Liverpool Hope University
Liverpool Hope University is a public university with campuses in Liverpool, England. The university grew out of three teacher training colleges: S. Katharine's College, Notre Dame College, and Christ's College. Uniquely in European higher education, the university is ecumenical, the only one in Europe, with Saint Katharine's College being Anglican and Notre Dame and Christ's Colleges being Catholic. The Anglican Bishop of Liverpool, David Sheppard and the Catholic Archbishop of Liverpool, Derek Worlock played a prominent role in its formation. Its name derives from Hope Street, the road that connects the city's Anglican and Catholic cathedrals, where graduation ceremonies are alternately held.
The university is a research and teaching intensive institution. It has gained recognition for its teaching.
In 2023, it achieved an overall Silver rating in the UK Government's Teaching Excellence Framework, and rankings in teaching-focused league tables is comparable with lower-performing Russell Group universities.
Former Vice Chancellor Gerald Pillay summarised the university as a liberal arts college-style environment where " a name, not a number." Its "small and beautiful" ethos has been contrasted with the larger neighbouring University of Liverpool and Liverpool John Moores University.
History
The Victorian colleges
The university's earliest origins lie in the "Warrington Training College" set up in 1844 under the auspices of the Rector of Warrington Horatio Powys. Powys, who has a lecture theatre named in his honour in the EDEN Building, was the first Secretary of the Board of Education set up by the Diocese of Chester in 1839. The Warrington Training College was the second college set up by the Chester Diocesan Board within the current boundaries of Cheshire; the first having been established in Chester itself in 1839. With the Chester college having been designed to train its schoolmasters, the Warrington college was set up as a counterpart to train female teachers for the diocesan elementary schools.In 1856, the second of the university's predecessor colleges, "Our Lady's Training College", also referred to as "Notre Dame" and "Mount Pleasant", was opened by the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur. Like Warrington Training College, Notre Dame provided education to women. Researchers have noted that while both colleges educated women, Notre Dame "offered a broad-based education" unlike the "more domestic expectations in the education of women" which prevailed at Warrington Training College.
In 1930, Warrington Training College arrived in Liverpool, moving to the Taggart Avenue site having relocated initially to Battersea in London following a fire that had destroyed the college's original Warrington building in 1923. Its new home was the then-newly constructed building that still stands. Designed by the London-based Scottish architects Slater & Moberly at a cost of £170,000 in partnership with a young Reginald Uren, it is described by Historic England as being laid out "on a grand scale with accomplished Vernacular Revival styling reminiscent of Lutyens' Home Counties architecture" and " impressive main court maximises views over the Rector's Lawn and is complemented by a cloister-like rear quadrangle".
In 1938, the college was renamed "Saint Katharine's Training College", after the patron saint of learning Katharine of Alexandria.
A third college and university affiliation
In 1930, by coincidence the same year as Saint Katharine's College arrived in Liverpool, the Victoria University of Manchester and the University of Liverpool had set up a Training College Examinations Board covering the teacher training colleges that existed at that point within Lancashire – which at that time included both Merseyside and Greater Manchester – and Cheshire. This followed the blueprint for universities being involved in "Joint Examining Boards" for teacher training, initiated by the Board of Education in 1926 and based on the idea of making the curriculum and organisation of teacher education more in tune with other forms of higher education.Both Notre Dame and Warrington Training College were on a list of eight such colleges overseen by the VUM/University of Liverpool Examinations Board; among the others were the Diocesan Training College in Chester and the non-denominational Edge Hill Training College in Ormskirk. Initially two colleges based in Manchester were involved, but over time these withdrew from the scheme and it became exclusively a University of Liverpool venture, with the training colleges defined as the University of Liverpool's Associated Colleges.
In 1964, Saint Katharine's Training College was renamed simply as Saint Katharine's College, and, in the same year, Christ's College was opened to students on the opposite side of Taggart Avenue. Christ's had been founded by the Catholic Education Service and upon its creation enrolled like Saint Katharine's and Notre Dame as one of the University of Liverpool's Associated Colleges. Unlike Notre Dame, it admitted male students and was the first Catholic co-educational teachers' training college in England.
In 1974, the three colleges became formally integrated into the University of Liverpool's management structure via its new Board of College Studies. Instead of Associated Colleges, they were now re-designated as Affiliated Colleges. The Board of College Studies had "quasi-faculty status" and was the vehicle for a validation agreement which formalised the ability of the colleges to offer a general BA degree. Students who excelled were allowed to complete their studies to honours level at the University of Liverpool itself, though in practice few students from Saint Katharine's, Notre Dame or Christ's did so.
Federation and merger of colleges
The 1972 James Report had forecast a future reduction in teacher training intakes due to an oversupply of trained teachers in the context of the post-baby boom decline in the UK's birth rate since the mid-1960s. In response, the three colleges set up a joint committee in 1973 to discuss federation, establishing an Interim Federal Academic Council in 1974. The momentum towards federation was increased in the mid-1970s when the two Victorian colleges were served with notice of imminent closure by the Government. Unlike Saint Katharine's and Notre Dame, Christ's was not earmarked for closure given its more modern provenance and also its success at the time.As the proposed federation promised to bring together Catholic and Anglican education it was supported by Archbishop Worlock and Bishop Sheppard as "a major plank of their wider ecumenical vision for the city". A visit to London by the two men was instrumental to the granting of permission from the education minister, who reputedly agreed "as an expedient" to placate the two men, believing that the proposed federation would be short-lived.
In 1979, the federation was formally completed, with the three colleges becoming the constituents of a new body: Liverpool Institute of Higher Education. The following year the two Catholic colleges merged, continuing on Christ's' Taggart Avenue site as Christ's and Notre Dame College.
During the 1980s, the two colleges Saint Katharine's and CND co-existed under the umbrella of LIHE, with rationalisations gradually taking place to reduce the duplication of functions. However, whilst on an administrative level this was generally accomplished, at the end of the 1980s and into the 1990s there were still two libraries on the combined LIHE campus, as well as two chapels. Student social life was also largely carried on separately in the two colleges.
In 1990, the colleges merged and LIHE became a single institution as opposed to a federation of two colleges. The colleges therefore finally ceased to exist as academic entities.
Greater independence and a new name
The 1988 Teaching and Higher Education Act had imposed a new accountability framework which made the "tutelage relationship" with the University of Liverpool more inconvenient for LIHE in the early 1990s. In response to the 1988 Act, the validation agreement which operated through the Board of College Studies was tightened. University of Liverpool staff were now required to be present at LIHE subject management meetings and to be consulted over any proposed academic changes, however small.In 1994, these constraints resulted in the replacement of the validation agreement with an accreditation agreement from the University of Liverpool which gave LIHE autonomy to validate undergraduate degrees on its own. With the change also applying to the former Diocesan Training College in Chester, the University of Liverpool's College Studies Unit was disbanded the same year.
In 1995, it was decided to rename LIHE, which formally assumed the name Liverpool Hope University College. The name-change represented an attempt to establish a more striking, characterful identity that reflected the original religious purpose of the three founding colleges. Reflecting upon the renaming in 2003, Elford asserted that "Hope is now arguably one of the most mission-explicit Christian institutions in British higher education".
The Taggart Avenue site was accordingly renamed Hope Park, with the site of the former St Francis Xavier's School site in Everton being purchased and developed as the Creative Campus in 1999.
The present-day university
Hope achieved taught degree awarding powers in 2002, and three years later was awarded university status, becoming Liverpool Hope University. Research degree awarding powers and full independence followed in 2009.Campuses
The university has two teaching campuses. The larger of these is Hope Park in Childwall and hosts the Liverpool Hope Business School, the School of Law and Criminology, the School of Humanities, the School of Education, the School of Social Sciences, the School of Health and Sport Sciences, the School of Computer Science and the Environment and the School of Psychology. The second campus, Creative Campus, is located in Everton and is home to the School of Creative and Performing Arts.The university has a residential campus, Aigburth Park, in St Michael's, approximately from Liverpool's city centre and Hope Park.
The university also has an outdoor education centre in Snowdonia, North Wales, Plas Caerdeon.