Birkbeck, University of London

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Birkbeck, University of London, sometimes referred to by its former name Birkbeck College or by the abbreviation BBK, is a College of the University of London. At undergraduate level, it aims at working people who want to study for degrees in the evenings (adult education). At graduate level, it admits fulltime (as well as part-time) students for Ph.Ds; its staff members have strong research reputations.

Location

Birkbeck's main building is on Malet Street in Bloomsbury, with a number of other buildings on nearby streets. Virginia Woolf fans will also be interested to know that Birkbeck's School of History of Art, Film and Visual Media is housed in Woolf's former Gordon Square residence in Bloomsbury.

History

Founded in 1823 as the London Mechanics' Institution, Birkbeck College was incorporated into the University of London by Royal Charter in 1926.

In 1823, George Birkbeck, an early pioneer of adult education, founded the then London Mechanics Institute.

In 1830, the first female students were admitted.

In 1866, the Institute changed its name to the Birkbeck Literary and Scientific Institution.

In 1907, it became Birkbeck College.

In 1920, it became a school of the University of London.

In 1926, it received its Royal Charter.

In 1957, the College moved to its present location in Malet Street/

In 2002, it dropped the word College to become simply Birkbeck, University of London. However, the term Birkbeck College is still often colloquially used, and survives on the façade of the main building itself.

Research and Teaching

The façade of the main building of Birkbeck, University of London (formerly Birkbeck College).

While part-time undergraduate teaching remains the focus and mandate of Birkbeck, the college has recently grown into a powerhouse for progressive research in the arts and humanities.

The [Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities] was established in 2004, with the renowned but controversial Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizek appointed as International Director. According to its website, the Institute aims to, among other things, "engage with important public issues of our time through a series of open debates, lectures, seminars and conferences" and "foster and promote a climate of interdisciplinary research and collaboration among academics and researchers". The launch of the Institute wasn't without controversy, provoking an article in the Observer newspaper titled "What have intellectuals ever done for the world?" [link] which criticised the ostensible irrelevance and elitism of contemporary public intellectuals.

Meanwhile, the [London Consortium] graduate school -- a collaboration between Birkbeck, the Tate Galleries, the Institute of Contemporary Arts, the Architectural Association, and, until 1999, the British Film Institute -- has been running since the mid-1990s, offering masters and doctoral degrees in the interdisciplinary humanities and cultural studies, resourced and jointly taught by all the participating institutions.(Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities) Its permanent and adjunct faculty include figures such as Philip Dodd, Colin MacCabe, Laura Mulvey, Steven Connor, Marina Warner, Juliet Mitchell, Stuart Hall, Roger Scruton, Salman Rushdie, as well as Zizek. It's current chair is Anthony Julius.

Birkbeck's School of English and Humanities was rated 5* in the 2001 Research Assessment Exercise, as were the School of History, Classics and Archaeology, and the section for Spanish and Latin American studies within the School of Languages, Linguistics and Culture -- ranking these departments with, and in some cases above, Oxford and Cambridge.

Birkbeck is often not included in British Newspaper University league tables, since these are usually based on the statistics for full-time undergraduates, but Birkbeck was ranked 13th in The Guardian's 2001 Research Assessment Exercise league table and 26th by the Times Higher Education Supplement's equvialent 2001 RAE league table. The Guardian's 2001 RAE subject ranking league tables put Birkbeck in the top 10 for research in the following subjects: English (1st), History (1st), History of Art (2nd), Philosophy (6th), Iberian and Latin American Languages (1st), Earth Sciences (4th), Law (9th), Economics and Econometrics (5th), and Politics and International Studies (5th). Birkbeck has also appeared in the Shanghai Jiao Tong University's Top 500 World Universities ranking in 2004, placed in the 404-502nd rank (the tables rank Universities in equal blocks of about 100 after the first 100 individually ranked Universities). However, Birkbeck did not appear in the 2003 or 2005 Shanghai Jiao Tong University listings.

Organisation

The university is divided into four faculties, the Faculty of Arts, the Faculty of Social Sciences, the Faculty of Science and the Faculty of Continuing Education, which are sub-divided into 20 schools. The current president of the college is the historian Eric Hobsbawm.

Student life

As the university is primarily for part-time courses, often in the evenings, student life is less centralised than in other universities. The university does not offer its own halls of residence, for instance, though Birkbeck students do have access to the University of London's intercollegiate halls. The university does have an active students' union, founded in 1904, however which provides student representation and support, a student magazine, a student shop and a bar.

Sports, clubs, and traditions

Birkbeck Students' Union offers a number of societies for students, as well as a football club that competes in the University of London league. Birkbeck students also have access to the societies and clubs of the University of London Union.

The college arms include a lamp and an owl, symbolising the college's motto In nocte consilium ("study by night"). Because of this, the student magazine is called Lamp and Owl.

Notable Birkbeck people

• Antony Beevor, professor
• J. D. Bernal, professor
• Tessa Blackstone, master of the college
• David Cox, professor
• Andrea Christofidou, student
• H. R. Ellis Davidson, lecturer
• John Driffill, professor
• Tracey Emin, student
• T.S. Eliot, lecturer
• Richard J. Evans, lecturer
• Orlando Figes, professor
• Rosalind Franklin, researcher
• Julia Goldsworthy, student
• A. C. Grayling, professor
• Kenneth Hare, master of the college
• Eric Hobsbawm, professor and president
• Paul Hirst, professor
• C. E. M. Joad, professor
• William Joyce (aka Lord Haw-Haw), student
• Peter J. King, professor
• Ramsay MacDonald, student
• John Redcliffe Maud, master of the college
• Louis Mordell, researcher
• Laura Mulvey, professor
• Nikolaus Pevsner, professor
• Ben Pimlott, professor
• Ernest Rogers Millington, student
• Nissim Ezekiel, student
• Haris Psaradakis, professor
• J. Philippe Rushton, student
• Richard Sambrook, student
• Roger Scruton, professor
• Anne Sibert, professor
• Ron P. Smith, professor
• Dennis Snower, professor
• Laurie Taylor, student
• Kitty Ussher, student
• George Albert Wells, professor

External links

• [BBK.ac.uk - The official Birkbeck website]
• [- The official School of Economics, Mathematics and Statistics website]
• [BBK.ac.uk/su/ - The official Birkbeck Student Union]

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