University of Wales, Newport Prifysgol Cymru, Casnewydd
The University of Wales, Newport (Welsh: Prifysgol Cymru, Casnewydd) is a university in the city of Newport, South Wales. It is a member of the federal University of Wales.
Newport has been involved in higher education for more than 80 years, and the institution's roots go back even further to the first Mechanics Institute in the city, which opened in 1841. The current institution was formed as Gwent College of Higher Education by a merger of various institutions in 1975. The college became an affiliated institution of the University of Wales in 1992, becoming admitted as a university college in 1996. It soon adopted the name of University of Wales College, Newport before changing to its current title in 2002 after being awarded full university status.
Today, the university has four academic schools — Art, Media and Design [1], Business [2], Education [3] and Health and Social Sciences [4].
The university currently has two campuses in the city - at Allt-yr-yn, a pleasant residential area and Caerleon, the historic Roman centre. Student accommodation, most of it comprising en-suite study-bedrooms, is currently located at Caerleon, and there is a free bus service for the short journey between two existing campuses. Work began in April 2007 on a new £17m student accommodation block [5] in the city centre that will eventually contain 441 study-bedrooms.
The university is one of the fastest growing universities in the UK [6]. It has had significant increases in the number of applications, contrasting against the national trend which has seen falling numbers.
There are plans for a campus on the banks of the River Usk in the city centre to replace the current Allt-yr-yn campus. The first phase of this plan, approved in March 2006, is a new £20m home for the Newport School of Art and Design. It is scheduled to be built adjacent to the new student accommodation block that is already under construction [7]. Building work is expected to start in 2007 and it is anticipated to be ready for the autumn semester of 2009.