The picturesque Roman city of Chester is one of those places that outsiders probably always expected to have its own university.

Indeed, William Gladstone was among the founders of the first Church of England teacher training college there in 1839.

Although it took until 2005 for that college to achieve university status, it had been building up a solid reputation recently in a number of subjects beyond education alone.

While applications were down by almost 20 per cent at the start of 2008, as the switch from six choices to five per applicant took its toll, this followed three years of substantial increases, leaving the demand for places far more buoyant than in pre-university days.

The main campus is only a short walk from the centre of Chester, a 32-acre site boasting manicured gardens and a number of new developments.

Improvements

A new sports hall is just one of a stream of improvements, which have included a new library and media centre, a large auditorium, a science building, an art and technology centre, and a swimming pool. The Faculty of Health and Social Care and the Faculty of Arts and Media both acquired new headquarters in 2007, when a new students’ union building also opened.

The Warrington campus, which has seven halls of residence, focuses on media courses and has seen the addition of state-of-the-art production facilities in collaboration with Granada Television and a new students’ union. The library has been extended to three times its original size and a business centre opened for students and local firms.

The campus is expected to be the focus of future development to accommodate modest increases in student numbers. Chester was among the top 10 universities in the first National Student Survey.

Although it has slipped out of the top 50 since then, it was the highest-scoring university for fine art, and boasted the only maximum score for teaching in geography and development studies.

Strengths

Sport was one of the top performers in the later rounds of teaching assessment, with maths also scoring 23 points out of 24. Although research activity has been growing, it has been from a low base: the average grades in the 2001 assessments were in the bottom ten of the universities in this year’s Guide.

Nevertheless, Chester was the first of the universities created in 2005 to be granted the power to award research degrees. With 14,500 students, including parttimers, Chester is among the biggest of the new universities established that year. More than half of the undergraduates are mature students and three quarters are female. Nearly all are state-educated, and more than a third have working-class roots.

The projected dropout rate had crept above 20 per cent in the latest statistics – significantly worse than the national average for the university’s courses and entry standards. About a third of the undergraduates take combined honours degrees and many courses of all types include a period of extended work experience.

There is also a limited range of Foundation degrees, mainly in health subjects but now including courses in business or leadership and management for RAF personnel. The Foundation degree in Muslim youth work is the first of its kind.

Contract

A student contract of the type that is likely to become commonplace elsewhere in the higher education sector sets out clear conditions on the offer of a place, as well as detailing the university’s responsibilities.

Students promise to “study diligently, and to attend promptly and participate appropriately at lectures, courses, classes, seminars, tutorials, work placements and other activities which form part of the programme.” The university undertakes to deliver the student’s programme but leaves itself considerable leeway beyond that.

However, Chester offers considerable support and facilities for its students. There are libraries on both sites and extensive sports facilities, especially on the main campus, catering partly for the large physical education programme.

Most first years are offered one of the growing number of hall places, although there is not yet enough university accommodation to make this a guarantee. Student union facilities form the basis of the social scene on both campuses, but Chester has more to offer for those looking further afield.

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