Kingston University

Kingston was founded as Kingston Technical Institute in 1899. In 1930 the Kingston School of Art separated, later to become Kingston College of Art. Kingston was recognised as a Regional College of Technology by Ministry of Education in 1957. In 1970 it merged again with the College of Art to become Kingston Polytechnic, offering 34 major courses, of which 17 were at degree level.

Kingston University was granted university status under the Further and Higher Education Act 1992. In 1993, Kingston opened the Roehampton Vale campus building and in 1995, Kingston acquired Dorich House.

The University has six halls of residence. Chancellors' and Walkden are based at the Kingston Hill campus. Middle Mill is adjacent to Knights Park campus, while Clayhill and Seething Wells are on opposite sides of Surbiton. Finally, there is Kingston Bridge House which is situated on the edge of Bushy Park at the Hampton Wick end of Kingston Bridge, London.
There are also contracted out halls of residence which are not owned by the university but licensed by them. IQ Wave halls were contracted due to Rennie being demolished to make way for a new education building at Kingston Hill.


The university operates a "headed tenancy" scheme in which the university sublets local properties to students from landlords.
In 2008, the BBC obtained e-mails circulated within Kingston's School of Music, relating to the opinions of an external examiner moderating the BMus course. The messages showed that her final report caused considerable concern within the department. The examiner was persuaded to moderate her criticism following contact from a member of the University's staff. The e-mails also detailed a plan to replace her (at the end of her term) with a more experienced and broad-based external examiner, a process which Kingston stressed breaks no rules relating to the appointment of such examiners. In October 2008, Peter Williams, Chief Executive of the UK Quality Assurance Agency (QAA), presented the agency's findings to a Parliamentary Select Committee charged with investigating standards in British higher education. Following an investigation of the allegations by a former University staff member that undue pressure was applied to the School of Music's External Examiner, QAA upheld all charges of wrongdoing, as alleged.

The Faculty of Business & Law has a number of specialist research units which cover the principal business disciplines. These research units include: Asia Business Research Centre, Business-to-Business Marketing Research Centre, Centre for Insolvency Law and Policy, Centre for Working Life Research, Consumer Research Unit, Marketing in New Contexts Group, Small Business Research Centre, Centre for Research in Employment, Skills & Society, Institute of Leadership & Management in Health.
The Faculty of Science, Engineering and Computing was formed in summer 2011. The Faculty is composed of eight schools: Aerospace and Aircraft Engineering; Civil Engineering and Construction; Computing and Information Systems; Geography, Geology and Environment; Life Sciences; Mathematics; Mechanical and Automotive Engineering; and Pharmacy and Chemistry.

The School of Geography, Geology and the Environment hosts Geographical Information Systems (GIS), which was the very first degree of its kind.

The Faculty's teaching is split between undergraduate and postgraduate programmes. Facilities at the Roehampton Vale campus including a Learjet 25, flight simulator, wind tunnel and automotive workshops including a range of vehicles and testing facilities.