University of Wales, Lampeter (Welsh: Prifysgol Cymru, Llanbedr Pont Stfan) is a university in Lampeter, Wales, the oldest Academic degree awarding institution in Wales and the third oldest in England and Wales after Oxford and Cambridge. The university started in 1822 as St David s College (Coleg Dewi Sant), becoming St David s University College (Coleg Prifysgol Dewi Sant) in 1971, when it became part of the federal University of Wales. With fewer than 2,000 students on campus, it often claims to be one of the smallest public universities in Europe. In many ways, then, it is miraculous that the university has survived in the increasingly competitive atmosphere of the British Higher Education sector and the institution s financial health was often a cause for concern. Principal J.R. Lloyd Thomas s decision to lead the institution into the University of Wales in the 1970s rescued the college from bankruptcy once, and more recently, the college has had to pioneer foundation degrees and distance learning through its Voluntary Sector studies and Welsh language departments, which has helped to rescue the university college once more from having to amalgamate with a larger institution. Through this adversity, however, the university continues to rate highly in its research, particularly the Theology and Religious Studies and English Literature and Language departments which received the top rating in the 2001 Research Assessment Exercise. The campus s setting in the Ceredigion hills, on the banks of the River Teifi attract a high proportion of mature students and students from outside Wales, who wish to escape the urban environments of the majority of the other British universities.

History

When Thomas Burgess was appointed Bishop of St David s in 1803 he almost immediately identified the need to establish a College in which Welsh ordinands could receive a higher education. The existing colleges at Oxford and Cambridge were out of the geographical and financial means of most men.

Burgess had no Welsh connections; he was born in England in 1756 and after Winchester and Oxford he had short stays in Salisbury and Durham bore being appointed to his first bishopric in Wales in 1803. Originally Burgess intended to build his new college to train priests in Llanddewi Bri, which at the time was similar in size to Lampeter, but ten kilometres from it, and with an honoured place in the Christian history of Wales. When Burgess was staying with his friend the Bishop of Gloucester in 1820, however, he met John Scandrett Harford, a wealthy landowner from Gloucestershire, who donated the three acre (12,000 m??) site called Castle Field in Lampeter, so called for the Norman castle once contained in the field. This is the site on which the present University stands.

Today, the university specialises in Theology, Religious Studies, Philosophy, Classics, Anthropology, Archaeology, English and History. The university is also growing in disciplines from the liberal arts and social sciences such as Film and Media Studies, Information Society Studies, Business Management, Chinese Studies and Voluntary Sector Studies.

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