Westminster has completed a ten-year modernisation of its four sites, costing £130 million, and has since added new gym facilities, a £1-million venue and a vast underground exhibition space.

The £33-million transformation of the former Harrow College, in north London was Europe’s largest university construction project and the redevelopment of one of the three central sites, opposite Madame Tussauds, was even more costly.

The large business school acquired a “cloistered environment” creating more space for teaching and research. The last phase saw the redevelopment of the New Cavendish Street site, near the BT Tower.

The greenfield Harrow campus boasts a high-tech information resources centre with good facilities for the highly rated media studies courses. Computing and design are also based on a site designed for 7,500 students.

Part-time

The West End sites provide the perfect catchment area for part-time undergraduates, who account for about a third of the 18,000 places. Only the Open University has more.

By no means all the students are Londoners, however: over 15 per cent come from abroad – among the highest proportions among the new universities – and Westminster has the largest number of ethnic minority students in Britain.

Westminster courses are also taught in nine overseas countries, from Oman to the United States, a characteristic which won the university a Queen’s Award for Enterprise.

Languages

The historic headquarters building, near Broadcasting House, in central London, houses social sciences and languages. Westminster claims to offer the largest number of languages of any British university, and French and Chinese scored particularly well in teaching assessments.

Science and health courses are concentrated on the Cavendish campus. The university’s growing interest in health includes degrees from the British College of Naturopathy and Osteopathy and a range of courses in complementary medicine, including a BSc in acupuncture.

There are degrees in herbal medicine, homeopathy and nutritional therapy, and a diploma in the traditional Chinese massage technique of Qigong. Westminster achieved a series of good teaching quality scores.

Maximum points

Psychology and tourism lead the way with maximum points, with media studies, Chinese, community care and primary health all close behind. The university weaves workrelated skills into its degree programmes, but scores in the 2007 National Student Survey were among the lowest in the country for the second successive year.

Westminster’s haul of four subjects on grade 5 in the last assessment exercise was the best of any new university, although the decision to enter fewer than 30 per cent of academics limited both the funding rewards and the impact on the university’s ranking.

Asian studies, law, linguistics and media studies were all rated nationally outstanding with much work of international quality. Larger numbers will be entered in 2008, following a research drive that has seen the establishment of several interdisciplinary programmes.

Access

More than four out of ten undergraduates are from working-class homes – a much higher proportion than the national average for the subjects offered. The university also exceeds its benchmark for the admission of students from state schools and colleges, although the central London location reduces the share of places going to students from areas without a tradition of higher education.

The scholarship programme is the largest of its kind, with £4.3 million being awarded annually to over 500 home and overseas students. The university won the Times Higher Education award for its support for overseas students in 2005. Over 70 per cent of British undergraduates qualify for a cash bursary of £310 per year, as recipients of maintenance or special support grants at any level.

The dropout rate has been improving and is now below average for the university’s subjects and entry standards. Westminster’s students, like those at all the London universities, complain of the high cost of living, particularly for accommodation.

Accommodation

The university has added considerably to its residential stock in recent years, with the opening of a £6-million block of halls in Harrow to be followed by the refurbishment of its Marylebone halls in time for the September 2008 intake, but there is no way round the capital’s inflated housing market at some stage.

The Harrow campus is lively socially, but those based on the other sites tend to be spread around the capital. Sports facilities are also dispersed, with playing fields and a boathouse in Chiswick, west London.

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