April 2010 Recap and Poll Results [GlasgowUniPhoto.com]
It’s time for exam season again, so good luck to you all. Without further ado, let’s move to the poll results. Where did you live in your first year at Glasgow University? Let’s see the results of the poll:
No real surprises there, as Murano Street is the largest concentration of Glasgow University students and a very likely home for roughly a quarter of new students each year, housing some 1,000 students at a time. Glasgow University has a very large number of “home” students, students from within Glasgow and the surrounding areas, so students living at home being the second largest group is not surprise. The two Other answers were ‘Cooperage Place’, which the University bought from Unite in 2009, and ‘a flat in Springburn’, so add one to ‘Private Accommodation’.
Seeing as exam season has begun, the poll for the month of May queries about your study habits for exams. What is your favourite place to study for exams?
Below you can find thumbnails of all the posts from the month of April. Which was your favourite?
![April 4th: P is for... Pearce Lodge [ABC Sundae]](http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4062/4500386841_571f38bab6_s.jpg)
John McIntyre Building Wrapped Up
Seeing as this week is filled with posts about renovations and scaffolding, one more can’t hurt. If there’s one industry which seems to be doing well in this economy, it would be the scaffolding industry. This is the John McIntyre Building, from next to The Square. I wonder if the entire building will be covered in blue?
No idea how long the John Mac will be under the covers for, or what they’re doing to the building. It’ll be interesting to see what the old quarters of the John Smith Bookshop will be after the renovations, as since the bookshop moved to the Fraser Building, the empty space was temporarily occupied by the boating club for use as their gym.
[Poll #11: Where did you live in your first year at Glasgow University?] Click on the photo above for a larger version. Please rate the photo below! © 2010 GlasgowUniPhoto.com
Roofworks on the Hunterian Museum
Here’s a little closeup of the work being done on the Hunterian Museum‘s roof. Not much to add from yesterday’s post, except to say that wow, that is a LOT of scaffolding. With the weather getting better, and more and more people coming to Glasgow University to visit this landmark, it’s a bit of a shame that one of the best parts of the University is completely covered up. Worse yet, that part of the Main Building will be covered up for a year or so, until about next April.
Guess I’d better focus my photo taking on other parts of the University for the coming months, seeing as the Main Building and a bunch of other buildings around campus are covered with scaffolding.
[Poll #11: Where did you live in your first year at Glasgow University?] Click on the photo above for a larger version. Please rate the photo below! © 2010 GlasgowUniPhoto.com
Green Around Campus
With Spring on its way, the Gilmorehill campus is starting to look greener every day. Compare this view to a similar view from back last October, when everything was covered in autumn colours. Like that photo, I took this one from one of the windows in the tower of the Glasgow University Library.
You’ll also notice that the scaffolding on the Main Building has now completely overtaken one wing of the building, covering the brunt of the Hunterian Museum for its roofworks, under way for the better part of the next year, perhaps more. You can see what the interior of the Hunterian Museum looks like all packed up here. You may also notice that there is scaffolding and workmen on the John McIntyre Building, which is also closed for renovations, and the SRC has moved around the corner to Southpark Avenue.
As you walk around campus, you’ll notice that the Main Building and the John McIntyre Building aren’t the only ones covered in scaffolding. The tenements on Hillhead Street and Great George Street, which contain the Student Apartments and academic offices, have been covered for the entire academic year, there’s scaffolding on the Boyd Orr Building and the Kelvin Building, and several other places around campus.
[Poll #11: Where did you live in your first year at Glasgow University?] Click on the photo above for a larger version. Please rate the photo below! © 2010 GlasgowUniPhoto.com
Exam Season Begins
Exam season at Glasgow University begins this week, lasting until the end of May. Some people will be done with their exams by the end of the week, some have to sweat it out until late May.
The entire exam schedule is posted, among other places (I assume), in the vestibule of the Queen Margaret Union, as you walk into the building.
I lucked in that my three exams are all a week apart. How’s your exam schedule?
[Poll #11: Where did you live in your first year at Glasgow University?] Click on the photo above for a larger version. Please rate the photo below! © 2010 GlasgowUniPhoto.com
Tennent’s Becomes GUU (What Is That?)
The red ‘T’ featured a week ago is in fact the Tennent’s logo and the photo was a detail of the decoration on the entrance to the Glasgow University Union‘s The Hive nightclub, from the bottom right-hand corner of the text.
The entrance to the Hive was decorated last summer, which was actually long overdue and a welcome change to the extension building of the GUU, which previously sported an ugly dirty white-ish coat of paint and the second ‘G’ from the text above the door was missing. In other words, it seems that this part of the GUU hadn’t seen a refreshment since the extension building was built in the 1960s.
Back in September I posted a slightly different view of this entrance, showing more of the new entrance.
[Poll #11: Where did you live in your first year at Glasgow University?] Click on the photo above for a larger version. Please rate the photo below! © 2010 GlasgowUniPhoto.com
Sir Henry Jones
Sir Henry Jones (1852-1922) studied Philosophy at the University of Glasgow and later became a professor of Moral Philosophy at the University from 1894 to 1922. He was knighted in 1912.
The plaque above commemorates him and marks the house which was gifted to the University in his memory. The house, located at the corner of Gibson Street and Oakfield Avenue, across the road from the Stevenson Building, today houses the academic offices of the Philosophy Department, the lobby of which is adorned with the commemorative plaque.
[Poll #11: Where did you live in your first year at Glasgow University?] Click on the photo above for a larger version. Please rate the photo below! © 2010 GlasgowUniPhoto.com
From Partick Bridge at Night
Digging deep into the magical box of photos, I came across the above photo, taken about this time last year. I’ve said this before, but Partick Bridge offers one of the best postcard worthy views of the University of Glasgow. There’s also a bus stop right next to the bridge where the 747 AirLink bus stops on its way from Glasgow Airport, so if you’re picking friends up by bus from the airport and live in the vicinity of the University, I suggest getting off at this bus stop and offering your visitors a stunning view of the University from the very start.
Every time I come across one of my attempts at taking long exposure photos by a road I’m reminded of the fact that I really need to attempt this more often. One evening I’ve gotta make my way to one of the bridges on to of the M8 to get some (hopefully) nice long exposure shots of cars passing by. If you’re ever trying the same, I suggest trying to catch a passing emergency vehicle. The light effect of the flashing blue lights on top of the emergency vehicles creates an interesting effect. Here’s one I made earlier (opens oven, whips out previously prepared dish photo).
[Poll #11: Where did you live in your first year at Glasgow University?] Click on the photo above for a larger version. Please rate the photo below! © 2010 GlasgowUniPhoto.com
Lord Kelvin Lived Here
Just next to the Principal’s Lodging in The Square, at the southern end of the Stair Building, number 11, is the former residence of one of Glasgow University’s most famous professors. The round plaque on the right, from The Institute of Physics, commemorates the fact that William Thompson, Baron Kelvin of Largs, lived in this house from 1870 to 1899.
The buildings surrounding The Square, number 1-11 (number 13 belonged to the Principal), were designed and built by Sir Gilbert Scott in 1870, and used to be the residences of the Professors of the University until they were gradually converted to the use of departments and offices. The last professor left his house there in the 1980s. Back at the Old College on High Street, the professors of the University were housed at Professors’ Court, and in keeping with this naming scheme, The Square used to be called Professors’ Square.
The plaque to the left of the entrance reads:
In this house lived
William Thompson, Lord Kelvin
Physicist 1824-1907
He matriculated in the University
at the age of 10, was its Professor
of Natural History from 1846-1899,
and died as its Chancellor. He is
buried beside Isaac Newton in
Westmister Abbey.
[Poll #11: Where did you live in your first year at Glasgow University?] Click on the photo above for a larger version. Please rate the photo below! © 2010 GlasgowUniPhoto.com
Rooftops of Hillhead Street
And now, for something different, an angle most people will never see. Not because it’s restricted or anything, but because it’s a bit out of the way.
Before you is a view from the 12th floor of the library, from the bathrooms on the Special Collections floor. Yes, I took a photo from a bathroom window.
The road to the right hand side of the photo is Hillhead Street, and the buildings in front of you contain several University offices, including the Department of Psychology at 58 Hillhead Street. The further end of the building, including where the building turns to the left, holds within the Student Apartments at 50 and 52 Hillhead Street, as well as some student flats on Great George Street, above the Accommodation Office at 73 Great George Street.
If you look very carefully, you can kinda make out the Murano Street Student Village far off in the distance on the right hand side.
[Poll #11: Where did you live in your first year at Glasgow University?] Click on the photo above for a larger version. Please rate the photo below! © 2010 GlasgowUniPhoto.com
Gilmorehill from the Boyd Orr Building
As teased on Saturday, the 11th floor of the Boyd Orr Building offers one of the best panoramic views of the University, as you can see above.
Besides the numerous buildings on campus, most of which you can probably recognize, If you look carefully, you can make out the flag of Scotland flying at the South Front of the University’s Main Building, as well as the scaffolding slowly covering up parts of the building above the Hunterian Museum due to the roof works. I’ve tagged all the visible University buildings on the Flickr page, which you can get to by clicking on the photo above.
Off in the distance on the right hand side of the photo you can make out the Clyde Arc, Titan Crane, Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, the SECC, the BBC Scotland Building, and Glasgow Science Museum.
Anything I missed?
[Poll #11: Where did you live in your first year at Glasgow University?] Click on the photo above for a larger version. Please rate the photo below! © 2010 GlasgowUniPhoto.com
Defender of the University
Ok, the title isn’t completely accurate. The car in question isn’t actually for defensive purposes. It is, in fact, a Land Rover Defender owned by the University. So the title is, in fact, somewhat accurate.
The University has an extensive and diverse fleet of cars etcetera, maintained by the Transport Services which oversees the repair and preventative maintenance of the University’s transportation equipment, among other duties such as car hire and transportation of students, staff and visitors, mail and equipment.
The University’s Transportation Services are located on Thurso Street, underneath the University Archives. The garage is visible in a previously featured photo of the Archives, on the ground floor (the arced entrances.
[Poll #11: Where did you live in your first year at Glasgow University?] Click on the photo above for a larger version. Please rate the photo below! © 2010 GlasgowUniPhoto.com
What’s With The Red ‘T’ and Where Is This From?
If you’ve spent any time in Glasgow you ought to instantly recognize the red letter ‘T’ in the photo. To that end, the bigger question here is not what the ‘T’ stands for, but where is it? Furthermore, can you guess what it’s a part of?
(hint: it’s around the Glasgow University campus. Duh.)
What Is That? is a new occasional theme day. I’ll post a close up of something every now and then, typically on a Monday, and then exactly a week later I’ll post a photo which reveals what the first photo was of. You have a week to guess, in the comments, what the photo is of and where it’s from. Simple, no? So hop to it. What is that and where’s it from?
[Poll #11: Where did you live in your first year at Glasgow University?] Click on the photo above for a larger version. Please rate the photo below! © 2010 GlasgowUniPhoto.com
Q is for… Queen Margaret College [ABC Sundae]
Women have only been permitted to study at Scottish universities since 1892. Before that, the movement for the higher education of women was strong in Glasgow and in 1877 the Glasgow Association for the Higher Education of Women was founded. The principal of Glasgow University at the time, John Caird, was the first Chairman of its General Committee.
The Association offered lectures by University professors in class rooms at the University. In 1883 the Association became the Queen Margaret College, the first and only college in Scotland to provide higher education for women.
The Queen Margaret College was based on Queen Margaret Drive, across the street from the Botanic Gardens just north of the University. When women were allowed to study at University from 1892 onwards, the Queen Margaret College merged with the University of Glasgow. The building on Queen Margaret Drive remained in use for teaching, although with time the uses of the building moved to Gilmorehill, eventually leaving the building solely for administrative purposes in 1934.
Queen Margaret College was fully incorporated into the the University of Glasgow in 1935, with the building on Queen Margaret Drive becoming the headquarters of BBC Scotland. The student union of the Queen Margaret College, the Queen Margaret Union, which spent its time moving around Gilmorehill after its inception, became the University’s female-only student union, alongside the male-only Glasgow University Union.
The above plaque, located on the backside of the Round Reading Room, commemorates Frances Helen Melville, the last mistress of Queen Margaret College from 1909 to its closure in 1935 and the first female Bachelor of Divinity in Scotland.
The University of Glasgow Story website has an article on the history of women at the University, much more detailed than the above. In addition, a book was launched this month titled ‘Ladies First: The History of the Queen Margaret Union’.
I mentioned Queen Margaret 14 times in this post. Who is this Queen Margaret that the Queen Margaret College was named after? The answer: Saint Margaret of Scotland (c. 1045-1093), the wife of King Malcolm III.
[Poll #11: Where did you live in your first year at Glasgow University?] Click on the photo above for a larger version. Please rate the photo below! © 2010 GlasgowUniPhoto.com
1840 – 1990
Attempting to embellish one of the 1960s buildings on campus, the Rankine Building, featured on Tuesday, is this stainless steel sculpture entitled “1840 – 1990″. The plaque underneath reads:
This sculpture, by LUCY BAIRD, commemorates the 150th anniversary of the establishment of the Regius Chair of Civil Engineering and Mechanics at the University of Glasgow. It was made possible through the generosity principally of Norwest Holst; also of British Steel Stainless, graduates of the Department of Civil Engineering, local civil engineering companies, the Scottish Arts Council, and the City of Glasgow District Council.
I can’t decide whether or not I like this sculpture. I think it fits the Rankine Building, but at the same time it might look better because of the what the building it resides on. What do you think? Like it, love it, or hate it?
Next question: what is the sculpture supposed to represent?
[Poll #11: Where did you live in your first year at Glasgow University?] Click on the photo above for a larger version. Please rate the photo below! © 2010 GlasgowUniPhoto.com
George Service House
Located at 11 University Gardens, the George Service House was built in 1884 and is named after shipping magnate George Service (1864-1940), the first chairman of the University’s Student International Club, which occupied the building from the club’s creation in 1922. Hetherington House is located next door at number 13 University Gardens.
The first resident of the building was George Thomas Beilby, the father-in-law of Frederick Soddy of isotope fame. It was also the house where Soddy introduced the concept of isotopes, featured last week.
The building was purchased by the University in 1956. Since 1997 George Service House has been occupied by HATII. Although that may sound like some fancy scientific organization or contraption, it actually stands for Humanities Advanced Technology and Information Institute, a research and teaching institute in Arts and Media.
[Poll #11: Where did you live in your first year at Glasgow University?] Click on the photo above for a larger version. Please rate the photo below! © 2010 GlasgowUniPhoto.com
Rankine Building
There are four main temperature scales: Celsius (°C), Fahrenheit (°F), Kelvin (K), and Rankine (°R). The reason I mention this is to highlight Glasgow University’s contribution to the science of thermodynamics as the people behind the Kelvin and Rankine scales were associated with the University of Glasgow.
The Rankine scale is named after Scottish engineer and physicist (William John) Macquorn Rankine (1820–1872), who proposed the temperature scale in 1859 whilst he was Regius Professor of Civil Engineering and Mechanics from 1855 to 1872.
Situated on Oakfield Avenue, the Rankine Building was opened in 1970 as the new home for the Departments of Civil Engineering and Electronics & Electrical Engineering. I guess I don’t need to tell you who it was named after.
I’m not going to attempt to explain the Rankine scale here. You can read about it on Wikipedia, or if anyone reading this is willing to provide a short description in the comments section below, please do.
[Poll #11: Where did you live in your first year at Glasgow University?] Click on the photo above for a larger version. Please rate the photo below! © 2010 GlasgowUniPhoto.com
Lord Kelvin’s Sundial
The Terrestrial Globe, more commonly known as ‘Lord Kelvin’s Sundial’, sits at the South Front of the University’s Main Building. The globe has five sundials attached to it, with the main sundial at the top and four smaller ones on globe, pointing North, South, East and West (two of which are visible in the photo).
Believed to have been the work of Lord Kelvin himself (or by his father, James Thompson, who was the Professor of Mathematics at the University from 1832 to 1849), the sundial came from an estate in Bearsden, bequethed to the University in 1964 and erected in 1971.
Regardless of who’s work it is, the sundial is older than the building it sits in the shadow of.
[Poll #11: Where did you live in your first year at Glasgow University?] Click on the photo above for a larger version. Please rate the photo below! © 2010 GlasgowUniPhoto.com
Springtime on Gilmorehill
There have been a lot of signs that it’s finally spring in Glasgow. It’s warmer, flowers are popping up everywhere, trees are beginning to get greener, the cherry trees are blossoming, and a lot of people are walking around in summer attire.
Whenever the sun comes out in Glasgow and it’s relatively warm, every single green patch of grass is packed with sunworshippers. There is one spot that seems to be secluded enough to be relatively empty though.
The grassy area by the South Front of the University’s Main Building is completely covered in several shades of yellow and white daffodils, as well as students revising for the exams. Just a tip.
[Poll #11: Where did you live in your first year at Glasgow University?] Click on the photo above for a larger version. Please rate the photo below! © 2010 GlasgowUniPhoto.com
The University of Glasgow, in Miniature
The model of the West End featured yesterday didn’t really demonstrate the correct size ration of the buildings on Gilmorehill too well, but there is another miniature model to be found which does that task pretty well. Right by the Visitor Centre in the Main Building is a sizable miniature model of the entire Gilmorehill campus.
The photos, from top to bottom, are taken from roughly the North, West, South and East. In the first photo (North) you can clearly make out the University Library, the Adam Smith Building, Bute Gardens, Lilybank House and the Hetherington Building. The second photo (West) is dominated by the Joseph Black Building and you can clearly compare the sizes of the Main Building and the University Library. The third photo (South) shows the South Front of the Main Building and the Principal’s Lodging. The fourth photo (East) covers most of the campus, and allows for another size comparison of the two largest structures on campus, mercifully leaving the Boyd Orr Building hidden behind the library.
Sorry for the extra large photo, it was the only way I could fit all four angles into this one photo. I could easily spend ages peering at the miniature version of the University.
[Poll #11: Where did you live in your first year at Glasgow University?] Click on the photo above for a larger version. Please rate the photo below! © 2010 GlasgowUniPhoto.com
The West End, in Miniature
You run into these miniature versions of cities and parts of cities all over the place. In Glasgow I’ve come across three of them already: on Buchanan Street, by the Glasgow Cathedral, and this one by the Kelvingrove Museum. You can clearly see the two largest buildings in the area, somewhat oversized here, the Main Building of the University of Glasgow and the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum. The largest singular feature which takes up most of the model is Kelvingrove Park and the line that squiggles through it is the Kelvin River. You can kinda make out the University Library behind the Main Building, although were all the buildings to scale, it should be a lot bigger, just as the Boyd Orr Building should, whereas here it’s pretty much non-existent.
[Poll #11: Where did you live in your first year at Glasgow University?] Click on the photo above for a larger version. Please rate the photo below! © 2010 GlasgowUniPhoto.com
Frederick Soddy’s Isotopes
This plaque commemorates a dinner party which occurred in the George Service House at 11 University Gardens in 1913, during which Frederick Soddy gave the name ‘isotopes’ to his concept of “radio elements chemically non-separable”.
Soddy was a lecturer at Glasgow University in Physical Chemistry and Radioactivity from 1904 to 1914 and won the Nobel Prize in 1921 for his work on radioactivity, one of 6 Nobel Laureates associated with the University of Glasgow. (More Nobel Laureates here.)
[Poll #11: Where did you live in your first year at Glasgow University?] Click on the photo above for a larger version. Please rate the photo below! © 2010 GlasgowUniPhoto.com
SRC Relocating to 65-67 Southpark Avenue
If you’re looking for the SRC in its usual place in the John McIntyre Building, you’ll be out of luck. The Students’ Representative Council has temporarily moved from University Avenue to 65-67 Southpark Avenue, just next to the Fraser Building, behind the Wellington Church due to renovation works.
Not sure how long the renovation is due to last, or how extensive it will be. Chances are there’ll more scaffolding around the University though.
More information about the move can be found at glasgowstudent.net. The SRC has also provided a map of the new location at http://www.tinyurl.com/srcmove.
[Poll #11: Where did you live in your first year at Glasgow University?] Click on the photo above for a larger version. Please rate the photo below! © 2010 GlasgowUniPhoto.com
Most Recent Comments