Episode Transcript

It’s August, 1967. A strange sight awaits the people of Dundee as hundreds of students file up the Law, dressed in red academic gowns. At the top they look around, an arresting vision in crimson, before heading back down to the newly designated University of Dundee. The red gowns were a tie from the 70-year-history with the University of St Andrews, which was now severed, leaving the University of Dundee students free to enjoy their own institution. 

The path to this new chapter in our history was a long one. In 1881, University College, Dundee, was founded with donations from the Baxter family, as an independent academic institution. It promoted the education of persons of both sexes and the study of Science, Literature and the Fine Arts'.

Amongst the earlier teachers were people of great eminence including D'Arcy Thompson, the biologist who invented mathematical biology and Sir Patrick Geddes, the botanist and town planner. They began a great tradition in Dundee of tacking problems by drawing on knowledge from different disciplines. 

In 1897 University College became part of the University of St Andrews. This union served to give expression to local feeling that there should be a vital connection between the old and the new in academic affairs.

In 1963, the Committee on Higher Education under the chairmanship of Lord Robbins recommended in its report to Parliament that 'at least one, and perhaps two, of its proposed new university foundations should be in Scotland'.

The Government approved the creation of a university in Dundee, and in 1966, the University Court and the Council of Queen's College submitted a joint petition to the Privy Council seeking the grant of a Royal Charter to establish the University of Dundee. This petition was approved and, in terms of the Charter, Queen's College became the University of Dundee on the first of August 1967.

Our story doesn’t stop there, however, as the University has continued to grow and develop over the last fifty years, including creating a faculty of Environmental studies in 1974 which validated degrees of the Schools of Architecture and Town and Regional Planning of Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art. By 1988 all degree courses offered at the College were validated by the University. This collaboration between the two institutions led to a formal merger of the College and the University with effect from 1st of August 1994.

In 1995 the University was successful in securing the contract from the Scottish Office Health Department for pre-registration nursing and midwifery education in Fife and Tayside. This led to Tayside College of Nursing and Fife College of Health Studies becoming part of the University from 1 September 1996 as a single School of Nursing and Midwifery within the Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry which was subsequently renamed, the Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Nursing.

In December 2001 the University merged with the Dundee campus of Northern College to create the Faculty of Education and Social Work.

Those connections between the old and the new, between the traditional and the modern and between the work of the University and its impact on the world have shaped our thinking for the past 50 years and will define our future. They have served us well.

Students, staff and visitors come and go, each leaving a mark on the institution, growing it to the University it is today. We've been named Scottish University of the Year in The Times & Sunday Times Good University Guide for two consecutive years and are one of the world’s Top 200 universities, as ranked by Times Higher Education.

Both Times Higher Education and QS World University Rankings have ranked Dundee best in the UK and one of the top 20 worldwide among universities under 50 years old and we are rated as one of Europe’s most innovative universities.

Our students also rate us very highly on student satisfaction – we are one of the UK’s top ten in the National Student Survey 2016, and first for personal development of students.

Fifty years ago, it was a very different institution. Legend has it that the students who walked to the top of the Law that day in 1967 took binoculars with them, so they could see their old classmates across the water in St Andrews and wave. It doesn’t seem likely, but there were sowed the seeds of a reputation that the University of Dundee has followed in the last fifty years and will continue to push in the next fifty – looking ahead and reaching for the sky.