UNDERGRADUATE PAGE
The Youngest University
By BRIAN M. DUNNING (University College of North Staffordshire)
0 N April 17th the Queen opens Britain's newest university, the University College of North Staffordshire, near Stoke- on-Trent. Ahead of the formal event, however, the first 150 students are already there, in their second term, and the pioneering work of changing Keele Hall, once a " stately home," into a fully-fledged seat of learning is well under way.
Staff and students live in. Accommodation is provided by con- verted Army huts, but no one suffers from makeshift arrangements ; conversion has meant almost total alteration. The old military planning has given place to something less martial and more reminiscent, for the students, of the homes they left behind them. Studies and bedrooms replace rambling dormitories in being during the war years, and until more permanent buildings go up, the students of this university can thank a Victorian landowner and a Georgian War Office for a comfortable beginning to their four years' stay.
The fact that it is a four years' stay denotes an experiment that may grow in popularity among other educational institutions. For the degree three subjects arc to be taken during the last three years. Subsidiary subjects, and those leading up to the degree course, form the study for the first year. In this effort to reduce specialisa- tion and produce the graduate with a balanced knowledge of the world around him, the university has made something of a break with tradition. It may be that, in doing so, this youngest of universities is giving a lead to its elders. Only time can tell, either whether the lead will be worth following or the elders will have elasticity enough to follow it. But the experiment at Keele Hall has certainly aroused much interest, both at home and overseas.
Letters from many countries have wished the new university well, and several American universities have shown an enthusiasm for the four-year plan that verges on excitement. In its novelty it is one that provides something to watch and think about. Enthusiasm at Keele is infectious. The idea of creating a completely new university has fired the imaginations of all types, from county dignitaries to plumbers and decorators. Co-operation is in fashion, and local authorities, civic guilds and societies of all kinds in the neighbouring Potteries have helped in the establishment with notable gusto. For instance, ten men 'x•orkcd all through one day and the following night on ansurgent job without considering sleep or " time- and-a-half " ; four painters came early each day and finished their job a week ahead of schedule ; the secretaries who started the machinery of administration did so by cutting out morning coffee and filling forms instead of cups. This kind of enthusiasm has created in the old home of the Sneyd family the nucleus of a centre of learning unlike anything in this or any other country.
Visitors will probably outnumber students on the official opening day, for the place is not yet working at anything like capacity. But for all its size, it is—and will bc—a democratic college. Temporary buildings and traditions yet to be made act as levelling influences. The first year will he a period of discovery. The staff know their surroundings no better than do the students, and the presence of something akin to camaraderie is no trick of the imagination but very real.
Creator of this spirit is Lord Lindsay of Birker who, as Principal of Keck Hall, inaugurated the Foundation Lectures that cover the first year. The very opposite of the accepted idea of a philosopher, Lord Lindsay is a Pickwickian-like figure of a thinker who says what he believes, straightly and plainly. "The fun of being in at the start of this thing ought to compensate for some of the dis- comforts that are bound to crop up," he said, and of course he was and is right. To be the first of many generations of students is to make history, and to enjoy the chance of a life-time as well us to carry a big responsibility.
Few, if any, students in other universities have had the same opportunities. That. for instance, of choosing their own colours— a little thing, perhaps, but the results of which carry an increasing significance with the years. Here, at Keele, this choice has taken place. A noisy but serious meeting of the college fixed on a black blazer to carry the red-and-gold crest proposed by the College of Heralds. What future generations will think of this choice is beyond telling, but the pioneers naturally hope for posterity's approval, or at least, its acceptance of this historic-chromatic decision.
Carpenters' hammers still sound in the Great Hall of Keele. Victorian house-parties, sometimes graced by royalty, took place where students now read history or nuclear physics, and the ball- room, with its exotic ceiling, now serves as one of the most lavish lecture-rooms of any university. But these glories of the past do not prevent the watchword of the place being " Eventually." The word expresses all the hopes and ambitions of everyone concerned. Progress at times seems slow, and indeed the very magnitude of the plan makes it a long and difficult one to accomplish.
Even in the matter-of physical as distinct from mental develop- ments this obtains. There is no level ground awaiting transforma- tion into a sports-field. Instead, bulldozers and excavators have the task of moving a fair-sized hill, and removing tons of top soil and rock, replacing them with twenty acres of grass. Winter rain has turned the Staffordshire clay into Public Enemy No. 1. Another problem has been the difficulty of blending buildings with sur- roundings. Keele Hall itself is built of red sandstone. In order to fit in the new buildings with this effect, research has been done to find a material with the appearance of red sandstone, yet lighter, less expensive and equally durable. Six- months of work have resulted in a process which provides the answer—and which may well provide the architects of the new refectory with a shop-window for the whole world to see.
But the greatest shop-window in another sense will, it is hoped, be the university itself—" selling " that finest of products, a liberal education, served with imagination and enterprise. To the Five Towns the next few years may well add a sixth, not so smoke clouded but—as we at Keele Hall intend it—just as illustrious.
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