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According to the Sheffield Star 'The vice chancellors of Sheffield's two universities say deferring this year's intake of students would have caused more serious knock-on effects.

As far as I am aware there is one university faculty in Sheffield comprising of two colleges? As in other University cities, Oxford, Cambridge, Bristol, Exeter, Manchester to name a few, the university faculty exists within the city/town amongst numerous colleges. So the term universities in incorrect? Fee free to correct me If I am incorrect? I would be interested in any comments?

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Sheffield Hallam University & University of Sheffield. 
 

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Anywhere that had a University and a Polytechnic has, since 1992, had two universities - in addition to the above obvious ones to me are University of Nottingham and Nottingham Trent University (ex Trent Poly), University of Liverpool and Liverpool John Moores University (ex Liverpool Poly), University of Leeds and Leeds Beckett University (ex Leeds Poly).

 

Hallam is the old Sheffield Polytechnic.

 

 

Edited by Longcol

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Hallam was just one of 37 further education establishments that became universities in 1992. The government target of a 50% university uptake would have been a little difficult without them.

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15 hours ago, sedith said:

According to the Sheffield Star 'The vice chancellors of Sheffield's two universities say deferring this year's intake of students would have caused more serious knock-on effects.

As far as I am aware there is one university faculty in Sheffield comprising of two colleges? As in other University cities, Oxford, Cambridge, Bristol, Exeter, Manchester to name a few, the university faculty exists within the city/town amongst numerous colleges. So the term universities in incorrect? Fee free to correct me If I am incorrect? I would be interested in any comments?

Hi sedith, you're confusing a number of things, which isn't surprising as the UK HE sector is confusing! 

 

A university is always a Higher Education Institution with degree awarding powers from Undergraduate to Doctorate and everything in between. These universities are generally under the control of a vice-chancellor (effectively the CEO) and CAN comprise of colleges or indeed faculties (or whatever that university choses to call them). In Sheffield we have two universities, The University of Sheffield (UoS) and Sheffield Hallam University (SHU). 

 

UoS operates a faculty system of six faculties: Arts and Humanities, Engineering, Medicine, Dentistry and Health, Science, Social Sciences and the International Faculty in Thessaloniki (Greece).

 

SHU operates in three colleges: Business, Technology and Engineering, Social Sciences and Arts and Health, Wellbeing and Life Sciences. 

 

Where your confusion appears to arise, is in the comparison with for example Oxford or Cambridge where 'Colleges' operate as more independent entities than is the norm in most UK Universities, these colleges will have their own support staff and academic regulations for example. 

 

As a rule of thumb: Most 'classic' universities organised under the 'Russell Group' banner tend to operate in faculty format, whereas most new universities operate in a college structure. The latter group has more of a social mobility and teaching focus, frequently with predominantly undergraduate courses than the former, which are more focussed on research and development and will have larger postgraduate courses (although also many undergraduates!). 

 

Then there are Further Education Colleges which operate mainly in the post-16 education setting, like Sheffield College, Barnsley College and so on. Some of these will also claim 'University' status as they may deliver  so called 'access courses' up to 'level 4', this means that post 16 students may choose to top up their level 2 FE qualification to a level 4 qualification that is equal to completing the first year at a University. This often results in a more gradual entry into pre-agreed programmes with Universities. 

 

This is popular for example with nursing degrees - many applicants to the BSc nursing do so after completing an access course to 'level 3' upon completion of which they are eligible to apply for 'proper' university. 

 

Hope that helps understand it a bit better!

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There are 2 universities, university of sheffield which is a Russel group uni and sheffield hallam uni which as already mentioned is the old polytechnic.

I have studied at both.  I did my advanced diploma in nursing studies at uos and my return to practice course after being out of nursing and deciding to return at collegiate campus of sheffield hallam.

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On 06/11/2020 at 20:16, sedith said:

According to the Sheffield Star 'The vice chancellors of Sheffield's two universities say deferring this year's intake of students would have caused more serious knock-on effects.

As far as I am aware there is one university faculty in Sheffield comprising of two colleges? As in other University cities, Oxford, Cambridge, Bristol, Exeter, Manchester to name a few, the university faculty exists within the city/town amongst numerous colleges. So the term universities in incorrect? Fee free to correct me If I am incorrect? I would be interested in any comments?

Ok. if you insist.

You are incorrect. The  terminology used in the Star is correct (never thought I'd be saying that!)

I assume you are new to Sheffield...?

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7 hours ago, arrowhead said:

Ok. if you insist.

You are incorrect. The  terminology used in the Star is correct (never thought I'd be saying that!)

I assume you are new to Sheffield...?

I assume you are wrong as sedith has been a member of SF for 12 years and has over 3,400 posts.

 

But then we know what they say about assume.

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On 06/11/2020 at 22:44, Jim Hardie said:

Hallam was just one of 37 further education establishments that became universities in 1992. The government target of a 50% university uptake would have been a little difficult without them.

You're referring to the Blair government's target, set out in 1999 (8 years after polytechnics became universities) which was in fact 50 per cent of young adults (aged 18-30)  going into higher education (rather than University specifically).  Had polytechnics not already been converted, attendance at them would obviously have counted, because the target was not only about universities, and not only degrees.   It's true that a large part of the target would be made up of students at universities studying degrees, but it was broader than that.

 

See:  http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/1789500.stm

 

 

 

On 06/11/2020 at 22:12, Longcol said:

Anywhere that had a University and a Polytechnic has, since 1992, had two universities - in addition to the above obvious ones to me are University of Nottingham and Nottingham Trent University (ex Trent Poly), University of Liverpool and Liverpool John Moores University (ex Liverpool Poly), University of Leeds and Leeds Beckett University (ex Leeds Poly).

 

Hallam is the old Sheffield Polytechnic.

 

 

To which we can add Oxford which has Oxford University and Oxford Brookes University, and Cambridge which has Cambridge University and one of Anglia Ruskin's campuses.

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On 07/11/2020 at 12:12, tzijlstra said:

Hi sedith, you're confusing a number of things, which isn't surprising as the UK HE sector is confusing! 

 

A university is always a Higher Education Institution with degree awarding powers from Undergraduate to Doctorate and everything in between. These universities are generally under the control of a vice-chancellor (effectively the CEO) and CAN comprise of colleges or indeed faculties (or whatever that university choses to call them). In Sheffield we have two universities, The University of Sheffield (UoS) and Sheffield Hallam University (SHU). 

 

UoS operates a faculty system of six faculties: Arts and Humanities, Engineering, Medicine, Dentistry and Health, Science, Social Sciences and the International Faculty in Thessaloniki (Greece).

 

SHU operates in three colleges: Business, Technology and Engineering, Social Sciences and Arts and Health, Wellbeing and Life Sciences. 

 

Where your confusion appears to arise, is in the comparison with for example Oxford or Cambridge where 'Colleges' operate as more independent entities than is the norm in most UK Universities, these colleges will have their own support staff and academic regulations for example. 

 

As a rule of thumb: Most 'classic' universities organised under the 'Russell Group' banner tend to operate in faculty format, whereas most new universities operate in a college structure. The latter group has more of a social mobility and teaching focus, frequently with predominantly undergraduate courses than the former, which are more focussed on research and development and will have larger postgraduate courses (although also many undergraduates!). 

 

Then there are Further Education Colleges which operate mainly in the post-16 education setting, like Sheffield College, Barnsley College and so on. Some of these will also claim 'University' status as they may deliver  so called 'access courses' up to 'level 4', this means that post 16 students may choose to top up their level 2 FE qualification to a level 4 qualification that is equal to completing the first year at a University. This often results in a more gradual entry into pre-agreed programmes with Universities. 

 

This is popular for example with nursing degrees - many applicants to the BSc nursing do so after completing an access course to 'level 3' upon completion of which they are eligible to apply for 'proper' university. 

 

Hope that helps understand it a bit better!

You said this, but it's worth emphasing that beyond Oxbridge and some of the other older universities, "colleges" or "schools" or "departments" or "faculties" are really effectively synonyms for groupings of subjects for management convenience, not much different to the way any large organisation is structured.  The amount of freedom they have will vary from institution to institution, but they are a single entity (unless, for example, a Business School has been set up separately).

 

But at Oxford and Cambridge and to some extent at other older Universities like Durham, colleges are different and have a different history.  There's quite a bit of diversity, but basically at Oxford and Cambridge the colleges are more or less autonomous or self-governing communities or there's a kind of federal structure.

 

Edited by Dannyno

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The Russell group, by the way, is just a club/lobby group for (currently) 24 Universities which consider themselves to be research-intensive.

 

The Russell Group is not monolithic.    It has 'red brick' universities (those founded in the late 19th/early 20th century) like the University of Sheffield (founded in the early 20th century), medieval institutions like Oxford or Cambridge, 'plate glass' universities (founded in the 1950s/60s) like York University, and  early 19th century institutions like Durham.   They don't share the same organisational form.

 

 

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I certainly agree that Cambridge and Oxford have completely different set ups but as far as I am aware the remaining Russell groups unis all have similar organizational set ups although of course not identical

 

I think the fact that they are all are world-class, research-intensive universities does set them apart but that is not to deny that there is some stunning work being carried out in many of the other universities including some of the 1992 group

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