Middlesex University

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Middlesex University
Image:Mdx logo.gif
Established 1973 (became university 1992)
Chancellor Lord Sheppard of Didgemere
Vice-Chancellor Michael Driscoll
Location London (North) & Dubai
Students 31,000 total
Staff 2,300
League Table 86th (2005 Guardian list)
Member of AMBA EUA
Homepage www.mdx.ac.uk

Middlesex University is a university in North London, England, located in the traditional county of Middlesex (from which it takes its name).

The institution was created in 1973 when Enfield College of Technology, Hendon College of Technology and Hornsey College of Art, joined to create Middlesex Polytechnic. St Katharine’s College of All Saints (dating back as far as 1878) and Trent Park College joined in 1974 and in 1992 it became Middlesex University. In 2004, Middlesex University Business School opened an overseas campus in Dubai.

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Campuses

The University is spread across 5 sites. All campuses are located in North London (earning Middlesex the nickname "University of the North Circular" due to their locations near to the major ring road). Each campus has a quite distinct character and some of the campuses are important architecturally, especially Trent Park.

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Tottenham

Tottenham campus (located in Wood Green, North London) started life as one of the first British teacher training colleges in 1878. It was then called The College of St Katharine's, later to be called The College of All Saints. The campus was expanded in the 1960s, although much of the campus retains its Victorian architecture. The site became home to humanities and cultural studies, business studies, law, sociology and women's studies.

The campus was closed in Summer 2005, and its programmes of study have been moved to the university's other campuses.

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Hendon

Image:Pmubs1.gif Image:Pmubs3.gif Hendon was known as the Hendon College of Technology. Today's main (or college) building was build in neo-Georgian style by H.W. Burchett and opened in 1939. It has been refurbished in a £40 million pound project, which includes the addition of a glass covered central court yard. The college was extended in 1955 and in 1969 a new refectory and engineering block (the Williams Building) was added. In 2004 The new Learning Resource Centre, The Sheppard Library opened on the site. Hendon also has a sports club, known as The Burroughs for students and staff which has one of the few real tennis courts in the UK. Middlesex University Business School and computing science are located in Hendon.

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Enfield

Enfield campus was originally the Enfield College of Technology, originally founded in 1901 as Ponders End Technical Institute. Today Enfield campus is home of the social sciences and health sciences. The research centres for herbal medicine, and sport and performance therapies are based here, as well as the National Flood Hazard Control Centre. It is home to the Ted Lewis and Robbins halls of residence.

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Cat Hill

Image:HornseyCol.jpg Cat Hill Campus is located in Enfield. It was originally the illustrious Hornsey College of Art, founded in 1880. In the late 1970s the campus was extended to become the Faculty of Art & Design of the then Middlesex Polytechnic. Today, art and design, cinematics and electronic arts are located at Cat Hill. The Cat Hill Campus also houses MoDA, the University's Museum of Domestic Design and Architecture and the National Lesbian and Gay Newsmedia Archive.

This photograph, by the way, is not of Cat Hill Campus, but of the old campus for the Hornsey College of Art, which is in Hornsey, several miles south of the current campus.

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Trent Park

Image:Ptrentp.gif See Trent Park for a short history of the campus

Trent Park is a palatial mansion set in a 4 km² country park, originally a fourteenth-century hunting ground of Henry IV. Performing arts, teacher education, product design and engineering and biological science are based here. It is home to the Gubbay and Sassoon halls of residence.

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Hospital campuses

Image:RoyalFree.jpg Additionally, the School of Health and Social Sciences occupies the Archway and Hospitals campuses operating from four sites at the Royal Free Hospital, Whittington hospital (jointly owned and in development with University College London), Chase Farm and North Middlesex hospitals.

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Dubai

In 2004, Middlesex University opened an overseas campus in Dubai, situated in the Knowledge Village Dubai. In Dubai, Middlesex currently offers undergraduate degrees in Business Administration, Business Information Systems, Information Technology, Communications and Media, Psychology and Tourism. It also offers Masters degrees in Marketing, Human Resource Management and Management, and an MBA.

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Students

Middlesex University has a very diverse student body, around 31,000 strong, many of whom are mature students. Around 5,000 students are from overseas, coming from more than 100 countries (2004). The application/places ratio is 6.1:1 (2002). The University also has student exchange links with 100 colleges and universities around the world.

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Student Union

As of 2005, Middlesex University Student Union (MUSU[1]) is undergoing a period of large-scale change. Academic year 2004-05 saw the university management force MUSU, against the wishes and votes of MUSU members, to give up its commercial areas, i.e. shops, bars, cafeterias and entertainments. These have now been taken over by a company called Scholarest, a major player in catering facilities to UK educational institutions, who already handle catering facilities for the university proper. This situation has arisen due to a dispute over a £250,000 debt owed by MUSU to the university.

MUSU has six sabbatical officers, each with a specific portfolio, and who also represent the students on their base campus. It publishes a magazine, Middlesex University Direct (MUD), six times a year.


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Recent Controversies

The University decided to stop offering History[2] as Degree, both Major and Minor in an attempt to try and reduce the £10 Million deficit that has built up. The decision, in the words of the Vice Chancellor to 'suspend the History course for the time being' was met with considerable hostility from both the student body and was felt by some Faculty members to be a worrying development.

In conjunction with this move the University offered the entire History Faculty voluntary redundancy packages which the majority felt compelled to accept. As of March 2006 there are 3 History lecturers left, this will fall to 1 full timer and 2 part timers from beginning of the next Academic year.

The plight of the History department has been part of a much larger batch of cost saving exercises. These will lead to in total the loss of 142 administrative and technical staff and 33 academic staff[3].

It is now widely acknowledged that the students who started Degree courses in 2006 will be the last that were able to choose to take History as a Major or a Minor at Middlesex University.

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Scholarships

In a controversial move, the university announced in 2004 an offer of £1,000 a year in cash to attract students with high academic grades. Full-time undergraduates enrolling for September 2004, who have achieved three Bs at A-level or equivalent, will be able to apply for the scholarships.

The university also offers a number of other scholarships awarded on the basis of sporting achievement and community or cultural activity.

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Awards

It has been awarded the Queen's Anniversary Prizes three times, and has been named as one of Britain's Top 20 Universities in the 2004 Guardian University League Tables, which ranks Middlesex University 19th of 119 universities.

Middlesex University Business School is also rated as a "centre of excellence" by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD), the first university in the UK to offer courses accredited by the Chartered Institute of Marketing as well as accredited by the Association of MBAs.

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Famous alumni

Famous alumni include:

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Notable academics

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Websites

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News Items

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