Swansea University : Campus and Community in a Post-War World, 1945–2020

Swansea University: Campus and Community explores the dramatic ways in which British universities have changed since 1945. It takes Swansea University as its case study to discuss academic developments, the changing behaviour of young people, and how universities form relationships with their local communities.

Founded in 1920, Swansea University is now the third-largest university in Wales, serving nearly twenty thousand students This volume celebrates the centennial of the university, offering a portrait of postwar academic and social change in Britain and its universities, as well as an exploration of shifts in youth culture, and the ways higher education institutions have interacted with their areas and communities. The book covers a range of important themes and topics, including architectural developments, international scholars, the changing behaviors of students, protest and politics, and the multilayered relationships that are formed among academics, young people and their wider communities. Unlike most institutional histories, it takes a bottom-up approach, paying particular attention to the thoughts, feelings and behaviors of students and non-academic staff, members of the university community who are normally sidelined in such accounts. As it does so, it draws on a large collection of oral history testimonies collected specifically for this book, and, throughout, it explores how formative, paradoxical, and unexpected university life can be.