numerous other facilities.

Oxford Brookes University - Halls of residence

Oxford Brookes has nine halls of residence: Crescent Hall, Cheney Student Village, Clive Booth Hall, Warneford hall, Cotuit Hall, Morrell Hall, Paul Kent Hall, Lady Spencer Churchill Hall at Wheatley campus, and at Harcourt Hill, Harcourt Hill Hall.

Global partnership

Oxford Brookes University's partnership with Association of Chartered Certified Accountants allows ACCA students to study for a BSc (Hons) in Applied Accounting while taking their ACCA examinations.
Tsinghua University (清華大學) will recognise the Oxford Brookes University BSc Applied Accounting degree, which has been successfully developed in conjunction with ACCA and which enables students who have completed two parts of the ACCA qualification to apply for the Oxford Brookes degree. [2]
The University is also in partnership with the Budapest (Hungary) based institution of International Business School %28Budapest%29 (Nemzetközi Üzleti Főiskola). IBS students can attend courses which, besides the Hungarian degree also provides OBU BA degrees in different subjects, such as Marketing, Communications, etc. [3]

Future plans

Oxford Brookes is currently redeveloping its campuses in cooperation with RMJM Architects (joint architects of the new Scottish parliament building). Plans include extensive rebuilding--a new School of Technology (housing Brookes’ Motorsport Engineering Centre) and a recently completed Research Centre at Gipsy Lane are two examples of an ambitious "masterplan" that promises to revamp the entire campus.Initial Masterplan document
From September 2007 onwards Professor Janet Beer will take over as Vice Chancellor of Oxford Brookes University. She is currently a Pro Vice Chancellor at Manchester Metropolitan University. [4]

Notable Alumni

★ Steve Williams MBE - GB four member Olympic Champion Athens 2004

★ David Mayer de Rothschild - Environmentalist

★ Paul Conneally - Poet / Artist / Educationalist

References

1. Table 0a - All students by institution, mode of study, level of study, gender and domicile 2005/06
2. BBC News article: Oxford's history blow
3. [1]

External links

★ Oxford Brookes University website

★ The Students' Union website