'Mainstream'

During the political debate in 2004 on higher fees, the term ‘mainstream university’ began to be used rather than ‘modern university’ to describe Leeds Metropolitan University and similar institutions. Students and staff can expect this trend to continue as it can be traced to changes in a network which includes Leeds Met. This used to be called the ‘Coalition of Modern Universities’, which was abbreviated to CMU. Now it has renamed itself simply ‘CMU’ but has adopted the slogan or strap-line ‘Campaigning for Mainstream Universities’.

Successive waves of colleges and universities have been called ‘new’ or ‘modern’, such as New College, Oxford in 1379 or the University of Leeds in the first half of the twentieth century or the University of Hull in the middle of the century or the University of Bradford more recently. Many more universities are expected to come ‘on stream’ in this decade, beginning with the University of the Arts London. Some universities specialise in research or in a particular sphere such as the arts but the majority of university students in the country attend institutions such as ours, a large, multi-disciplinary university which strives to be student-centred. This is what is meant by ‘mainstream universities’.