University of Leicester
The University of Leicester is a major research led university based in Leicester, England, with approximately eighteen thousand registered students - about ten thousand of them full-time students, and six thousand of them distance-learning students. The main campus is about a mile from the city centre, adjacent to Victoria Park and Wyggeston and Queen Elizabeth I College.

History
The University is organised into five faculties.

Faculty of Medicine and Biological Sciences
Faculty of Arts
Faculty of Law
Faculty of Science
Faculty of Social Sciences (expanded in 2004 to include the Faculty of Education) Organisation

Academic achievements
The University of Leicester is one of the 1994-Group research universities. The University has scientific research groups in the areas of astrophysics, biochemistry and genetics. The techniques used in Genetic fingerprinting were invented and developed at Leicester in 1985 by Sir Alec Jeffreys. It also houses Europe's biggest academic centre for space research, in which space probes have been built, most notably the Mars Lander Beagle 2, which was built in collaboration with the Open University. A Leicester built instrument has been operating in space every year since 1967. Leicester Physicists (led by Professor Ken Pounds) were critical in proving a fundamental law of Einstein's General Theory of Relativity - that black holes exist and are common in the universe. It is a founding partner of the £52 million National Space Centre. In total Leicester has the highest research income of any non Russell Group institution in the UK. The University of Leicester is one of a small number of Universities to have won the prestigious Queen's Anniversary Prize for Higher Education on more than one occasion: in 1994 for physics & astronomy and again in 2002 for genetics. The Guardian's 2008 University Guide, published in 2007, ranked Leicester 2nd in the UK for Physics and 8th for Mathematics.

Science
Aside from its scientific achievement, the university also has a rich history in the arts. and Malcolm Bradbury one of the Department's most famous alumni: he graduated with a First in English in 1953.

Arts, humanities and social sciences
Within the university structure, the Faculty of Law is the smallest Faculty, however, it has one of the biggest departments as the Department of Law. The Law School has strong formal relationships with top law schools in many other countries such as South Africa, Singapore and Australia. It also has a number of leading academics who provide consultation to a number of legal and governmental bodies such as Professor Erika Szyszczak, Professor Chris Clarkson and Professor Malcolm Shaw QC.
In July 2007, two undergraduate law students, namely Steven Meltzer and Michael Weinstein won the International Negotiation Competition in Singapore, which is only the second occasion that a team from England and Wales has won the competition. As a result of this win, the law school will be the hosts for the 2008 National Negotiation Competition, which is sponsored by the College of Lw and CEDR.
The Faculty maintains links with many top law firms, including the Magic Circle firm Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, who offer a one year scholarship to a Leicester student studying for the dual Law and French degree. The Law School is very proud of its flourishing Student Law Society which plays a central role in the life of the student body. Many law graduates at the university go on to follow careers in the City as commercial solicitors or barristers and so law at the university remains a popular choice and is always over-subscribed.

Law
The University is also held in high regard for the quality of its teaching. 19 subject areas have been graded as "Excellent" by the Quality Assurance Agency — including 14 successive scores of 22 points or above stretching back to 1998, six of which were maximum scores. Leicester was ranked joint first amongst full-time mainstream English universities in the 2005 and 2006 National Student Survey for teaching quality and overall satisfaction. Leicester is home to two prestigious national Centres for Excellence in Teaching and Learning (in Genetics and Geographical Information Science) and plays an important role in a third (Physics). Over two thirds of subjects feature in the national top 10.

Teaching

Main article: Leicester Medical School Centre for Labour Market Studies
Leicester is ranked 21st in the UK by The Guardian University Guide 2007 and 18th in The Times Good University Guide for 2007. The Guardian's league tables are compiled mainly on the basis of teaching data (staff/student ratio, job prospects, inclusiveness), and the Times's also include data on research ratings and the percentage of students who complete a degree. It is also ranked in the top 200 in Shanghai Jiao Tong University's world rankings.

League tables
The skyline of Leicester University is punctuated by three distinctive, towering, buildings from the 1960s: the Department of Engineering, the Attenborough tower and the Charles Wilson building.
The University's Engineering Building was the first major building by important British architect James Stirling. It comprises workshops and laboratories at ground level, and a tower containing offices and lecture theatres. It was completed in 1963 and is notable for the way in which its external form reflects its internal functions. The very compact campus contains a wide range of twentieth century architecture, though the oldest building, the Fielding Johnson building, dates from 1837. The Attenborough Tower houses the tallest working paternoster in the UK and is undergoing extensive renovation.
Leicester's halls of residence are also worthy of mention in their own right: many of the halls (nearly all in prosperous, leafy, Oadby) date from the early 1900's and were the homes of Leicester's wealthy industrialists. The magnificent Edwardian houses, set in landscaped grounds, have been extended to include modern refectories and bedroom blocks.

Notable architecture
The university is currently undergoing a £300+ million redevelopment. A new biomedical research building (the Henry Wellcome Building) has already been constructed.
The University Library is currently undergoing a substantial extension, which will double its size. The first phase of the expansion was completed in early 2007. It is scheduled for completion during 2007.
Student accommodation includes 16 new pavilions varying in size in the new John Foster Hall. On 1 October 2006, the university opened its new halls of residence located on Manor Road in Oadby. The new hall, now named "John Foster Hall" (in honour of the retiring Chair of University Council) was built on the former site of Villiers Hall. It houses over 700 students in flats housing 4-5 students, each en suite with fully fitted kitchens. The new pavilions are named after villages and towns around Leicestershire.
John Foster Hall also houses a laundrette, facilities building with bar/JCR, dining hall, kitchen, reception, two sets of toilets, four conference rooms and disabled access.
The 30-year plan is the largest in the university's history, expanding building space by 30% and student numbers from 19,000 to 25,000.
In recent times the University has had to sell land to balance the books. This has meant the loss of some of its more reasonably priced self catering accommodation.

The future of the University
Christine and Paul Hatton were able to view examples from the rare books from the Hatton Topographical Library that their grandfather had donated to the Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland College in 1920. This generous gift formed the nucleus of the University Library's exceptional English local history collections.
The library also holds a number of collections containing items written by several famous writers, these include:

Local history collections (for the Centre for English Local History), including:

• Thomas Hatton (1876 – 1943)'s collection. Born in Manchester, he began work as a junior clerk in a corset factory in Market Harborough and later moved to Leicester to set up his own boot manufacturing business. He also had interests in crossword promotion, greyhound racing and boxing (and on one trip to America was photographed with Laurel and Hardy, with all three of them wearing the trademark bowler hat), but his forté however was book collecting. A discriminating collector who applied his professional knowledge as a boot manufacturer to his book collecting by pioneering the use of glazed goat skin as a binding material, over a period of ten years he gathered one of the finest private collections of topographical and local history books. When his interests moved from topographical to Dickensian material, he agreed to donate his nearly 2,000 local history books to what was then Leicester College.
  Joe Orton Collection. Joe Orton (1933-1967) was a Leicester-born playwright, the collection contains his manuscripts and correspondence.
  Laura Riding Letters. The collected correspondence of the American poet and critic Laura Riding (1901-1991).
  Sue Townsend Collection. The personal papers of Sue Townsend (born 1946). The collection contains Townsend's literary correspondence and notebooks detailing her works.
  Archives of the Institute for the Study of Terrorism (see Jillian Becker). Library special collections
  From the 2004-2005 annual report:
  
  Facts and figures
  
  
  
  
  • 28.3% Faculty of Social Science (includes former Faculty of Education)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  • 25.8% Faculty of Medicine and Biological Sciences
  
  
  • 18.6% Faculty of Arts
  
  
  • 17.1% Faculty of Science
  
  
  • 10.3% Faculty of Law
  
  
  
  
  
  18,005 Registered students
  9,491 Undergraduate students
  8,514 Postgraduate students (7,096 taught, 1,321 research)
  5,962 Distance learning students
  9,911 Full-time students (8,350 UK and EU, 1,561 other)
  28.3% Faculty of Social Science (includes former Faculty of Education)
  25.8% Faculty of Medicine and Biological Sciences
  18.6% Faculty of Arts
  17.1% Faculty of Science
  10.3% Faculty of Law Students
  
  709 Full-time academic staff
  43 Part-time academic staff
  415 Full-time research staff
  68 Part-time research staff
  336 Full-time academic-related staff
  87 Part-time academic-related staff
  860 Full-time support staff
  920 Part-time support staff Staff
  
  People
  To date, each of the former chancellors has had a University building named after him.
  
  The Lord Adrian (1957–1971)
  Alan Lloyd Hodgkin (1971–1984)
  Sir George Porter (1984–1995)
  Sir Michael Atiyah (1995–2005)
  Sir Peter Williams (2005– ) Chancellors
  
  Khurshid Ahmad, Islamic Scholar
  Isobel Armstrong, Scholar of Nineteenth-Century Poetry and Women's Writing
  Graeme Barker, Disney Professor of Archaeology, University of Cambridge
  Richard Bonney, Historian
  Alan Bryman, Social Scientist
  Chris Clarkson, prominent Criminal lawyer, specialising in Corporate Liability. Recently consulted the Government on reform proposals for corporate liability.
  Philip Collins, Dickensian Scholar
  Philip Cottrell, Economic and financial Historian
  Heather Couper, Astronomer and Television Presenter
  Nicholas J. Cull, US Historian
  Ann Marie D'Arcy, Medievalist and expert on The Holy Grail
  Gabriel Dover, Geneticist
  Eric Dunning, Sports Sociologist
  Christopher Dyer, Medieval Historian
  Norbert Elias, German Sociologist
  Brian J. Ford, Scientist, Visiting Professor
  G. S. Fraser, Scottish Poet
  Anthony Giddens, prominent sociologist, taught social psychology at Leicester
  Reuben Goodstein, Mathematician, proponent of Goodstein's theorem
  Cosmo Graham, Public law and Competition law specialist. Member of the Competition Commission
  Jan Grodecki OBE, Emeritus Professor and founder of the Law school, 1965-1983. Honorary Bencher of Lincoln's Inn
  Jeffrey A. Hoffman, NASA astronaut and physicist
  Richard Hoggart, Sociologist
  W. G. Hoskins, (1931-1952) (1965-1968), local historian, author of The Making of the English Landscape
  Norman Housley, Crusading historian
  Leonard Huxley, Physicist
  Sir Alec Jeffreys, geneticist, inventor of genetic fingerprinting
  Hans Kornberg, Biochemist
  Philip Larkin, Librarian and Poet
  David Mattingly, Roman archaeologist
  John McManners, Former Head of History dept, Regius Professor of History at the University of Oxford until retirement
  Ken Pounds, Emeritus Professor of Physics, discovered black holes were common in the universe
  Charles Rees, Organic Chemist
  Lord Rees of Ludlow, The Astronomer Royal, is a visiting professor at Leicester
  Clive Ruggles, Professor of Archaeoastronomy, believed to be the only such post in the world
  J.B. Schneewind, Philosophy professor, Johns Hopkins University
  Malcolm Shaw QC, The Sir Robert Jennings Professor of International Law, prominent International Lawyer & Jurist. Author of best selling book on International Law
  Brian Simon, Professor of Education 1966-1980
  Erika Szyszczak, Professor of European Competition and Labour Law, Jean Monnet Professor of Law ad personam, Barrister at Littleton Chambers, London. She is also the Director of the Centre of European Law and Integration.
  Sami Zubaida, Political Scientist Notable alumni
  Two names commonly associated with the University of Leicester are Richard and David Attenborough. Their father Frederick Attenborough was Principal of the University College from 1932 until 1951. The brothers grew up on the campus (with their younger brother John), in a house which is currently home to the careers service (and is now near to the Attenborough tower, the tallest building on the campus and home to many of the arts and humanities departments). They were educated at the adjacent grammar school before attending the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and the University of Cambridge respectively. Both have maintained links with the university - David Attenborough was made an honorary Doctor of Letters in 1970 and opened the Attenborough Arboretum in Knighton in 1997. In the same year, the Richard Attenborough Centre for Disability and the Arts was opened by Diana, Princess of Wales. Both brothers were made Distinguished Honorary Fellows of the University at the 13 July 2006 afternoon degree ceremony.