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The University of Sheffield is a leading university, located in Sheffield, UK.
History The University of Sheffield was originally formed by the merger of three colleges. The Sheffield School of Medicine was founded in 1828. This was followed in 1879 by the opening of Firth College by Mark Firth, a steel manufacturer, to teach arts and science subjects. Firth College then helped to fund the opening of the Sheffield Technical School in 1884 to teach applied science, the only major faculty the existing colleges did not cover. The three institutions merged in 1897 to form the University College of Sheffield. It was originally envisaged that the University College would join Manchester, Liverpool and Leeds as the fourth member of the federal Victoria University. However, the Victoria University began to split-up before this could happen and so the University College of Sheffield received its own Royal Charter in 1905 and became the University of Sheffield. From 114 full-time students in 1905, the University grew slowly until the 1950s and 1960s when it began to expand rapidly. Many new buildings (including the famous Arts Tower) were built and student numbers increased to their present levels of over 20,000. Development has continued since. In 1995, the University took over the Sheffield and North Trent College of Nursing and Midwifery, which greatly increased the size of the medical faculty. In 2005 it decided to pass these subjects over to Sheffield Hallam University. Over the years, the University has been home to a number of famous writers and scholars, including the literary critic William Empson, who was head of the Department of English; author Angela Carter; the Nobel Prize-winning chemist Sir Harry Kroto and Bernard Crick, who taught politics with future Labour Party politician David Blunkett as one of his students. Location
Organisation Like most British universities, the University of Sheffield is headed by a Vice-Chancellor, Prof Bob Boucher, CBE and a titular Chancellor, Sir Peter Middleton. The University is organised into seven faculties, with all the faculties except Law being sub-divided into numerous departments: Research and Reputation The University of Sheffield is a major contributor to research, being the sixth most highly rated research university in the UK (2001). The University is a member of the Russell Group, the European University Association, the Worldwide Universities Network and the White Rose University Consortium. The University of Sheffield is rated 8th in the UK, 18th in Europe and 65th in the world in an annual academic ranking of the top 500 universities worldwide published in August 2005. Researchers at China's Shanghai Jiao Tong University evaluated the universities using several research performance indicators, including the number of highly cited researchers, academic performance, articles in the periodicals Science and Nature, and the number of Nobel prizewinners. The University has won Queen's Anniversary Awards in 1998, 2000 and 2002. It was also named the Sunday Times University of the Year in 2001. In 2005, the Sunday Times rated the University as the 24th best in the UK. Sheffield is particularly famous for its Archaeology, Architecture, Chemistry, Engineering, English, History, Music, Philosophy and Politics departments, which are heavily oversubscribed. Major research partners and clients include Boeing, Rolls Royce, Unilever, Boots, AstraZeneca, GSK, ICI, Slazenger, and many more household names, as well as UK and overseas government agencies and charitable foundations. Nobel Prizes The University's Faculty of Pure Science may boast an association with four Nobel Prizes, one for the Department of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology: As well as three to its world-renowned Department of Chemistry: With another nobel laureate, Howard Florey, Sheffield shares some glory. Howard Florey was the Joseph Hunter Professor of Pathology at Sheffield from 1932 until his move to Oxford in 1935. In 1945 Florey and his colleague Ernst Chain, together with Alexander Fleming were awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine for their work on penicillin. Students and faculty The University of Sheffield's 25,000 students arrive mostly from the UK, but 2,500 are international students, with many from Malaysia. The university employs 5,500 people, including almost 1,400 academic staff. Students union, sports and traditions The University of Sheffield Union of Students is one of the largest students' union in the UK, with two bars (Bar One (which has a bookable function room with its own bar, The Raynor Lounge) and The Interval), three club venues (Fusion, Foundry and Octagon), one off-campus public house (The Fox and Duck), the cinema Film Unit, over one hundred student societies, many sports teams and a turnover of around £8,000,000. The University of Sheffield Union of Students also has a student radio station called Sure Radio. The station broadcasts throughout the union and on the internet during term time. The University has its own newspaper, The Steel Press, which is normally printed every fortnight, and an online newspaper, sheffieldbase.com. In addition to the student union-supported sports teams, Sheffield University Bankers Hockey Club play top-flight field hockey in the national first division. The annual Varsity Challenge takes place between teams from the University and its rival Sheffield Hallam University in over 30 events. As part of rag week, University of Sheffield students used to take part in the Pyjama Jump* pub crawl, dressed only in nightwear in mid-winter: the men often to dress in nighties and the women in pyjamas. This event was banned in 1997 following the hospitalisation of several students.* Another rag week tradition is the Spiderwalk, a fifty mile trek through the city and the Peak District, the first half through the night. Notable alumni See also . Notable faculty See also | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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