This article is about the university in Liverpool, England. For the Californian university, see Hope International University. For the Somalilander university, see Hope University.
1844 – Saint Katharine's College (as Warrington Training College) 1856 – Notre Dame College (as Our Lady's Training College) 1964 – Christ's College 1979 – Liverpool Institute of Higher Education 1995 – Liverpool Hope University College 2005 – Liverpool Hope University
The university's earliest origins lie in the "Warrington Training College" set up in 1844 under the auspices of the Rector of Warrington Horatio Powys.[9] Powys, who has a lecture theatre named in his honour in the EDEN Building, was the first Secretary of the Board of Education set up by the Diocese of Chester in 1839. The Warrington Training College was the second college set up by the Chester Diocesan Board within the current boundaries of Cheshire; the first having been established in Chester itself in 1839 (similarly the point of origin of the University of Chester).[9] With the Chester college having been designed to train its (male) schoolmasters, the Warrington college was set up as a counterpart to train female teachers for the diocesan elementary schools.[10]
In 1856 the second of the university's predecessor colleges, "Our Lady's Training College", also referred to as "Notre Dame" and "Mount Pleasant", was opened by the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur.[11] Like Warrington Training College, Notre Dame provided education to women. Researchers have noted that while both colleges educated women, Notre Dame "offered a broad-based education" unlike the "more domestic expectations in the education of women" which prevailed at Warrington Training College.[11]
In 1930 Warrington Training College arrived in Liverpool, moving to the Taggart Avenue site having relocated initially to Battersea in London following a fire that had destroyed the college's original Warrington building in 1923.[11] Its new home was the then-newly constructed building that still stands. Designed by the London-based Scottish architects Slater & Moberly[12] at a cost of £170,000 (equivalent to approximately £10m in 2019) in partnership with a young Reginald Uren (who handled the construction phase), it is described by Historic England as being laid out "on a grand scale with accomplished Vernacular Revival styling reminiscent of Lutyens' Home Counties architecture" and "[an] impressive main court [that] maximises views over the Rector's Lawn and is complemented by a cloister-like rear quadrangle".[13]
In 1930, by coincidence the same year as Saint Katharine's (then Warrington) Training College arrived in Liverpool, the Victoria University of Manchester (VUM) and the University of Liverpool had set up a Training College Examinations Board covering the teacher training colleges that existed at that point within Lancashire – which at that time included both Merseyside and Greater Manchester – and Cheshire.[14] This followed the blueprint for universities being involved in "Joint Examining Boards" for teacher training, initiated by the Board of Education in 1926 and based on the idea of making the curriculum and organisation of teacher education more in tune with other forms of higher education.[15]
Both Notre Dame (in the guise of Mount Pleasant Training College) and Warrington Training College were on a list of eight such colleges overseen by the VUM/University of Liverpool Examinations Board; among the others were the Diocesan Training College in Chester (the future University of Chester) and the non-denominational Edge Hill Training College in Ormskirk (forerunner of Edge Hill University).[14] Initially two colleges based in Manchester were involved, but over time these withdrew from the scheme and it became exclusively a University of Liverpool venture, with the training colleges defined as the University of Liverpool's Associated Colleges.[14]
In 1964 Saint Katharine's Training College was renamed simply as Saint Katharine's College, and, in the same year, Christ's College was opened to students on the opposite side of Taggart Avenue.[14] Christ's had been founded by the Catholic Education Council and upon its creation enrolled like Saint Katharine's and Notre Dame as one of the University of Liverpool's Associated Colleges. Unlike Notre Dame, it admitted male students and was the first Catholic co-educational teachers' training college in England.[14]
In 1974 the three colleges (along with the other colleges included in the venture) became formally integrated into the University of Liverpool's management structure via its new Board of College Studies.[3] Instead of Associated Colleges, they were now re-designated as Affiliated Colleges.[14] The Board of College Studies had "quasi-faculty status" and was the vehicle for a validation agreement which formalised the ability of the colleges (consented to by the University of Liverpool the previous year) to offer a general BA degree.[3] Students who excelled were allowed to complete their studies to honours level at the University of Liverpool itself, though in practice few students from Saint Katharine's, Notre Dame or Christ's did so.[3]
Federation and merger of colleges
The 1972 James Report had forecast a future reduction in teacher training intakes due to an oversupply of trained teachers in the context of the post-baby boomdecline in the UK's birth rate since the mid-1960s.[16] In response, the three colleges set up a joint committee in 1973 to discuss federation, establishing an Interim Federal Academic Council in 1974.[3] The momentum towards federation was increased in the mid-1970s when the two Victorian colleges (along with similar institutions across the UK) were served with notice of imminent closure by the Government.[3] Unlike Saint Katharine's and Notre Dame, Christ's was not earmarked for closure given its more modern provenance and also its success at the time.[3]
As the proposed federation promised to bring together Catholic and Anglican education it was supported by Archbishop Worlock and Bishop Sheppard as "a major plank of their wider ecumenical vision for the city".[3] A visit to London by the two men was instrumental to the granting of permission from the education minister, who reputedly agreed "as an expedient" to placate the two men, believing that the proposed federation would be short-lived.[3]
In 1979 the federation was formally completed, with the three colleges becoming the constituents of a new body: Liverpool Institute of Higher Education (LIHE). The following year the two Catholic colleges merged, continuing on Christ's' Taggart Avenue site as Christ's and Notre Dame College (CND).
During the 1980s the two colleges Saint Katharines and CND co-existed under the umbrella of LIHE, with rationalisations gradually taking place to reduce the duplication of functions. However, whilst on an administrative level this was generally accomplished, at the end of the 1980s and into the 1990s there were still two libraries on the combined LIHE campus, as well as two chapels. (It was not until the 2000s that the modernist chapel formerly of Christ's became the only chapel at the Taggart Avenue site, with the Saint Katharine's chapel converted into a senatechamber.)[17] Student social life was also largely carried on separately in the two colleges.[18]
In 1990 the colleges merged and LIHE became a single institution as opposed to a federation of two colleges.[14] The colleges therefore finally ceased to exist as academic entities.
Greater independence and a new name
The 1988 Teaching and Higher Education Act had imposed a new accountability framework which made the "tutelage relationship" with the University of Liverpool more inconvenient for LIHE in the early 1990s.[17] In response to the 1988 Act, the validation agreement which operated through the Board of College Studies was tightened. University of Liverpool staff were now required to be present at LIHE subject management meetings and to be consulted over any proposed academic changes, however small.[17]
In 1994 these constraints resulted in the replacement of the validation agreement with an accreditation agreement from the University of Liverpool which gave LIHE autonomy to validate undergraduate degrees on its own.[17] With the change also applying to the former Diocesan Training College in Chester (by that point renamed as Chester College of Higher Education and the only other remaining Affiliated College), the University of Liverpool's College Studies Unit was disbanded the same year.[18][14]
In 1995 it was decided to rename LIHE, which formally assumed the name Liverpool Hope University College (shortened to "Liverpool Hope" or simply "Hope").[19] The name-change represented an attempt to establish a more striking, characterful identity that reflected the original religious purpose of the three founding colleges. Reflecting upon the renaming in 2003, Elford asserted that "Hope is now arguably one of the most mission-explicit Christian institutions in British higher education".[20]
The Taggart Avenue site was accordingly renamed Hope Park, with the site of the former St Francis Xavier's School site in Everton (the school itself having moved to Woolton in the 1960s) being purchased and developed as the Creative Campus in 1999.[21]
Full maturity and the present-day university
Hope achieved taught degree awarding powers in 2002, and three years later was awarded university status, becoming Liverpool Hope University.[21][22] Research degree awarding powers and full independence followed in 2009.[22]
Late 2010s
For many years the university did not take part in university league tables. Upon entering for the first time in 2015 (for the 2016 editions), the university increased its positions, notably in the Guardian league table (which excludes research metrics). In the 2018 table announced in May 2017, the university outperformed its more prestigious neighbour the University of Liverpool for the first time, a fact used by the student news site The Tab in a 2018 April Fool's Dayhoax that the University of Liverpool would lose its Russell Group status.[23]
The university peaked in the 2019 edition of the Guardian table at 33rd (out of 121 universities), outranking the University of Liverpool for a second time and also other Russell Group universities including Manchester, Cardiff, Sheffield, Queen's Belfast, and King's College London.[7] Dropping 10 places to 43rd, it remained ahead of the latter three universities and again, for a third year running the University of Liverpool in the 2020 edition announced in June 2019.[8]
In total, the university climbed 71 places in three years, with a rise of 25 places in the 2017 edition and 23 places in both the 2018 and 2019 editions.
In June 2017 the university was awarded Gold by the UK Government's Office for Students in its Teaching Excellence Framework.[27] It was one of two universities in the Liverpool metro area (the other being Edge Hill) to achieve this rating.[28] The university (alongside Coventry and Nottingham Trent) was named by the Guardian as one of the "excellent modern universities" who had been "rewarded with gold ratings, while some Russell Group institutions had to suffer the indignity of being awarded bronze".[29] In the 2023 TEF assessment, the university's award was revised to "silver".[6]
Campuses
The university has two teaching campuses.
Looking northwards along Taggart Avenue
Sculpture at the main entrance to the western side of the campus
Education & Enterprise (EDEN) Building
Hilda Constance Allen Building, formerly Saint Katharine's College
Sheppard-Worlock Library
The larger of these (though still small, with a built area occupying around 30 acres) is Hope Park in Childwall, in the vicinity of Childwall Woods and Calderstones Park.
Sheppard-Worlock Library
The Sheppard-Worlock Library is the university's main library. Located at Hope Park (there is also a small library at the Creative Campus), it is blended in to the Hilda Constance Allen Building, extending upwards an original low-rise block running east–west between two wings at the building's northern end. Previously the space had been occupied partly by kitchen and dining facilities.[18]
The library was constructed in 1997 at a cost of £5.34m.[18] A £1.5m refurbishment in 2012 included the creation of a British Standard vault for its special collections.[30]
Entrusted to the university upon the closure of St Joseph's College at Up Holland in 1991. Contains material covering theology, philosophy, church, secular and local history, ecclesiastical history, art, architecture, sociology, education and works of general reference. Also includes recusant works and early printed works.
Picton Collection
Contains many of the classic New Testament works published before 1975, linguistic studies including older Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek lexicons, and several sets of theological texts.
Materials from the estate of Archbishop Blanch. Includes notes from his time as a student at Wycliffe Hall, Oxford and notes for sermons, lectures, talks and speeches made while Bishop of Liverpool (1960–1966) and Archbishop of York (1975–1983).
Library for the Andrew F. Walls Centre for the Study of African and Asian Christianity
Materials donated by Walls himself on the history of missionary activity, principally in Africa and the Asia-Pacific region but also in other parts of the world, and also on mission theology and practice, non-Christian faiths, and the history of religions.
Education Research Collection
Books, pamphlets and journals on education and related subjects donated by the University of Liverpool. Contains 30,000 books and pamphlets, and books on all aspects of education (especially historical) with large sections on special education and religious education. Includes bibliographies, Government and other statistical publications, and annual reports of organisations connected with education. Also includes 400 journals, with strengths in learning difficulties and special education, educational psychology, and education overseas.
The university's teaching campuses contain three Grade IIlisted buildings. One of these is the former main building of Saint Katharine's College at Hope Park, now renamed as the Hilda Constance Allen Building.[13] The Creative Campus includes the other two: the former Saint Francis Xavier's School (now the Cornerstone Building) designed by Henry Clutton, and the former LSPCC (Liverpool Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children) building at 3 Islington Square.[32][33][34]
Hope Park is bisected by Taggart Avenue, which runs north–south through the middle of the campus and divides the former sites of two of the university's three predecessor colleges. On the western side of Taggart Avenue is the former campus of Christ's College, while the eastern side (which besides Hilda Constance Allen also includes the EDEN Building and the Sheppard-Worlock Library) was formerly the campus of Saint Katharine's. In the era when the two colleges existed, high walls ran along both sides of Taggart Avenue, physically separating the institutions.[3]
The university's third predecessor college, Notre Dame, was located on Mount Pleasant at its corner with Hope Street. Its former property, which it vacated in 1980, was acquired by Liverpool Polytechnic and became part of the campus of LJMU, the polytechnic's successor institution.[35] Together with an adjoining townhouse it forms LJMU's John Foster Building.
Organisation and administration
The university follows a Christian principle to avoid bank loans and has not taken out a new bank loan since the mid-2000s.[36] Expenditure is financed from university cash reserves, and the university budget is set from zero each year with only permanent staffing rolled over.[36] In 2018 the university established an Income Generation Plan to diversify income streams away from a reliance on undergraduate tuition fees.[36]
Elford's The Foundation of Hope discusses how brand management was of particular importance to the university in the 1990s, with the inception of the "Hope brand" in 1995: "The Hope brand was vigorously developed and marketed"; "New corporate colours [were developed]".[37] The university had previously struggled to unite its three predecessor colleges into a single corporate identity, with "internal dissonances" persisting.[38] Elford argues that, during its time as Liverpool Institute of Higher Education, the university "had effectively failed to establish an identity of its own".[38]
The university adopted red as the main corporate colour of the Hope brand, contrasted primarily with white. It is the only university in the Liverpool metro area that uses red, a corporate colour more commonly associated with universities elsewhere in the historic "red rose" county of Lancashire (in particular Lancaster, Salford and UCLan). The university uses red for spiritual/theological rather than geographical/historical reasons.[39] Its original (1995–2006) logo (the word "hope" written in red in lower case italics with the tail of the "e" turning upwards and encircling the word) can be found in The Foundation of Hope on the book's title page and rear cover.[40]
In 2016/17 the university began using its coat of arms as its sole corporate logo, emphasising its brand heritage.[41] This involved retiring its most recent modern logo, which had been designed in partnership with the London-based creative agency Fabrik in 2006.[39] (The graphical package produced with Fabrik also included a typeface and general layout and colour-scheme principles for university publications that continued to be used after 2016/17.)[39] The 2006 logo included a red rectangle with the university's name written in white, accompanied by a white Star of Bethlehem in the upper-right corner (this being appropriate to the Star of Bethlehem being a Star in the East: the upper part of the rectangle signifying the sky and east being on the right-hand side of the map). The logo also included the legend EST. 1844 in the bottom-right, a feature which survived after 2016 (sometimes rendered Est. 1844) in the university's variant presentations of its coat of arms in letterheads and other graphical uses. For the 175th anniversary of that year in 2019 the university also presented its coat of arms alongside the legend "175 YEARS OF ACADEMIC EXCELLENCE". In this legend "175" was rendered in gold to reflect the university's TEF Gold rating for Teaching Excellence achieved two years earlier.[42]
Academic profile
Schools and Departments
The university comprises eight schools and two departments. It is a flat organisation as the eight schools do not contain departments (though the schools are divided less formally into subject teams) and schools/departments are not grouped upwards into middle-management-level faculties.[43]
The School of Creative and Performing Arts is located at the Creative Campus, with all other schools/departments at Hope Park.
School/Department
Subject teams
Liverpool Hope Business School
Accounting & Finance; Business & Management; Marketing
School of Creative and Performing Arts
Drama; Dance; Performance Studies; Fine Art; Design; Film; Visual Culture; Fashion; Creative Industries Business Management; Music
School of Education
Early Childhood; Education Studies; Teacher Education
Nutrition & Food Science; Clinical Nutrition; Biomedical Health; Human Biology; Sport and Exercise Science; Sport Rehabilitation
School of Humanities
English Literature; English Language; Creative Writing; Media & Communication; History; Politics; International Relations; Theology; Philosophy; Religious Studies
School of Law and Criminology
Law; Criminology
School of Mathematics, Computer Science and Engineering
Computer Science; Electronic and Computer Engineering; Information Technology; Mathematics; Robotics; Software Engineering
Department of Psychology
Psychology; Sport Psychology
School of Social Science
Childhood & Youth Studies; Disability Studies; Health & Sociology; Social Policy; Social Work
In 2019/20 the university had 305 academic staff.[44] 230 of these (75.41%) were qualified to doctoral level, placing the university 16th highest in the UK on this measure.[44][45] The university's aim is for 85% of its academic staff to have doctorates and the remainder to be Professional Tutors with industry experience in areas such as education, law and accountancy.[45]
In 2016 the university signed a five-year partnership agreement with Everton Football Club.[51][52] The partnership included a monitoring and evaluation project on the club's Everton in the Community Free School (opened in 2011)[53] and graduate scholarships to research the club's history.[54][55]
Awards
Year
Award
Result
2019
The Academic Insights Magazine – International University of the Year[56]
The university has 12 research projects/centres:[60]
Andrew F. Walls Centre for the Study of African and Asian Christianity
Archbishop Desmond Tutu Centre for War and Peace Studies
Association for Continental Philosophy of Religion
Centre for Christian Education and Pastoral Theology
Centre for Culture and Disability Studies (CCDS)
Centre for Education and Policy Analysis (CEPA)
Irish Studies Research Group
Ministry Research Project
Popular Culture Research Group
Sand Dune and Shingle Network
Sarcopenia Ageing Trial
Socio-Economic and Applied Research for Change (SEARCH)
Student life
Halls of residence
There are 12 halls of residence for students enrolled at the university.[61] (The university runs a free shuttle bus between the campuses.)[62]
Name
Campus
Ensuite
Open to
Newman Hall
Hope Park
Yes
First year undergraduates
Teresa Hall
Hope Park
Yes
First year undergraduates
Wesley Hall
Hope Park
Yes
First year undergraduates
Oscar Romero Hall
Hope Park
No
First year undergraduates
Kitty Wilkinson Hall
Hope Park
No
First year undergraduates
Josephine Bhakita Hall
Hope Park
No
First year undergraduates
Catherine Booth Hall
Hope Park
No
First year undergraduates
Angela Hall
Hope Park
No
First year undergraduates
Austin Hall
Hope Park
No
First year undergraduates
Gerrard Manley Hopkins Hall
Creative Campus
Yes
All undergraduates
Josephine Butler Hall
Aigburth Park
Yes
All students
St Julie's Hall
Aigburth Park
No
All students
Students' Union
Students at the university are represented by the Students' Union (HopeSU), which is affiliated to the National Union of Students.[63]
Student body
In 2019/20 the university had 4,985 students including 3,895 undergraduates and 1,090 postgraduates, making it the 126th largest university in the UK (out of the 169 universities included in HESA statistics).[1] The university is less than half the size of the other two universities in the Liverpool metro area with comparable histories, Edge Hill (13,560 students) and its elder sister Chester (13,545 students).[1]
Comparison with similarly sized UK universities
The university has a greater number and proportion of postgraduates than four of the six universities closest to it in size.[1]
"Much of my work over the years has explored aspects of feminism, such as the representation of the female body in art history and contemporary visual culture. At Hope, I wrote my 10,000-word dissertation on "Feminism and Cosmetic Surgery", I received fantastic support from my advisor Dr Amelia Yeates, and I think the research and guidance I received really provided me with a great wealth of knowledge on feminist discourse."
—Hughes speaking in 2018 on her studies at the university.[64]
^Liverpool Hope University (8 November 2019). "Commencement 2019". YouTube. Archived from the original on 12 December 2021. Retrieved 11 September 2020.