Royal Holloway, University of London

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Royal Holloway, University of London (RHUL) is one of the larger colleges of the University of London. As of May 2006, the college had 7,700 enrolled students from 120 countries.

The college's campus is located at Egham, Surrey, just outside the boundary of Greater London. This was originally the campus of Royal Holloway College, an establishment founded by Victorian entrepreneur Thomas Holloway as a women-only college in 1879. Royal Holloway College became part of the University of London in 1900, and men were first admitted in 1965. In 1985, Royal Holloway College merged with Bedford College (another formerly all-women's college in London which was founded in 1849 and, just like Royal Holloway College, joined the University of London in 1900 and became fully co-educational in 1965). The merged college was named Royal Holloway and Bedford New College (RHBNC). This remains the official registered name of the college, though the name was changed for day-to-day use to "Royal Holloway, University of London (RHUL)" by the College Council in 1992.

Contents

1 Campus
2 Current Position
3 Study Abroad Programme
4 Students' Union
5 Notes
6 Famous alumni
7 Fictional Alumni
8 Notable members of staff
9 See also
10 External links

Campus

Founder's Building

The campus at Egham is dominated by its original building, known as the "Founder's Building", designed by William Henry Crossland and inspired by the Château de Chambord in the Loire Valley, France. The building was officially opened in 1886 by Queen Victoria, who allowed the use of "Royal" in the college's name. The Founder's Building is part of a campus which is set in 49 hectares (120 acres) of parkland and is within walking distance of Windsor Great Park. On-campus student accommodation is some of the most extensive available in the London area. The size of the campus has also allowed the college to develop some of the best sports facilities of any university institution in the London area, and helped build the college's reputation as one of the leading sporting institutions in the South-East of England. The campus is also well-known for its Picture Gallery, located within the Founder's Building, housing a collection of over seventy pieces of Victorian era art given to the college at the time of its founding by Thomas Holloway.

Royal Holloway is in the middle of a £100million investment scheme which has seen the addition of new buildings and the refurbishment of some of the old. The scheme has seen the building of 564 new study bedrooms (with double beds, en suite shower and toilets, internet connections and well equipped kitchens) in two new blocks, Gowar and Wedderburn, which will be used as accommodation for rowers in the 2012 Olympic Games. September 2007 will see new accommodation to a similar specification as G&W open that will replace the old Athlone and Cameron halls which have been demolished. The new buildings have been designed to be environmentally friendly, featuring a sedum-planted undulating roof, and cedar shingles to reflect the surrounding woodland setting. However, not all of Athlone and Cameron has been demolished. One turret and the dining hub have been left standing. The ‘hub’ which houses a dining hall and 24-hour vending and games room are being refitted and should be ready by September 2006. The ‘New Halls’ 24-hour reception is also being refitted and will be housed in the same place as it was before. In addition to the new accommodation, the campus will see a new lecture theatre complex open in September 2006, featuring a state of the art 400 seat auditorium and eight 50 seat seminar rooms (two of which will have a removable wall to make one larger 100 seat room). The entire building will have wireless capability and hearing loops. It has been designed in a similar style as Gowar and Wedderburn. The aging Bourne Laboratory, which houses much of the science faculty, is also being rejuvenated in a £12million scheme. The School of Management is having a new lecture theatre being built which is due to open in September 2006. It will be a large zinc bubble shape and will have 100 seats. The School of Management's foyer area will also be regenerated. Further to this the college is refurbishing Highfield and Runnymede halls of residence inline with its 12 year refurbishment policy. This will bring the accommodation up to a similar specification as Gowar and Wedderburn. Much of the work is hoped to be complete before the new intake of students in September 2006, with the new halls to open the following year. The scheme is hand in hand with the College's aim to slightly increase the number of students at Holloway in the next few years.

Current Position

Royal Holloway is recognised as one of the UK’s leading teaching and research institutions, ranking among the top 10 elite research-led UK universities (in the most recent Research Assessment Exercise) and 5th in a league table of UK universities in the 2005 ‘National Survey of Student Satisfaction’ (BBC survey). All the Royal Holloway academic departments earned the top three ratings for research, with scores of 4, 5 and 5* in the 2001 Research Assessment Exercise.

The Top Universities 2007 Guide published by The Times newspaper (5 June 2006) ranked Royal Holloway 12th in a table of 109 institutions surveyed around the UK. The table places Royal Holloway 4th in the University of London, after Imperial College, LSE and University College London, accelerating it above King's College London this year.

The Physics Department of Royal Holloway was ranked first in the United Kingdom by The Guardian newspaper. The School of Management has all three of its MBA programmes accredited by the prestigious AMBA. The departments of History, Geography, Psychology, Music, Drama, and Media Arts also have strong reputations, as do several of the European Language departments. In 1998 the college was awarded the Queen's Anniversary Prize in recognition of the work of the [Information Security Group].

Study Abroad Programme

RHUL has developed one of the UK's best study abroad programmes^{[[Citing sources citation needed]]} [link], allowing its students to spend a year in elite institutions including Boston College, the University of California (UC Berkeley, UCLA and the other campuses), and New York University in the United States; the University of British Columbia and the University of Toronto in Canada; Korea University in Republic of Korea; the University of Sydney in Australia; and the National University of Singapore. Postgraduate students also have the opportunity to study at Yale University, making RHUL one of the few university institutions in the UK to be linked with an outstanding Ivy League university alongside the likes of Oxford University, Cambridge University, University College London, and Durham University.

Students' Union

The Royal Holloway Students' Union (SURHUL) provides entertainment and pastoral services for the student body. This includes providing the on-campus entertainment and social venues through to organising and sponsoring the sport clubs and special-interest societies, and providing advice and counselling to the students.

Like most students' unions in the United Kingdom, SURHUL is run entirely by the student body itself, headed by a team of elected student officers, including four paid sabbaticals. In keeping with democratic practice, the elected officers' executive power is held in check by the legislative power of General Meetings. General Meetings take place every month of each semester at RHUL.

With little nearby off-campus activity, there is a great emphasis placed on providing entertainment for the students. As such on-campus entertainment and social life revolves around three student-run campus bars (Medicine, The Stumble Inn and Tommy's) with a fourth (Crosslands) run by the College. The main SU building has a large function hall which hosts a wide variety of entertainment events three nights a week during term time (yet the fact that the Union building has only one function hall with no alternative venues means the variety is not as great as in some other larger universities.) Medicine bar was reopened a few years ago after a £500,000 refit and according to the official SURHUL website is one of the top five union bars in the country^{[[Citing sources citation needed]]}. Every three weeks the Union publishes its Communicate Card which outlines the forthcoming social events. At least one event runs each night, from a fancy dress night in the main hall, through to the weekly pub quiz in the Stumble Inn. The Union operates a strict security system and also provides a bus service which, for a small fee, ferries students back to off-campus accommodation in an effort to ensure student safety. This service is particularly vital, given that there have been a number of high-profile attacks on RHUL students both on and off the campus in recent years.

At the end of the year the Union organises the Summer Ball, the annual highlight of the social calendar. In recent years the RHUL Summer Ball has booked many high-profile talents, including well-known rock and pop acts such as Lemar, Lisa Maffia, Wheatus and Atomic Kitten, and comedians such as Ali G. 2006 saw Rachel Stevens and the Bodyrockers headlining. The ball takes place at the end of the examination period, and is held in the quads of the Founder's Building. The ball includes fairground attractions, themed bars and a chocolate fountain. According to The Orbital, it costs £120,000 to stage, and tickets are priced accordingly.

There are numerous societies run through the Union, spanning culture, religion and differing academic and artistic pursuits. Through the [Royal Holloway World Cinema Society], free screenings of movies from around the world in many different languages are available on campus during term time. One of the societies, JBAS (the James Bond Appreciation Society), runs a high-profile boat party on the River Thames every Spring, although society activities vary from year to year. The 2005/06 Society of the Year was the Islamic Society, partly for their fundraising for the 2005 Kashmir Earthquake relief effort. The People & Planet society received the VP Cup for their efforts in making Royal Holloway a fair trade university. Other societies include the Comedy society (which hosts stand up evenings throughout term time) and Anime & Manga, which won society of the year for 2004/05. The Union also maintains a number of successful sports club, catering to sports as diverse as rowing and ultimate frisbee. The Sports Club of the Year went to the Lacrosse team, although many of the sports teams enjoyed a high level of success in the 2005/06 season.

Within the local area around Egham, SURHUL is known for its award-winning student radio station, [Insanity]. Established in 1997, Insanity broadcasts all-year round, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and is available locally over 1287 AM and worldwide over the internet. Insanity has won the title of the UK's second best student radio station in the SRA Student Radio Awards for the past two years running.

SURHUL also publishes a student magazine called [The Orbital], which is published seven times a year. Each issue is loosely based around a theme, such as drugs, 'coolness' or love (for the Valentine's Day edition).

Notes

The Founder's Building has been the centre of some media attention. The 2006 movie was partly filmed in the Founder's Building during the summer of 2005. The character Sophie Neveu in the best-selling book The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown studied cryptography in the (real) Information Security Group at Royal Holloway. This book has now been made into a film starring Tom Hanks. The movie Howards End had some scenes shot inside one of the courtyards with the statue of Queen Victoria visible. [link] Founder's was also used as a university during the filming of "MacGyver: Lost Treasure of Atlantis" starring Richard Dean Anderson and Brian Blessed back in the summer of 1993. The Antiques Roadshow for the BBC has also filmed inside the Quads of the Founder's Building.

Famous alumni

Fictional Alumni

Sophie Neveu from The Da Vinci Code

Notable members of staff

Dr Khizar Humayun Ansari OBE - Centre for Ethnic Minority Studies
Professor David Bradby - Drama & Theatre
Professor David Cesarani OBE - History (Holocaust Research)
Professor Justin Champion - History
Professor Michael Eysenck - Psychology
Dr Steven Haines - Politics and International Relations
Professor Andrew Motion - English

External links

[Research Assessment Exercise website]
Two articles from The Guardian newspaper, [positive] and [negative].

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Recognized bodies of the University of London
Birkbeck \| Courtauld Institute of Art \| Central School of Speech and Drama \| Goldsmiths \| Heythrop \| Imperial \| Institute of Cancer Research \| Institute of Education \| King's \| London Business School \| LSE \| London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine \| Queen Mary \| Royal Academy of Music \| Royal Holloway \| Royal Veterinary College \| St George's \| SOAS \| School of Pharmacy \| UCL
Listed bodies
University of London Institute in Paris \| School of Advanced Study \| University Marine Biological Station, Millport

	The 1994 Group (of smaller British research universities)
	Bath \| Birkbeck \| Durham \| East Anglia \| Essex \| Exeter \| Goldsmiths College \| Lancaster \| London School of Economics* \| Reading \| Royal Holloway \| St Andrews \| Surrey \| Sussex \| Warwick* \| York
	Joining 1 August 2006: Leicester \| Loughborough \| School of Oriental and African Studies \| Queen Mary
* Also a member of the Russell Group