Celebrating Swansea

The University wants to involve all past and present staff and students in its centenary celebrations, starting this summer and running throughout 2020. It is a wonderful opportunity to showcase our excellence and demonstrate that we are a global University, proud of our Welsh industrial heritage.  

This painting – ‘The Foundation Stone Ceremony, 19 July 1920’ by Percy Gleaves - is part of the University art collection. It has recently been restored to its former glory and will soon be displayed in Singleton Abbey for all to view.

Swansea University will celebrate its centenary in July 2020. This is a magnificent opportunity to showcase our excellence and demonstrate that we are a global University, born from Welsh industrial heritage and retaining a strong regional presence.

Our Centenary Campaign will commemorate the academic success and proud achievements of Swansea University’s current and former staff and students and those of our alumni. It will take inspiration from our great past and signpost our future path.

The campaign will have a number of working groups that focus on specific centenary activities aligned by the overarching centenary steering group. Each School, College and Directorate plus the Students’ Union will select a centenary champion to participate in these groups, which include a Staff and Student Engagement Forum; a History and Research Collections Group; a Marketing and Events Forum; and various fundraising groups.

How you can help

Emily Hewitt, Assistant Archivist based at Swansea University’s Richard Burton Archives, is working on a large scale project to catalogue and facilitate access to the University’s archive collections. The collections include material such as official minute books and departmental records, photographs, Student Union newspapers, audio-visual material and the personal papers of former staff and students.

Along with the fascinating material already held in the Archives, it is hoped that further archival material will be discovered to enhance and develop the existing collections. If you or your department has material that relates to the history of the University, Emily would be delighted to hear from you, please contact her: e.k.hewitt@swansea.ac.uk

Emily is also providing archival support to Dr Sam Blaxland, COAH, on the Voices of Swansea University oral history project, which was featured in our last issue. This project aims to record and capture the memories and experiences of individuals who have studied and/or worked at Swansea University in the past.  If you are in contact with former colleagues or students who would like to participate in the project, please contact Sam: s.blaxland@swansea.ac.uk 

The Staff and Student Engagement forum are developing a platform and a web page for you to submit centenary ideas. We will provide more details as soon as this is live.

Centenary Campaign

The Centenary Campaign will be formally launched at the Honorary Fellows dinner following this summer’s graduation celebrations.  It will have a public launch during the Swansea Science Festival this September and will also feature in this year’s student arrival weekend.  These new students will become our Centenary Graduands.

Centenary activities will take place from 19 July 2019 – one year before the actual centenary date – through to 31 December 2020.   We will use every opportunity to promote Swansea University’s rich heritage and its reputation as both a traditional and progressive university of international quality. We hope you will be happy to participate.

Delyth Thomas (delyth.m.thomas@swansea.ac.uk)
Centenary Events Office