Academic and Learning Centre
The Wye campus developed from 1894 until 2000. It occupies a 3 km² estate, which includes a farm, managed woodland and ancient grassland that provide outstanding research resources for agroecological research. These resources were augmented by extensive glasshouses, climate-controlled growth rooms for plants and insects, and a containment facility for transgenic plants that supported laboratory-based research. There were dedicated laboratories for plant molecular biology, genomics and gene sequencing, electron microscopy, use of radiochemicals, microbiology, soil analysis, and plant/animal cell culture. Some of these lab facilities were removed by Imperial College. There were student halls and other buildings dotted around the village.
Students from all over the world followed undergraduates or postgraduates courses in fields related to agriculture, biology and food marketing. Distance-learning was also headquartered on campus. Numerous conferences and seminars were also run for professionals, and short-term students. Some of the better know academics teaching on campus included Prof. Michael Redclift (Emeritus, King's College London); Prof Ken Giller (Wageningen University), and Nick Russell, formerly Bridge Wardens' Professor of microbiology,
In 2000 Wye College lost its status as a college within the federal University of London and merged with Imperial and renamedd Imperial College at Wye. While there was some opposition, the reasons cited were financial and pragmatic, and Imperial agreed to keep agricultural teaching and research on the campus. It did wish to move the social scientists and economists to London, and this forced several staff departures.
The first Provost of Imperial College at Wye was Professor Tim Clark. Commenting on his new appointment, Professor Clark said: "Wye College has a well-deserved reputation for excellence in teaching and research. I am looking forward to acting as Wye's champion and helping to preserve and build on all that is so special here."
Read more about this topic: Wye College
Famous quotes containing the words academic and, academic, learning and/or centre:
“Academic and aristocratic people live in such an uncommon atmosphere that common sense can rarely reach them.”
—Samuel Butler (1835–1902)
“If we focus exclusively on teaching our children to read, write, spell, and count in their first years of life, we turn our homes into extensions of school and turn bringing up a child into an exercise in curriculum development. We should be parents first and teachers of academic skills second.”
—Neil Kurshan (20th century)
“I think it is better to show love by meeting needs than to keep telling my son that I love him. Right now he is learning to tie his shoes. He is old enough, so even though it’s hard for him, sometimes I insist. But once in a while when I see he’s tired I still do it for him, and I have noticed that while I am tying his shoe, he says, “I love you, Mommy.” When he says, “I love you,” I know that he knows that he is loved.”
—Anonymous Parent (20th century)
“Belief and love,—a believing love will relieve us of a vast load of care. O my brothers, God exists. There is a soul at the centre of nature, and over the will of every man, so that none of us can wrong the universe.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)