Birmingham City University (abbrev. as BCU; and previously Birmingham Polytechnic and the University of Central England in Birmingham) is a post-1992 British university in the city of Birmingham, England. It is the second largest of three universities in the city, the other two being the Aston University and University of Birmingham. Initially established as the Birmingham College of Art with roots dating back to 1843 . In 1971 it was designated as a polytechnic until 1992, when it gained university status.
The university has eight campuses serving six faculties, and offers courses in art and design, business, the built environment, computing, education, engineering, English, healthcare, law, the performing arts, social sciences, and technology. A proposed £150m campus in the city centre of Birmingham, part of the Eastside development of a new technology and learning quarter, is to open in 2013. The university is a designated Skillset Media Academy, a Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning for health and social care, and a member of the million+ group of New Universities.
Birmingham City University is the West Midlands' largest provider of higher education for undergraduate study, and its portfolio of part-time courses is among the biggest in the UK. Roughly half of the university's full-time students are from the West Midlands, and a large percentage of these are from ethnic minorities. The university runs access and foundation programmes through an international network of associated universities and further education colleges, and has the highest intake of foreign students in the Birmingham area.
Read more about Birmingham City University: History, Chancellors, Mission Statement, Student Life, Birmingham City Students Union, Notable Staff and Alumni
Famous quotes containing the words city and/or university:
“A city built upon mud;
A culture built upon profit;
Free speech nipped in the bud,
The minority always guilty.
Why should I want to go back
To you, Ireland, my Ireland?”
—Louis MacNeice (1907–1963)
“One can describe a landscape in many different words and sentences, but one would not normally cut up a picture of a landscape and rearrange it in different patterns in order to describe it in different ways. Because a photograph is not composed of discrete units strung out in a linear row of meaningful pieces, we do not understand it by looking at one element after another in a set sequence. The photograph is understood in one act of seeing; it is perceived in a gestalt.”
—Joshua Meyrowitz, U.S. educator, media critic. “The Blurring of Public and Private Behaviors,” No Sense of Place: The Impact of Electronic Media on Social Behavior, Oxford University Press (1985)