Engineering at Nottingham:A Fifty-Three Year Personal Reflection

By

Stephen F Brown

April 2010

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Engineering at Nottingham: a 53 year Personal Reflection

Stephen F Brown

Emeritus Research Professor, Nottingham Transportation Engineering Centre, Faculty of Engineering.

Prologue

This is a personal reflection, over 53 years, on life in engineering at Nottingham. It is based on my time as an undergraduate from 1957 to 1960 and my involvement in a variety of academic positions from 1963 to 2005, followed by my present part-time role in research. Inevitably, it is influenced by my experiences within Civil Engineering over most of this period with some emphasis on research and links with industry but is also based on my wider horizons through periods as Head of Department, Dean and Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research and Industry.

I have been enormously fortunate in being able to forge an enjoyable, challenging and worthwhile career at Nottingham in an academic environment where research achievement and links with industry are valued and regarded as one of the strong traditions inherited from the University’s formative years. This was a legacy that put Nottingham in a very strong position later as the importance of such activity became recognised and formally assessed by funding agencies and government.

This alumni reunion to celebrate 100 years of engineering achievement and development at Nottingham seems a fitting occasion to reflect on my personal and, possibly, unique direct experiences over half this period.

Life in the 1950’s

I came up to Nottingham as an undergraduate in September 1957 by steam driven trains and went from the Midland Station to my lodgings in Forest Fields by trolley bus. My trunk and bicycle were already there, courtesy of British Rail’s ‘Luggage in Advance’ scheme. Cycling to the campus involved breathing the tobacco laden air past the Players factory in Radford and noting the splendid Raleigh Industries headquarters building on Lenton Boulevard before turning on to Derby Road and then left along a row of terraced houses overlooking the River Leen. Access to the campus was across Clifton Boulevard, having passed the timber yards now occupied by the Queen’s Medical Centre. Thence, up the hill on Cut-through Lane with lungs pumping and into the bike sheds behind the new Portland Building, where locks were unnecessary.

Most lectures in the first year were in the drawing office (Figure 1) on the top floor of what is now known as ‘The Old Engineering Building’ with laboratory classes on the lower levels. Most lectures were common for all the engineering students in the faculty, particularly so for civils and mechanicals. The Faculty Workshop was passed each morning on the way in and enquiry by a friend to his tutor revealed that it “produced the most accurate scrap in the country!” Later experience demonstrated that it was an essential and skilled source of services to research and teaching and one that continues to this day. This building was essentially home to Civil and Mechanical Engineering with

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Figure 1. 1st Year lecture room and drawing office in the 1950’s

the Electricals housed in an adjoining block and the Miners in what were affectionately known as the ‘Cow Sheds’ (the Cherry Tree Buildings), demolished in recent years to allow for the rear extension to the Portland Building and the grassy slope behind. There were some 25 students in each year of the civil, mechanical and electrical courses, less for mining, out of a total University population of about 2,400. Today, the corresponding figures are about 110 and 29,000. Engineering at that time suffered from the worst staff:student ratio in the University, a fact that led to increased recruitment over the following years as the Faculty expanded. The departments of Civil and of Mechanical Engineering were jointly lead by a single Head, Professor J A Pope about whom, more later. The senior member of the Civil Engineering staff of six was Dr R C Coates, who was promoted to a Chair in January 1958 allowing the Department to develop its own existence and identity and it moved into the ‘Cow Sheds’, where I spent most of my final year as a student. A feature of the undergraduate experience in those days was the ability to do ‘hands on’ work in the departmental workshops before ’Health and Safety legislation had been invented. This was principally enjoyed by final year students, all of whom undertook an experimental research project as part of their work. It was also useful for such extramural activities as the construction of the Engineering Society float for the annual Carnival procession each October.

The Engineering Society was one of the leading student organisations on the campus. Figure 2 shows the members in 1960. ‘Engineers’ Ball’, held each November, was a leading social event in the University calendar and was supported by staff as well as students. It also attracted many graduates who returned to the University as they did for Engineers’ Dinner, a black tie event held each February. The Society published an annual journal containing a range of technical articles and this continued to the early 1970’s after it was combined with the Newsletter of the University of Nottingham Engineering Graduates Association (UNEGA). The Engineering Society was discontinued when the constituent departments in the Faculty grew to the point where individual societies seemed of more practical use.

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Figure 2. Members of the Engineering Society, 1959-60 (The Author is on the extreme left).

UNEGA was formed in 1958, following a meeting the previous November on the morning after Engineers’ Ball. This was attended by about 50 graduates, staff and students and was chaired by Rex Coates and addressed by Joe Pope, both of whom strongly supported the concept of a graduates association. Their view was supported by 104 out of the 421 people whose opinions had been canvassed in advance. A committee was elected under Rex Coates’ chairmanship and included Derek Kenworthy, who had graduated from Electrical Engineering in 1951 and who proved to be a stalwart of the Association throughout its existence, chairing the final meeting of its committee in 1974. This was the occasion when a decision was made to wind up the organisation as a result of dwindling support. Residual funds of about £700 were donated to the University and are still used to award an annual prize to an undergraduate, “who has made a major contribution to fellowship within the student body”. The Association thrived for many years organising periodic reunions, and communicated annually through a newsletter. The committee was essentially driven and the newsletter produced for much of its history, by research staff and students. The Newsletters varied in quality and content, typically including news from the University and various articles, both technical and of more general interest, sometimes humorous, written by staff and outside graduates. I had the pleasure of being closely involved with UNEGA from 1963, eventually as Chairman, standing down when I went to work in South Africa for a year in 1968. Figure 3 shows a couple of the Newsletter covers from that period together with the contents pages.

The key attraction for students in summer after the examinations was the ‘Lake Battle’ (see Figure 4) at which the gentlemen pharmacists challenged the gentlemen engineers to a battle on Highfields Lake for the privilege of taking out the lady pharmacists. The winners were the team who had one or more boats still afloat at the end. Terror tactics by the engineers included a water canon mounted on the steps opposite the Trent Building and the deployment of brambles, thistles and nettles around the gunnels of the boats. I can personally vouch for the depth of the lake and the viscous and adhesive nature of the mud on its bed, an experience not officially offered to many of today’s students!

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Figure 3. UNEGA Newsletter covers and contents; 1965 and 1967

Another major Engineering Society event was the annual ‘Beer Race’. This involved teams of five with a wheeled contraption into, or onto which, the ‘Imbiber’ sat and which was pushed/pulled by four ‘slaves’. At each of about six stations around the circuit of the lake, the Imbiber had to consume a bottle of beer while the slaves rested before

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continuing. Figure 5 shows the 1959 Motor Club team, consisting mainly of mechanical engineers, together with some perspectives on the non-participant helpers. The race was always won by the University cross country team for some reason.

Figure 4. The Lake Battle 1959-60 (from the Nottingham Journal)

Lecturers almost all wore gowns and so did the students, a practice that only eventually died out in the late 1960’s. A thriving trade in second hand gowns took place at the start of the session with advertisements such as ‘genuine Hu Stu soup stains’, designed to attract business. There were three sets of formal examinations each year. I well recall my first experience, marching in line with my gowned colleagues from the Engineering Building to the Trent Building all whistling ‘Colonel Bogey’, the theme tune from ‘Bridge on the River Kwai’ which had recently been released. Graduation ceremonies were held in the Albert Hall where we were ‘admitted’ to our degrees by the Chancellor, the Duke of Portland, an elderly gentlemen much interested in the new mini dress culture of the lady graduands.

Outside our work, we played sport or pursued the usual range of activities available to students. In my case, cricket was the main outlet in the summer and this involved matches almost every day after the examinations. Many civil and mechanical engineers played (Figure 6) and we even supplied a scorer, Anna Brooking, who was the first female to study civil engineering at Nottingham and later married Bob Moon before his appointment to the academic staff in metallurgy and who was himself a very keen cricketer.

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Figure 5. The Beer Race 1959

Figure 6. University Cricket Club 1960 including (about) seven engineers

(a) Motor Club Team with at least three mechanical engineers;Dick Horsnell imbibing, Bas Fulcher standing left and Neville

Fawcett leaning right.

(b) Bill Buxton left and Mike Steere awaiting the next imbiber

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Trips home, for those of us who lived in distant parts of the country, were rarely taken during term times so we made the most of life in Nottingham. This included, in my final year, a survey of all the pubs in the city centre (Figure 7), which was later published by UNEGA (Brown, 1965). It includes the official student hostelry ‘The Bell’ on Slab Square but, sadly, not ‘Harleys’ which had been much favoured by engineers and cricketers but had recently been demolished to make way for extensions to Marks and Spencers.

Figure 7. Survey of Nottingham pubs

In those days one could buy a decent pint for under 10p and a square meal in the Portland Building cafeteria was the equivalent of 11p. My monthly living allowance was £22.50 and I recall that those of my colleagues in Mechanical Engineering who had scholarships from Shell enjoyed the princely sum of £25. My salary when I graduated in 1960 was £720 per annum and this was slightly above the norm as I went off to work on site for a contractor.

Places in the two Halls of residence for men (Hugh Stewart and Wortley) were hard to come by, so it was a great experience for many of us in our final year (1959-60) to become the first group of students to enter the brand new Cripps Hall, which celebrated its golden anniversary with an excellent reunion in 2009. All of us who were involved have fond memories of the official opening of Cripps and Figure 8, now on permanent display outside the Cripps dining hall, nicely presents the mood at that time. Life on campus in those days had one major difference from today; there was only one bar and that was the Portland Building Buttery, for which the licensee was the Vice Chancellor. This could explain the depth of undergraduate knowledge demonstrated by Figure 7!

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Figure 8. Official opening of Cripps Hall, October 1959

An important characteristic of academic staff in the 1950’s and later was the large proportion who had worked in industry before turning to research and teaching. In those less competitive days it was possible to be appointed as a lecturer without a PhD on the understanding that one would study for this part-time as a priority following appointment. This provided a practical perspective to undergraduate studies which is sometimes lacking today as the pressure for research excellence from day one of appointment has become necessary and the PhD is regarded as an essential qualification to get on to a short list. Many of us were fortunate enough to be initially appointed from industry as Research Assistants on externally funded projects and to then apply for lectureships as they became available, completing a PhD thesis in parallel with teaching duties.

As I left Nottingham in 1960 to spend three years in industry, the new buildings on ‘Science City’ designed to accommodate the faculty expansion, were starting to be occupied. This marked the end of an era and the start of an important new phase, which was well under way by the time I returned to take up a research appointment in 1963.

Key people

Two names stand out from the post war period as having provided the major leadership, imagination and drive to expand and develop engineering at Nottingham in the successful way that is apparent from today’s excellence in research and teaching. These

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were Joe Pope and Rex Coates (Figure 9). Full details of their respective contributions to the background work necessary in the 1950’s to make the case for

Figure 9. Professors Joe Pope and Rex Coates

expansion of engineering and then in guiding the planning and occupation of the new facilities are well described by Brian Tolley in his history of the University (Tolley, 2001).

Joe Pope was appointed as a Professor in 1949 with experience from Sheffield and excellent links with industry, which he effectively promoted here both as a head of department and as Dean, setting the agenda for the ethos we have enjoyed subsequently. He attracted generous support from the Cripps Family, which led to the establishment of new departments in Metallurgy and in Production Engineering. When one Cyril Cripps from a company called Pianoforte Ltd arranged to visit the Vice Chancellor in 1952, understandably the Professor of Music was sent for, only to be stood down at the last minute when it was discovered that the company manufactured components for the motor industry. In Pope’s absence, his metallurgy colleague, H K Lloyd, stood in.

In addition to the benefactions noted above, the Cripps family donated a significant sum for the construction of Cripps Hall of residence. Both Cyril Cripps and his son, Humphrey, were awarded honorary degrees by the University in 1961 and 1975 respectively. The architect for Cripps nicely captured the industrial link by arranging that the Clifton colliery and power station should be framed by the hall’s entrance portico as shown on a rather misty day in Figure 10.

There was also support from Boots for the establishment of Chemical Engineering and from Rolls Royce for the Hives Chair of Thermodynamics. He substantially increased external research support, much of it from industry, and encouraged staff to become involved in these expanding links. The major strategic research partnerships which have

J A Pope R C Coates

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thrived in the Faculty over long periods with companies such as Rolls Royce, Shell and Ford resulted directly from the ethos established by Pope. He was a strong advocate of excellence and relevance in undergraduate learning and understood the need for controlled expansion of provision as demand built up. Pope left the University to take up appointments in industry in 1960 and later became Vice Chancellor of Aston prior to his retirement back in Nottingham. He was honoured many times for his work. In addition to his knighthood, he was made an honorary graduate by the University in 1987 and received similar recognition from several other institutions.

Figure 10. Entrance to Cripps Hall in 1959 with Clifton colliery and power station beyond.

My student recollections of him were of an amusing and challenging lecturer in thermodynamics and materials, the course for which was much influenced in my final year by the output from his metal fatigue research group. This included the essential text book (edited by Pope) which retailed at the, then, formidable sum of £5 but which was necessary reading in order to pass the examination. We formed a consortium to acquire it! In more recent years, I have had the opportunity to meet Joe Pope on many occasions and have enjoyed his reminiscences about these early days. It was entirely fitting that his name should be given to one of the main buildings in the Faculty in the early 1990’s when the old architects’ nomenclature (T1 and T2) was eventually dropped. Figure 11 shows a group taken on that occasion. It includes Professor Rex Coates, whose name was given to the T2 building on the same day. It was a pleasure to welcome Joe Pope and his wife Evelyn back later, on 7th April 2005, together with the family of Rex Coates, who had passed away by then, to unveil photographs, which better represent their names and achievements in the two buildings.

An apocryphal tale is told of Joe Pope standing at the laboratory door at 9am, or earlier, watch in hand, checking the arrival of his research assistants. Professor Peter Pell, referring to the Pope era, paid tribute to his leadership by remarking, “Under Pope, the Departments (Civil and Mechanical) experienced a style of leadership which laid the foundation for dynamic development and growth both academically and physically and left those of us who were part of it considerably richer in experience if somewhat exhausted”.

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Figure 11. Naming of Pope and Coates Buildings in the early 1990’s (Right to left: S F Brown, P S Pell, R C Coates, J A Pope, G Warburton, B C Clayton).

Rex Coates spent most of his student and professional life at Nottingham. He was an undergraduate from 1937 to 1941, initially on a part-time basis while he worked for the Borough Engineer of Mansfield and, after war service in the Royal Engineers, he returned to the University as a lecturer in 1946. He was Head of Civil Engineering for 24 years, a period which would be unheard of today. This included a year (1978-79) when he passed the leadership to Professor Peter Pell so that he could concentrate on his duties as President of the Institution of Civil Engineers. His leadership was marked by high quality in teaching, expansion of research and high standards in all that we did. He strongly supported those of us who worked to attract outside research money, often quoting such phrases as, “For he that grindeth out the corn”. Tolley (2001) described the Civil Engineering Department under Rex Coates as “the most entrepreneurial in the University”. I was thrilled to be a part of it and, to show our academic as well as commercial credentials, to receive the first DSc in Civil Engineering shortly before his retirement. A substantive demonstration of his encouragement for research was marked by the highest ‘Outstanding’ grade in the first University Grants Committee assessment of research in 1986. This was the forerunner to the periodic Research Assessment Exercises which have taken place since and which have been instrumental in increasing the quality of research at Nottingham and elsewhere over the past 20 years.

My colleague Alan Dodson and I struck on the idea of an annual lecture to mark Rex Coates’ time at Nottingham and, following his retirement in 1982, the first annual Coates Lecture was delivered by the man who had preceded him as President of the Institution of Civil Engineers, Sir Alan Muir Wood. This event continues with a distinguished member of the profession speaking to students, staff and visitors with a view to enthusing the young and informing the rest of us, based on their wide experience. The first lecture was marked by a noisy interruption. As Professor Peter Pell introduced the lecturer, anti-apartheid demonstrators burst through the door thinking that we were a South African Mining Company here to recruit graduates. They were in an adjacent room. The incursion was repelled by some of us in the front row who had played rugby in our time! A group of research assistants and students, largely working in surveying and pavement

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engineering, produced a satirical newsletter at irregular intervals in the 1980’s. Figure 12 shows their account of the incident.

Figure 12. Rat and Svengali account of 1st Coates Lecture, 1982.

Rex Coates provided strong support to Joe Pope in the 1950‘s as they planned the expansion of engineering and he took over leadership of the key committee charged with overseeing the construction and occupation of the new facilities in ‘Science City’. Later, he was responsible for identifying a redundant aircraft hangar structure which was acquired by the University to be re-erected as the present Sports Centre. Through his involvement with the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE), the University was able to acquire the large painting of Telford’s works which dominates the entrance to the Pope

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and Coates buildings. This painting was commissioned by ICE for an exhibition to commemorate the bicentenary of Telford’s birth, which was held at the Institution in 1958. Figure 13, taken from the Sunday Times of 14th July 1957 shows the artist, Leonard Rosoman at work.

Figure 13. Leonard Rosoman at work with an assistant on the Telford bicentenary painting, 1957. (Numbers refer to the key for the various structures

which is displayed with the painting)

Rex Coates died in 2005 following a long period when he suffered from Alzheimer’s disease. Many of us who grew up under his leadership remember him with great affection and respect. In his obituary, published by the Alumni magazine in the summer of 2005 (University of Nottingham, 2005), I was quoted as saying, “Those who worked with him remember him as a real personality. He was an excellent lecturer and insisted on high standards both amongst his students and staff, even to the point of locking the lecture room promptly at 9am for lectures scheduled to start at that time to teach students the art of punctuality. He had a fantastic way with words and use of language and was also an accomplished after dinner speaker”.

All these far sighted developments in engineering were ultimately, only made possible through the leadership and strong support of the University’s first Vice Chancellor, Bertrand Hallward, known affectionately as ‘Tigger’ in recognition of the bouncy way in which he strode around the Campus. His staff were reputed to refer to the Engineering building as ‘The Vatican’ for obvious reasons and perhaps in recognition of the many arguments he had with Joe Pope about the importance of engineering for the future. As has often happened through excellent leadership at Nottingham, we were ahead of the

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game and were able to enjoy modern facilities on the Science City site many years before most of our competitors.

In civil engineering, Rex Coates too introduced early innovations through his involvement with the Institution of Civil Engineers and his leadership there of activities to do with education and training. Nottingham’s was the first department to introduce the concept of Engineering Advisors for our students as a means of linking each undergraduate with an experienced local civil engineer to allow dialogue, site visits and assistance with projects and careers. The system has continued to this day and is one of a number of initiatives which have greatly assisted with the Department’s periodic accreditation conducted by ICE and others to ensure that our graduates go into industry well qualified to continue their formation as engineers.

Any review of life as an undergraduate or, indeed as a member of staff, over the past 50 years and more would be incomplete without reference to the Survey Camps for civil and mining engineers held for a long period in Llangollen and later at locations closer to the Campus. Mechanical engineers of a certain vintage will recall Boiler Trials in the North East, which had a similar effect on promoting team spirit and a recognition of the realities of meeting deadlines.

Research in the 1960’s

Our daily lives today are dominated by and our work facilitated through the computer in a way that was unimaginable when I returned to the University as a Research Assistant in 1963 to work on a project sponsored by Shell. The advantages of using a computer to assist in one’s work, mainly data processing, were becoming apparent and through our newly established Computing Centre in the Pope building, we used a punched tape land-line connection to Manchester University to get our work processed with the hard copy results appearing in the mail after a day or so. Few standard programs existed and we all had to learn programming in Algol or Fortran to be able to use the computer. Courses were initially attended in Manchester prior to expansion of provision in Nottingham when our own early central computer came on stream.

Photocopying was either expensive, using faculty Xerox facilities, or messy, using the departmental wet photographic process. Technicians were less available to assist with practical issues and I recall an essential skill that I had to learn was that of strain gauging. Detailed machine drawings of any equipment or instrumentation to be made in the departmental or faculty workshops had to be prepared on the drawing board. Figures for publication in reports or papers had to be hand drawn in ink on tracing paper. The Faculty Workshop provided a service to assist with those whose drawing skills did not reach an acceptable level or who became too busy to do it themselves. A faculty photographic service was also extensively used prior to the ready availability of cameras and processing facilities at departmental level.

Telephones were still large, black and had mechanical dials. Overseas calls were practically unheard of and cables had to be sent using a central facility in the library. Hence, conventional mail was the normal mode of communication at home and abroad.

Papers, reports and theses had to be produced on a conventional typewriter using a secretary, who would type a draft for correction and then retype the final version. Understandably we were somewhat less productive than today’s academics and only

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wrote papers when the work had really reached completion. Publishing of PhD work almost always awaited acceptance of the thesis.

For those of us who had returned to the University to do research, partly as a reaction to rather mundane work in industry, which often did not challenge fresh graduates intellectually in those days, opportunities for lectureships were keenly sort and reasonably available as the university system in general and Nottingham in particular expanded. I joined the staff in 1965 after two years as a Research Assistant on the understanding that I would teach Hydraulics, a subject I had found particularly difficult as a student. As the 60’s came to an end, the civil engineering staff under Rex Coates had expanded to about 15, most of whom are shown in Figure 14. It is difficult to detect whether they had been ‘swinging’ with the rest of the world during the previous ten years or merely grappling with Fortran programming and strain gauging!

Figure 14. Civil Engineering staff, 1969

[Back row: K Kong, S F Brown, M G Coutie, G Cullingford, G Davies, E Fish, R C Wood, J Redfern (Laboratory Steward). Front row: V Ashkenazi, L W Akroyd, D McKay, R C

Coates, C Snell, F Reiband, B Mayfield. P S Pell was absent)

Major developments

I assumed leadership of the Civil Engineering Department in 1989, which was just one year into the 20 year reign of Sir Colin Campbell as the University’s Vice Chancellor and under whose leadership Nottingham expanded fast and became the serious international research-lead institution with overseas campuses in Malaysia and China that one sees today. My succession was greatly assisted by inheriting a department in good order under my long time colleague Peter Pell, whose stewardship over the seven years since the long Coates reign ended, had continued to promote the same high standards.

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For those of us who had progressed through the ranks, largely through our research activities, Colin Campbell’s arrival was a breath of fresh air. He recognised how important research excellence was to become through the 1990’s and positioned the University to build on its traditional links with industry and ability to attract outside funds in support of high quality research. In engineering, our research performance, as measured externally in the early Research Assessment Exercises (RAE), varied from excellent to rather ordinary but through sound investment in people and facilities and with research leadership encouraged from above, the results have improved dramatically to the level of overall excellence demonstrated by the latest RAE results in 2008.

Those of us in leadership positions through the 1990’s experienced the transformation of the University’s whole approach to management and delivery, while trying to retain the essentials of a collegiate community of academics. Under Colin Campbell, we moved from a rather comfortable, steady provincial University to one with a competitive edge that attracted increasing levels of external funding for research and capital developments, increased numbers of high quality students and developed a gradually enhanced national and international reputation. The Head of Department role moved from one that represented ‘Buggin’s turn to deal with the administration to one that was regarded as a serious management responsibility. Much was learned from good industry practice and training of staff at all levels became the norm.

I recall, in the early days of these developments, inventing a management structure for civil engineering while flying to the US on a research visit. As a new Head of Department, I sent a copy to the Vice Chancellor in confidence and he immediately asked if it could be shared with colleagues as an intellectual model that might be useful in the running of effective academic units. Clearly we were doing something right. This approach is now regarded normal good practice.

Another important development in the 1990’s was the introduction of Departmental Plans to provide a structure for academic and financial developments and to feed into the overall University Plan, required annually by the Higher Education Funding Council. These plans allowed the aspirations of academic individuals and groups to be brought together at departmental level within a structure that could be recommended to the University’s senior management.

The identification and promotion of strong research groups with some visibility and team ethos was also a feature of life through the 1990’s. This had been led, in civil engineering by the creation of the Institute for Engineering Surveying and Space Geodesy (IESSG) under Vidal Ashkenazi and the group in Pavement and Geotechnical Engineering which I led alongside Peter Pell. The concept was based on the need to enhance research performance through focussing on smaller groups of staff in specialist areas, where team spirit and mentoring of new arrivals could be more effective than in what had become large Departmental and, later, School organisations. Its success can be judged by the recent creation of a new Faculty structure, which incorporates a group of strong Research Divisions formed by combining two or more of these research groups and centres.

Not everything was straight forward through this period as the management of change is never easy and the environment in which staff was operating during the 1990’s presented much additional work. This was caused by the influences of new legislation, notably in health and safety and in human resources, together with the need for

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increased accountability, both from inside and outside the University. This additional work was only slightly alleviated by the recruitment of additional clerical assistance. Newly appointed staff also had to cope with enhanced requirements for teaching quality through time consuming training regimes, while at the same time trying to establish their research portfolios.

Another field in which Nottingham was an early entrant was that of modularisation of the course structure which caused all sorts of teething troubles. It has, perhaps arguably, resulted in a dumming down of the standards required from undergraduates as they have moved from three hour examinations on the whole year’s work to bite sized learning of a module examined by two hour papers.

It is a tribute to the quality of the Faculty’s staff that they have come through this period and delivered outstanding results and are still able to attract large numbers of well-qualified students who are turned out as graduates much sort-after by industry.

Epilogue

This centenary celebration of engineering at Nottingham takes place as the new Faculty structure beds in and the University is investing in engineering through major new buildings. The new Executive Dean, Professor Hai-Sui Yu, is supported by a strong team of professorial leaders, so on the back of the excellent 2008 RAE results and with continuing success in the recruitment of high quality, the Faculty is poised for further success. I shall enjoy being a small part of it for as long as the Faculty finds my faculties of use.

References

Brown, S F. (1965), Nottingham’s historic inns and taverns, UNEGA Newsletter, pp 33-36.

Tolley, B H. (2001), The history of the University of Nottingham, Nottingham University Press, Vol. 2, pp 315-379.

University of Nottingham, (2005), Rex Coates; 1920-2005, Reflect, Issue 19, p2.

The Author

Stephen Brown is Emeritus Research Professor in the Nottingham Transportation Engineering Centre (NTEC) within the Faculty of Engineering and a specialist consultant in pavement engineering. He retired as Director of the Centre in 2005 and during his University career served a four year term as the University’s Pro-Vice-Chancellor responsible for Research, Industry and Commerce (1994 to 1998), Dean of Engineering (1992 to 1994) and Head of Civil Engineering (1989 to 1994 and 1999 to 2003). Following graduation from Nottingham in 1960, he spent three years in industry before returning to Nottingham in 1963. He joined the academic staff as a lecturer in 1965 and was subsequently promoted to Senior Lecturer, Reader and to a personal Chair in 1983. He holds Nottingham PhD and DSc degrees and is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering and of the Institution of Civil Engineers. He was a Director of Scott Wilson Pavement Engineering Ltd, a specialist consulting firm associated with the University, from its foundation in 1985 until 2006. He was awarded an OBE in 2005.