Overview
Owain Glyndwr, the warrior leader who briefly established an independent Welsh state in the Middle Ages, has disappeared from the name of Wrexham University in what vice-chancellor Professor Maria Hinfelaar described as a ‘momentous and exciting step’. The name change from Wrexham Glyndwr University was actioned last September in order to identify the university more closely with the newest city in Wales, which has had more than its share of headlines since Hollywood stars Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney bought its football club in 2020. The club has enjoyed successive promotions and begins this year in League One for the first time in 20 years – the sort of ranking improvement that the university would also love to see. (This year’s 16-place improvement in our league table is a good start.) All the positive publicity might have rubbed off on the institution, with applications hitting record levels over the past two years. Students enjoy their experience here, with consistently excellent scores being recorded in the National Student Survey. An £80m campus investment programme is well under way, and a new healthcare simulation centre opened last year for Wrexham’s substantial number of nursing and allied health students.
Paying the bills
Bursary and scholarship support of students amounted to just £12,000 in 2022-23, the vast majority of which was delivered through ten £1,000 First Generation Opportunity scholarships to students who are the first in their family to go to university. The scholarships are payable in the first year only. A hardship fund pays out according to need, and the sums have increased during the cost-of-living crisis. Students in financial difficulty can also access supermarket vouchers and on-campus laundry credits. With 321 places in student accommodation available, not everyone who applies gets a place. Priority is given to first-years, care leavers and those who live too far away to easily find private rented accommodation. Costs for 40-week tenancies in self-catered rooms in the Wrexham Student Village range from £4,980 to £7,120. Longer lets of 51 weeks are available.
What’s new?
What’s in a name? Quite a lot, actually, and the adoption of Wrexham University as the institution’s official title is imbued with great expectations. There has been a gradual shift in title from Glyndwr University to Wrexham Glyndwr (in 2016) and now to Wrexham in order to (in the words of the university) ‘increase awareness, strengthen identity and, in turn, attract more students’. This ambition will be aided by the Campus 2025 investment programme which will see £80m lavished on Wrexham’s three campuses. A new healthcare simulation centre opened last year as part of the Health Education and Innovation Quarter, equipped with cutting-edge technology to replicate real-world medical scenarios for Wrexham’s nursing and allied health students. An enterprise engineering building and gateway building on the Plas Coch campus are also under construction. New learning and social spaces for students have been completed, along with science laboratories and a veterinary nursing clinical suite. The university has partnered with the Football Association of Wales (FAW) to create the £5m Colliers Park National Football Development Centre, which offers high-quality training facilities for young players and the wider community. It also supports the delivery of Wrexham’s football coaching and the performance specialist degree. Four new degree apprenticeships in quantity surveying, construction management, building surveying and civil engineering will admit their first students this month.
Admissions, teaching and student support
Contextual offers are made but are tailored to individual students’ backgrounds and circumstances. Reduced offers can be made in exceptional circumstances that are up to four grades, or 32 Ucas tariff points, lower than the standard offer. Among the criteria that might trigger a contextual offer are university progression rates and deprivation levels in applicants’ home postcodes, school performance against the national average, and whether the applicant has been in care or is aged over 21. In addition to these quite standard considerations, the university also takes wider life experiences into account when deciding what offer to make. Wrexham’s contextual admissions policies help create one of the most diverse student populations in the UK: virtually all students are educated in the state sector, 57% are the first in their family to go to university, and nearly two-thirds are mature students aged over 21 when they start their course. Widening Access outreach staff work on a bespoke and one-to-one basis with students who join from non-traditional routes or who come from under-represented backgrounds. All students have a personal tutor who monitors their engagement and progress, and the university has developed the role of student support navigators to provide help to any student with mental health or wellbeing issues. The navigators seek to address needs in a holistic way, directing those who require help to professional services staff, academics or external services, and assisting others in taking control of their wellbeing through mentoring, workshops and events.