The University of Kent (formerly the University of Kent at Canterbury, abbreviated as UKC) is a semi-collegiate public research university based in Kent, United Kingdom. The university was granted its royal charter on 4 January 1965 and the following year Princess Marina, Duchess of Kent, was formally installed as the first Chancellor.
The university has its main campus north of Canterbury situated within of park land, housing over 6,000 students, as well as campuses in Medway and Tonbridge in Kent and European postgraduate centres in Brussels, Athens, Rome and Paris. The university is international, with students from 158 different nationalities and 41% of its academic and research staff being from outside the United Kingdom. It is a member of the Santander Network of European universities encouraging social and economic development.
History
Origins
A university in the city of Canterbury was first considered in 1947, when an anticipated growth in student numbers led several residents to seek the creation of a new university, including Kent. However, the plans never came to fruition. A decade later both population growth and greater demand for university places led to a re-consideration. In 1959 the Education Committee of Kent County Council explored the creation of a new university, formally accepting the proposal unanimously on 24 February 1960. Two months later the Education Committee agreed to seek a site at or near Canterbury, given the historical associations of the city, subject to the support of Canterbury City Council.
By 1962 a site was found at Beverley Farm, straddling the then boundary between the City of Canterbury and the administrative county of Kent. The university's original name, chosen in 1962, was the University of Kent at Canterbury, reflecting the fact that the campus straddled the boundary between the county borough of Canterbury and Kent County Council. At the time it was the normal practice for universities to be named after the town or city whose boundaries they were in, with both "University of Kent" and "University of Canterbury" initially proposed. The name adopted reflected the support of both the city and county authorities; as well as the existence of the University of Canterbury in New Zealand, which officially opposed the use of a name too similar to its own. The abbreviation "UKC" became a popular abbreviation for the university.
1965 to 2000
The University of Kent at Canterbury was granted its Royal Charter on 4 January 1965 and the first group of 500 students arrived on 11 October 1965.
On 30 March 1966 Princess Marina, Duchess of Kent was formally installed as the first Chancellor.
The university was envisaged as being a collegiate establishment, with most students living in one of the colleges on campus, and as specialising in inter-disciplinary studies in all fields. Over the years, changes in government policy and other changing demands have largely destroyed this original concept, leading to the present state, which is nearer the norm for a British university. However, the four original colleges – Darwin, Eliot, Keynes and Rutherford – remain, together with the newer Woolf and Turing colleges.
The university grew at a rapid rate throughout the 1960s, with three colleges and many other buildings on campus being completed by the end of the decade. The 1970s saw further construction, but the university also encountered the biggest physical problem in its history. The university had been built above a tunnel on the disused Canterbury and Whitstable Railway. In July 1974 the tunnel collapsed, damaging part of the Cornwallis Building, which sank nearly a metre within about an hour on the evening of 11 July. Fortunately, the university had insurance against subsidence, so it was able to pay for the south-west corner of the building to be demolished and replaced by a new wing at the other end of the building.
Unix computers arrived in 1976 and UKC set up the first Unix to Unix copy (UUCP) test service to Bell Labs in the U.S. in 1979. UKC provided the first UUCO connections to non-academic users in the UK in the early 1980s.
In 1982 the university opened the University Centre at Tonbridge (now the University of Kent at Tonbridge) for its School of Continuing education, helping to enhance the availability of teaching across the county. Building elsewhere included the Park Wood accommodation village and the Darwin houses in 1989.
During the 1990s and 2000s the university expanded beyond its original campus, establishing campuses in Medway, Tonbridge and Brussels, and partnerships with Canterbury College, West Kent College, South Kent College and MidKent College.