Keele University - Reputation and Academic Organisation

Reputation and Academic Organisation

The university's distinctive profile reflects the aims of its founders: breadth of study and community atmosphere.

Breadth of study was guaranteed by the "pioneering" four-year dual-honours degree programmes initially offered by Keele. The university's curriculum required every student to study two "principal" subjects to honours level, as well as further "subsidiary" subjects, with an additional requirement that students should study at least one subject from each of the subject groupings of Arts, Sciences and Social Sciences. The cross-disciplinary requirement was reinforced by the Foundation Year, an innovation which meant that for the first year of the four-year programmes, all students would study a common course of interdisciplinary "foundation studies". In the words of the first UCNS Prospectus, the programme offered:

"...a broad education based upon an understanding of the heritage of civilisation, movements and conditions, and of the nature, methods and influence of the experimental sciences"

Standard three-year degrees were introduced in 1973 and the numbers of students following the Foundation Year course have steadily dwindled since. The Foundation Year has never quite been formally discontinued, however, and remains an option for prospective students who qualify for entry into Higher Education, but lack subject-specific qualifications for specific degree programmes. By contrast, the Dual Honours system at Keele remains distinctive and popular, with almost 90 per cent of current undergraduates reading dual honours. Able to combine any two available subjects, students have a choice of over 500 degree courses in all. The university also offers a study abroad semester to most of its students.

As an experimental community, Keele was initially founded as a "wholly residential" institution. Of the initial intake of 159 students in October 1950, 149 were resident on campus, and it was required of the first professors appointed that they should also be in residence. With the expansion of the university, total residency has long since been abandoned, but the proportion of students and staff resident on campus remains above average at 62% in 2011 of full-time students having fallen from 70% in 2006. A significant proportion of staff also currently live on campus.

The university also had a reputation for political activism, especially left-wing radicalism, having been dubbed, in its early years, a "School for Socialists" and "The Kremlin on the Hill". This left-wing radicalism largely faded over time, and symbolically appeared to end in January 2008, when Keele became the last university in Britain to close its 'industrial relations' department, though the courses in industrial relations continue to run and recruit well.

Keele has a graduation rate of over 90%, with over 60% achieving 1sts or 2:1s. 90% of undergraduates are state-educated (a figure exceeded by only two traditional universities in England), and over 25% of students are from working-class backgrounds. In recent years Keele has attempted to boost this number by reaching out to local schools and hosting a summer school at the university. In February 2011, a Sutton Trust report revealed that 3·4% of Keele had had free school meals, whilst 7·9% had attended independent schools. This compares the national figures for England of 14% eligible for free school meals, and 7% independently educated.