With a main campus on the site of a former botanical garden, it was natural for Gloucestershire to focus on green issues.

The university has placed sustainability at the head of its priorities, topping the Green League of Universities in 2008 for its all-round environmental performance.

There are allotments for students, a free bus service and bike loan schemes, as well as diplomas in environmentalism and an International Research Institute in Sustainability.

The approach may be one factor in the growing popularity of the university: an increase in applications of almost 20 per cent at the start of 2009 was one of the biggest in the UK.

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Related Links

• University of Gloucestershire

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• University of Gloucester official site

Church of England

One of the more recent additions to the list of universities, Gloucestershire is also the first for more than a century to have formal links with the Church of England.

Although its religious origins have been played down in recent years and students of all faiths are welcomed, the university includes church appointees on its governing body and Lord Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, is its first Chancellor.

This did not prevent the university dropping theology at degree level as part of a curriculum review, although the subject will be back in the prospectus for 2010-11.

Before university status in 2001, Cheltenham and Gloucester College of Higher Education had been the product of a merger between a church college and the higher education wing of a college of arts and technology. After considerable expansion during the 1990s, there are now about 8,500 students, including 2,500 part-timers, and 1,000 academic and support staff. The main subject areas are law and IT, business management, the arts, media and design, humanities, the environment, teacher education, leisure and tourism, social sciences and sport.

The university prides itself on a good range of work placements, which include Microsoft and Disneyworld.

Campus

The main campus is on the attractive site of the former College of St Paul and St Mary, a mile outside Cheltenham. There has also been considerable development of the Gloucester campus, on the site of a former domestic science college which became part of the university in 2002.

Although middle-class Cheltenham is a world away from more working-class Gloucester socially, the two centres are only seven miles apart and students are not as isolated as they are in some split-site institutions. There are also two smaller sites in Cheltenham: Pittville for art and design, and Francis Close Hall for a range of subjects, including education. The latter also houses a national centre of excellence in the teaching of geography, environment and related disciplines.

The free bus service links all four sites and also serves Cheltenham railway station. In addition, the former Urban Learning Foundation, in London, became part of the university in 2003, providing a very different setting for teacher training courses.

Gloucestershire did not quite repeat the success it enjoyed in the previous research assessments when the exercise was repeated in 2008. Some world-leading research was found in five of the 12 areas in which the university submitted work, with the small education entry producing the best results. But less than 20 per cent of all work reached the top two categories. Results in the National Student Survey have been variable, with only law, English and geography recording satisfaction levels of more than 90 per cent in 2008.

Students

The university’s intake is as diverse as its locations, with 95 per cent of undergraduates from state schools and nearly a third from working-class homes. The projected dropout rate has improved dramatically, the latest projection of 10 per cent falling to well below the national average for the subjects offered and the students’ entry qualifications.

The new and well-equipped sport-oriented Oxstalls campus, in Gloucester, where participation in higher education has always been low, will focus particularly on access initiatives.

The university’s sports facilities include a sports hall and tennis courts, but are not extensive for a university of 8,500 students, in spite of the addition of a gym at the Oxstalls campus. Likewise accommodation, with around 1,300 beds, although the university assures its students that it has access to enough private sector places to meet all their needs.

First years are given priority in the allocation of hall places and “enhancement of the student experience” is one of the priorities in the university’s strategic plan. Cheltenham is the livelier of the two bases in terms of nightlife, but neither is dull and facilities are improving.

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