History of the University of Bristol
[2] As early as 1906 Conwy Lloyd Morgan had stated his intention to give up the principalship of University College, Bristol.
In 1911, George Wills acquired the athletic ground at Coombe Dingle and in 1920 he bought the Victoria Rooms which became the Students' Union building.
World War I caused a financial crisis with the university losing around 20% of its fee income but the government agreed to make up this loss because of important contributions which Bristol made to the study of poison gas and explosives.
The growing strength was exemplified by the "poaching" of academics from other universities and the award of a Nobel Prize to Bristol graduate Paul Dirac for his work on quantum mechanics.
Sir George Wills had offered to build a new university hospital if the two could resolve their differences, but this failed to create an agreement between them.
The physics department became home to the Sutton Group, which worked on klystron and magnetron valves (the latter important in the development of radar).
A "future physics" professor, Peter Fowler, used his scientific knowledge to destroy German radar jamming devices during the war.
Lovejoy was responsible for the creation of a system whereby the appointment of professors was made by joint senate and council committees after the two organisations disagreed over his replacement as Chair of Physics.
Damage occurred to the Wills Memorial Building during the war caused the then-chancellor to give a defiant speech.
Loveday remained as vice-chancellor despite being past retirement age until the end of the war when he was replaced by Phillip Morris.
A new chemistry building was also planned on the slopes of St Michael's Hill but the project ran into difficulty when Bristol City Council's compulsory purchase orders displaced some local residents.
The 1960s saw a large increase in the number of British universities built after Harold Wilson was elected prime minister.
However the greatest expansions occurred in the arts with the creation of the drama, theology, sociology, politics, and social and economic history departments.
This escalated into an 11-day sit-in at Senate House which gained Bristol national headlines, although it has been argued that the protest enjoyed little student support.
The students occupying the building made a list of demands, including "greater student representation in Senate meetings" and "That the Vice-Chancellor, Eric Thomas, write and send an open letter to the Government condemning cuts in the education budget and appealing to them not to implement these policies, and to publicly call for Vice-Chancellors across the country to unite against these cuts, any rise in tuition fees and the removal of Educational Maintenance Allowance and Aimhigher.
[19] In late February and early March 2003, Bristol became embroiled in a row about admissions policies, with some private schools threatening a boycott[20] based on their claims that, in an effort to improve equality of access, the university was discriminating against their students.
[25][26] The students helped produce a Rough Justice programme promoting his false claims of innocence, and continued to assert he had been wrongly convicted even after his appeal was rejected in 2011.
[27][26] In 2013, Hall confessed to the crime to police and dropped his appeals, and one year later was found dead in an act of suicide.
[39] The coroner criticised the Avon and Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust whilst her parents blamed the university for lack of measures for her during the six-month period she was struggling.
The judge found that the university had breached its duties under the Equality Act to make reasonable adjustments for disability in the way it had assessed Natasha Abrahart, and had treated her unfavourably.
[49][50][41][51][52] Around late 2018, the university launched a new opt-in emergency contact system for students' parents, friends and guardians.
[54][34] The former vice-chancellor Hugh Brady, in February 2018, blamed social media and "the cult of perfectionism" for the mental health crisis among young people following a string of student suicides.
[55] In 2019, students who attended a course based around the "science of happiness" by the university was found to have "significantly higher mental wellbeing than a control group".
[56] The University of Bristol has been subject to criticism for its use of the controversial 'forced swim test', an experiment popularised in the 1970s which has involved scientists at the University placing rodents in inescapable containers of cold water for 15 minutes to observe their responses to what the scientists call a "life-threatening situation".
[76][77][78][79] On 19 March 2019, the University received a complaint regarding a lecture about Islamophobia given by Professor of Political Sociology David Miller, made by the Community Security Trust, a third-party.
A long and very complex complaints, appeals, two barrister investigations, a university Board of Trustees decision, and disciplinary hearing process followed.
The judge acknowledged that she had been subject to threats of violence, but dismissed all her claims, saying that there had been no actionable breach of duty by the university.
