Postgraduate teaching in the Department of Psychiatry, University of Keele

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Keele received its Charter as the University College of North Staffordshire in 1950. The first Vice Chancellor was Lord Lindsay, formerly the Warden of Magdalen College, Oxford. In the pre-war years Lindsay was a frequent visitor to the Potteries, presenting lectures within the Workers Education Association. He was unusual as an Oxford don not only in this respect but also in his approach to university education. He was closely involved in the development of the Modern Greats degree at Oxford and had strong views on the need for a broad liberal university education. Keele was founded on this principle as a teaching university offering a four year degree, the foundation year requiring students to study arts, sciences and humanities. At its inception the university was housed in a Victorian stately home, Keele Hall, and several ex-army huts. For the first decade of its life a “community of scholars” ethos was strongly emphasised and academics as well as students were required to live on campus. There were weekly small group student seminars involving academics from the three different disciplines. The academics look back on these seminars fondly, although it is not clear whether the students derived the same enjoyment from these interdisciplinary talking shops.