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Churchill College, CambridgeTSR Wiki > University > Choosing a University > University Guides > Cambridge > Churchill College, Cambridge
IntroductionChurchill College was founded in 1958 as the national memorial to Sir Winston Churchill – celebrated wartime leader and Nobel Prize winner for literature. Today it reflects both his interest in science and technology, and his personal stature as a visionary politician and a great man of letters. Among Cambridge Colleges, Churchill is uncommonly distinctive. We are probably best known for the high proportion of science students we admit. Those better acquainted with the College refer to our remarkable Archive Centre – housing the papers of two of Britain’s most important Prime Ministers, Churchill himself and Margaret Thatcher – and to the superb academic performance of our arts students, who are in a minority but, in a large College still very plentiful in number. Cambridge undergraduates know Churchill for its vibrant student life, particularly its legendary ‘Pav’ (student club night), and its outstanding facilities. These include all of the usual things, plus on-site playing fields, squash- and tennis-courts, a large gym, a cinema, a radio studio and brand new, state-of-the-art music facilities. Churchill’s modernist architecture gives it a definite character while retaining Cambridge’s traditional interlinked courts and staircases. The majority of undergraduates live within our vast, green and leafy site (rather than in far-flung ‘outer hostels’). Accommodation is excellent: modern, warm, internet-connected and nearly 30 per cent is en suite. Another plus is our location, just outside the city centre (it takes less than ten minutes to walk to the middle of Cambridge), and adjacent to Fitzwilliam, Murray Edwards College, Trinity Hall’s Wychfield campus, and the University’s exciting new West Cambridge science development. The University Library and the arts departments are also nearby, so there is a real sense that we are right at the centre of things as the University moves west. Churchill is a very friendly, unfussy and open place. You’ll hear a lot more talk of the future than of the past (unless you’re an historian!). People are here to contribute, to enjoy themselves and above all to excel academically and intellectually. The College provides you with excellent teaching and guidance, plus the practical tools (an excellent library, for instance); it’s then your job to forge your own exciting and challenging path through your subject. So, in admission, we strongly prioritise academic results and work-rate, while actively encouraging students from a great diversity of backgrounds. To quote what our students say in the Alternative Prospectus, ‘We peel away the bad bits about Cambridge and maintain all that is great about the University’. Student Statistics
Source: The Reporter Special Issue: Student Numbers 07-08 Churchill Application Statistics See College applications and admissions statistics Churchill Application Statistics per subject See Appplication Statistics At Churchill, 56% of acceptances in 2007 and 70% in 2006 were from state school applicants (source). The college usually has a high proportion of state school applicants. LocationAbout a 20 minute walk (0.95 miles) from the Sidgwick site and 25-30 minutes from the centre of town (<10 minutes to cycle!). It is just down the road from Fitzwilliam and New Hall colleges. It is in quite a residential part of town, and almost opposite the maths faculty (where second and third year maths students have lectures). Also close (0.6 miles) to the West Cambridge site, where the physics laboratory and the computer science building are. It's 2.21 miles to the railway station on the other side of town. Located a little to the West of the increasingly congested city centre, Churchill is set in the largest grounds of any College. Its layout, with playing fields next to residential courts and lawns, is modern and spacious. The Centre for Mathematical Sciences, the Gates Computing Sciences Centre, the Centre for Advanced Photonics and Electronics, the Cavendish Laboratory, the Institute of Astronomy, the School of Veterinary Medicine and the Nanoscience Centre are all close by. Winston Churchill, in whose honour the College was founded in 1959, expressly intended that graduates should form a sizeable proportion of the College population. Although most undergraduates are from the UK, over half the postgraduates are from overseas, giving the College a truly international flavour. Churchill is a scientific College, with a lively arts presence. AccommodationChurchill College is modern. Most of it was built in the sixties on huge grounds with playing fields on site. The buildings are arranged in traditional Cambridge interlocking courts with rooms leading off from staircases rather than long corridors. Rooms for both men and women students are mixed in with those of Fellows so that each staircase develops its own sense of community. All the rooms are modern, well-heated, bright and airy with large windows and a large window seat. Large windows, of course, permit light to travel in both directions: you get a great view from the inside out, or from the outside in (so that undressing can be a rather public activity if you choose to make it so), but the curtains work well. Some of the rooms also have en suite shower facilities. Rooms are allocated by a scrupulously fair rooms ballot and almost all students are satisfied with the room they are allocated. The rent for each room is decided annually by a joint Student/Fellow committee. College policy is to charge a realistic rent which represents good value for money. Rents compare favourably with those at other colleges. Each staircase has a well equipped, modern kitchen, a telephone, and a computer terminal. Washing machines are located in some of the staircases. There is sufficient accommodation for students to be offered College rooms on site for the whole of their three years and sometimes for a fourth year for those doing four-year courses. One particularly important advantage that distinguishes Churchill accommodation is this: students at many Colleges located in the old city centre do not, in fact, live "in college" - certainly not for all three years. Many of the older central Colleges are built on small sites, and were designed to accommodate many fewer students than they now have to find rooms for. So they have to place a lot of their students in hostels located a considerable distance from the central College site, which means that such students may sleep more than a mile from where many of their College friends live, and from their College Library, dining hall, bar, and squash courts. In Churchill, it's all "on the spot". FoodCanteen food is alright, nothing special - but probably standard fare for a Cambridge college. Choice of normally 3 main meals (1 veg.) and a well-stocked (and cheap) salad bar. Sandwiches, grilled panninis and soups are also available, as well as bar snacks. Average cost of a meal is £3-4 and most people do eat in hall, although each staircase has adequate facilities for self-catering and a significant number of people use these. Formal food is higher quality, but relatively expensive in Cambridge terms and takes place on Tue/Thu/Fri, with the Fridays being most popular. Brunch is served on Saturday morning and on Sundays there is a roast dinner (carved in front of you!) and erm I think there is breakfast in the bar. Social SpacesLibrary and ComputingThe College has over 30 networked computers and 3 laser printers in 3 locations around the College, all of which are available for use by any member of College 24 hours a day. All students are encouraged to become computer users and have access to many software packages that they will find useful during their course. All the computers are connected to the Cambridge University Data Network (CUDN) and to the JANET (Joint Academic Network). This provides access to a number of services around the University and the Internet. All undergraduates and postgraduates are assigned an e-mail address which enables them to send messages to their friends around the world. For students who have their own suitable computers and Ethernet cards, all study bedrooms in the College and hostels are equipped with ethernet connections, which can be used to connect to the CUDN, JANET and the Internet. The Library is one of the most important academic services provided by the College. We try to make available all recommended textbooks in all subjects and encourage suggestions from students for further additions. There are three reading rooms, all of which are open to members of the College 24 hours a day and provide warm, comfortable places in which to work. A computer-based loans system is in operation round the clock, requiring only the minimum of effort to borrow books. A large proportion of the book stock may be borrowed; the remainder, i.e. journals and reference books, are for consultation within the Library only. Introductory talks during the first week of term explain these and other procedures, and Library staff are always happy to help. Academic PerformanceChurchill's ranking in the Tompkins Table (which ranks 29 colleges by their Tripos results): 6th (2008), 15th (2007), 13th (2006), 18th (2005), 19th (2004), 9th (2003), 10th (2002), 9th (2001), 15th (2000). SportsChurchill was declared the 14th sportiest Cambridge College in Michealmas 2009 by The Tab. See The Tab article: The College Cup revealed AtmosphereIt's relatively new, by Cambridge standards, and has quite a bit of a car-park feel to it. It has quite nice gardens, but is very dark. It feels quite a lot like a high school since the corridors are dark and plain. It is however very friendly and it's spring ball is pretty good. The people are nice and know how to have a good time! Facilities Overview
Churchill has a good library, admirable sporting facilities on the spot and a thriving music society. We also have a friendly and informal ambience (though we do have some formal occasions). There is an enthusiastic and active graduate students' society - the MCR - which has its own Common Room, is fully represented on College committees, and organises regular academic and social functions and outings, to which spouses and partners are most welcome. All first-year postgraduates are allocated a friendly Fellow (called a mentor) to link them with the Fellowship, as well as the traditional Tutor. Student-eye viewLook up Churchill in the CUSU Alternative Prospectus Additional InformationWe were the first men's college to admit women. Within twenty years all the other men's colleges had followed suit. We admit students from a wide social spectrum. Three-quarters of our intake come from state sector schools; a higher proportion than many other colleges. That's the average for all British universities. We don't practice "positive discrimination": we admit on intellectual merit and go in search of talent wherever we can find it. Seventy per cent of our students and our academic staff are scientists, mathematicians or engineers. We were founded to raise the profile of science and technology, in a culture that doesn't take them seriously enough. But like all colleges we cater for every subject. And since we're a big college our thirty per cent of humanities and social science students form as large a body as they do in the small colleges. Our large Fellowship means that our students get more of their teaching from senior academics than is the case in many other colleges. We maintain productive contacts with the professional and industrial worlds, by encouraging a pre-university year of work experience. One third of our students are postgraduates. We have one of the highest percentages of undergraduates staying on to take postgraduate degrees. In your three or four undergraduate years you will reach the frontiers of knowledge in your subject; you may well want to break through that frontier. More and more people are carrying on their higher education to postgraduate level. We have a programme of overseas academic visitors coming to research in Cambridge laboratories and libraries. You may find yourself bumping into an astrophysicist from Arkansas or an economist from Kyoto. Since the College began we have had twelve Nobel Prize winners among our Overseas Fellows, in Physics, Medicine, Chemistry, Economics, and Literature. Churchill College has two special buildings on its campus, which also make us different. The Churchill Archives Centre houses the papers of the College's Founder, the great wartime leader Sir Winston Churchill, together with the archives of over 470 leading politicians, scientists, and soldiers - people such as the brilliant crystallographer Rosalind Franklin and the nuclear physicist Lise Meitner. Scholars come from all around the world to study in the Archives Centre. The other special building is the Møller Centre for Continuing Education, a top-flight management facility which provides intensive training for professionals who increasingly need to think in terms of career-long education. The Mastership of the College is a Crown appointment. The College has to date had six Masters: Sir John Cockroft, who split the atom. Sir William Hawthorne, who helped develop the jet engine. Sir Hermann Bondi, who developed the Steady State theory of the universe. Lord Broers, nanotechnologist, and former Vice-Chancellor, University of Cambridge. Sir John Boyd, formerly British ambassador to Japan, who reads eight languages, at the last count. Sir David Wallace, N.M. Rothschild Professor of Mathematical Sciences, Treasurer and Vice-President of the Royal Society, and former Vice-Chancellor, University of Loughborough. Modern though the design of the College is, it remains faithful to the tried and trusted collegiate idea, for it has interlinked courts, with rooms grouped around staircases. There's a 300 seat theatre for films and talks, a state of the art music centre with its own recording studio, an exhibition hall, four squash courts, plentiful computer facilities, a spacious library, a sports pavilion, flats on site for married students, and the largest dining hall in Cambridge. The forty acre site offers a quiet spaciousness, away from the tourist and car ridden city centre. The College used to be on the edge of the University, but today it lies near to the University's main development zone. Close by are the Cavendish Physics Laboratory, the Veterinary School, the Sidgwick Arts Site, the University Library, the Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematics, and the new athletics track. We are today one of Cambridge's biggest colleges. Our undergraduates study for most degree subjects; our postgraduates follow many PhDs and Masters courses; our Fellows carry out research in everything from Archaeology to Zoology. It's a far cry from a wet evening in a villa in Sicily in April 1955 when, after a brandy or three, Sir Winston Churchill, who had just retired as Prime Minister, grumbled that he hadn't got around to doing something to boost Britain's capacity to educate advanced technologists. His friends said it wasn't too late and that they would see what they could do about it. The Building of Churchill CollegeIn 1958, a 42 acre site in the north-west part of the City of Cambridge was bought from St John's College; the land had been farmed by a tenant and had no buildings on it. A competition to choose an Architect was held in 1959 under the auspices of the Royal Institute of British Architects. 20 British architects were invited to compete, and Messrs Richard Sheppard, Robson & Partners of London were judged the winners of the competition. They accepted the appointment as Architects for the College in July 1959. Building started in January 1960 with a block of twenty flats (the "Sheppard Flats") in the north-west corner of the site. These were used for about four years as temporary College offices and Common Rooms, but are now mainly occupied by visiting Fellows and their families. The main College buildings have been erected on the eastern part of the site where in October 1959 Sir Winston planted a black mulberry and an oak tree, both of which are now well established. The College consists of ten small courts round a main central court; three courts were completed in 1962, three in 1964, three in 1967, and the last one, given by the Wolfson Foundation, in 1968. The central building consisting of the Dining Hall, kitchen, Combination Rooms and offices, was completed and occupied in May 1964. The College was formally opened by the Duke of Edinburgh on 5 June 1964. The Bracken Reading Room, Bevin Library and Wolfson Hall were opened by the Lord Chancellor, Lord Gardiner, deputising for the Prime Minister, in November 1965. A block of forty flats for students with partners and/or children (the "Wolfson Flats"), designed by David Roberts, was completed in February 1966. The Archives Centre, which forms an extension to the Library block and houses the papers of Sir Winston and of many other prominent people of the Churchill era, was opened by the American Ambassador in July 1973; it serves the needs of historical research, and is the gift of American admirers of Sir Winston. A further extension to house the papers of Lady Thatcher, Neil Kinnock, Lord Hailsham and many other leading political and scientific figures was opened by Lady Thatcher in 2002. The Chapel at, but not of, Churchill College is the gift of the Rev. Lord Beaumont. It is built on land leased by the Governing Body to the Churchill College Chapel Society Trust. Richard Sheppard designed the building for a congregation gathered around a central altar, lit by natural light. The windows are by John Piper. A substantial later addition to the range of College buildings is the Møller Centre for Continuing Education. It opened in September 1992 as the first purpose-built residential continuing education centre in a Cambridge college. The Centre is the gift of Mr Maersk McKinney Møller and was designed by the Danish architect, Henning Larsen. The Study Centre is a building between the main College buildings and the Møller Centre. It has been built alongside, and is connected to, the Sports Pavilion and the Music Rooms, which have facilities for recitals and for individual and ensemble practice. A new Recital Room and music practice facilities are to be constructed during 2006-07 to replace the existing Music Centre. The intention is to improve the facilities available to the College musicians, and to permit expansion of the present Study Centre into the space thereby released. Accommodation for Advanced Students is provided (a) in the main college staircases, and (b) in the "inner hostels" (36A, 36B, 40A, 40B, 40C, 44, 64, 70, 72 and 76 in Storey's Way adjacent to the main College site). In addition the College owns five smaller houses (the "outer hostels") about 1 km from the College and a house on the south side of the city (25 Rock Road) used mainly by clinical medical students and those doing research on the Addenbrooke's Hospital site. There is an ongoing programme of refurbishment and improvements to the college buildings, including a complete refurbishment of the Sheppard Flats and the initial stages of the refurbishment of the Wolfson Flats. Links
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