Harper Adams University College is the leading higher education provider of land-based education in the UK. Established more than 100 years ago, Harper Adams offers taught programmes at undergraduate and postgraduate level, as well as research programmes leading to MPhil and PhD awards.
About 4,000 students are registered at Harper Adams. The University College is located in rural Shropshire. It enjoys a single campus site and provides a safe and secure environment in which students can study. Harper Adams also has excellent transport links to Birmingham, as well as the nearby attractive town of Shrewsbury.
In the 2009 Sunday Times Good University Guide, Harper Adams was ranked as the best University College in the UK, second for the level of student satisfaction with our learning experience and in the top ten for graduate employment.
Academic strengths
The University College's undergraduate provision is focused in six main subject areas: animals; agriculture; business and food; countryside, environment, leisure and tourism; engineering; and Rural Enterprise and Land Management (REALM). Postgraduate provision covers broadly similar subject areas and also includes an MBA programme, with a range of award titles.
In the most recent subject review undertaken by the Quality Assurance Agency, the University College received a score of 23 out of 24 for the quality of its programmes. In January 2005, Harper Adams was one of only 70 institutions in England to be awarded the status of a Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETL). In 2006, Harper Adams was granted Research Degree Awarding Powers.
Facilities
The University College opened a new Learning Resources Centre (LRC) in 2004. This contains the library, with more than 46,000 books, over 900 current journal titles and electronic information resources. Open access PCs are available in the LRC, which also houses the Engineering Design Centre and a 24 hour computer room. Wireless access is also available in the LRC and the University College's halls of residences. A new Postgraduate and Professional Development Centre opened in December 2009 and a new Student Centre will open in September 2010.
Harper Adams operates a commercial farm, providing an excellent resource for teaching, research and student projects. The farm is approximately 343 hectares, and is at the heart of the University College's campus. Grass, maize and stewardship crops are all grown and all the major animal enterprises are present with a major new dairy unit, three sheep flocks, an intensive beef unit, commercial egg and poultry enterprises, and a pig unit.
The University College has specialist facilities for its engineering students, including a road vehicle test track and purpose-built indoor soil hall, and for its veterinary nursing students there is a mock veterinary practice, operating theatre and prep room.
Student life
The Students' Union is at the heart of student life at Harper Adams. The facilities include a shop, a cafeteria, bars and a bookshop. The excellent sporting facilities include a new gymnasium, heated outdoor swimming pool, rugby, cricket, football and hockey pitches and all weather sports pitch. Aside from sport, there are also a large number of clubs and societies, including the International Society.
Albout 650 rooms are available in University College halls of residence and in houses on the main campus. All new international students are guaranteed University College accommodation for their first year of study and student wardens are assigned to oversee students in each hall of residence.
There is a doctor's surgery on campus, a counsellor, chaplaincy and even a laundry where students' clothes are collected, washed, ironed and returned on a weekly basis!
