You will find here lots of information which aims to help you decide if Hild Bede is a College for you and what you can expect if you join the Hild Bede ‘family’.
Hild Bede is here to help you to realise your potential, to get a degree whether this is at undergraduate, masters or at doctoral level. There is no academic teaching in Durham Colleges; this happens in Schools and Departments.
College life and membership of Hild Bede will provide you with opportunities, challenges, friendships, connections and memories that will shape your life far beyond the years of study with us. Joining Durham is about much more than a degree. It is the widest possible form of education and College is at the heart of that.
Hild Bede will help you to realise that potential, to get that degree be it at undergraduate, masters or at doctoral level and we will help you to do and be much, much more. Your department will grow, challenge and test your knowledge and understanding of your subject, it is there you will work with academics of distinction and be part of a globally significant research culture. You will also be part of the ‘village’ that is Durham University – a community where you will know people from across subjects, and from undergraduates to the senior leaders, across the 'gown and town'.
College life and membership of Hild Bede adds to that intellectual experience, supports and nurtures you and will provide you with opportunities, challenges, friendships, connections and memories that will shape your life far beyond the years of study with us. Joining Durham is about much more than a degree. It is the widest possible form of education and College is at the heart of that.We are a unique College. We are very much an extended family a College striving to be kind and smart and brilliant – a big beating heart high on our hill above the river. We are a place where you can look for support and advice, intellectual and creative stimulation, a place to play and compete and perform and practice, to exercise leadership, work with us to run our community if you so choose and, of course, to have fun.
Hild Bede is special for lots of reasons, some are to do with by our age, traditions, character, the way that our student community is set up and runs and also our estate and location.
Hild Bede is the second oldest College in Durham. We are particularly proud of the fact that we were the first College in the University to award degrees to women and every year mark the sacrifice made by Bede men who died on the Western Front in World War 1. Our age as a College means that we have 17,000 alumni, a huge community of people spread around the world whom we regard as part of the College community and a number of whom are actively involved in College life and provide support to our students.
Hild Bede is neither a ‘Hill’ College nor a ‘Bailey’ College. From 2024 we will be located at Rushford Court which is handily placed 5 minutes from the mainline railway station and Market Square in the City Centre. Our accommodation is sited around a brand new building in which you will find the College bar - 'The Vern' - and Common Rooms, meetings rooms and other facilities. The College offices will be in the Harding Building.
We will also be working closely with our local community planning to host Theatre, the Chapel, Choir and many of our clubs and societies in local venues allowing to be at the heart of the neighbourhood. We are working to partner on a community garden, including our brand new Polytunnel, at Wharton Park.
Our boathouse is located a short walk away on the banks of the River Wear.
While place and space are important, the thing that makes a College is its people. We think of College as an ongoing conversation, one that started before we arrived and will go on after we leave. A conversation about ideas, concepts and knowledge, about plans, events and visions and views, about times when things are going well and also when they might be going less well. What makes good conversation is excellent people and Hild Bede has very many. You will find our leadership in the Vice-Principal, through our Student Support and Welfare team, the College administration and operations team, experience and expertise, kindness and sense. We also boast around 40 mentors meaning that every student has someone connected with but outside the staff of the College for support and guidance and to help you find your feet and advise throughout your stay at Durham. Many of our staff are very long serving, and curate our history and traditions with long experience and deep loyalty to College.
Hild Bede is unique in that our students are not represented by a JCR but the SRC (Student Representative Council). This elected body represents and serves both under- and post-graduate students of the College. It is a strong, energetic, committed and brilliant body that contributes to College life each and every day through the very many events and ‘ents’ that it runs, the welfare support that is provides, the representation and voice it offers in running our College and also into the wider University. It is the SRC Exec that makes Open Days possible, organises and runs Freshers’ week and our formals and balls and also College Day. It supports Team HildBede as well as the clubs and societies across music, drama, and liberation issues. It is the at the heart of College and will be at the centre of your experience of Hild Bede. Hild Bede is a big College. The whole College community comprises around 1330 students. We have members from all walks of life and backgrounds: those new to University, from outside the UK, from a wide range of cultures and ethnicities, genders and sexualities. We strive to be an open and inclusive environment where we work hard to challenge inequalities and inequities, take on discrimination and exclusionary practice and be a champion for and celebrate the diversity of our communities and groups.
Our mission is two-fold. To enable you to feel that you belong to our community, and thereby to help you to achieve the sense of safety, confidence and open-mindedness to develop to your full potential – to become the person you want and can be.
We do that through providing excellent pastoral and welfare support. You will find us ready to help with advice on physical and mental health and wellbeing, support you in relation to your studies and relationship with your academic department, to sign-post you to the appropriate services inside the University or the wider community.
College is also very fortunate to have a Chaplain for around half a week, a post funded via the College historic links to the Church of England. The Chaplaincy allows us to offer an Evensong and Holy Communion each week, mindfulness sessions and the very popular ‘Nine lessons and carols’ service at Christmas. The Chaplaincy also connects us to the wider local community and is means for you to explore volunteering and making a contribution to improving the lives and opportunities of people around College.
We also make you feel at home through our catered events. Hild Bede holds 7 ‘formals’ a year. These events at which we come together as a community to celebrate and socialise. We mark Christmas and St Patrick’s Day, an evening of awards for our ‘Clubs and Socs’, St Hild's Day and every Easter term, the 'Final Formal'. Hild Bede’s Winter, Spring and Summer Balls are legendary. And, we started the traditions of College Days at Durham with what remains the biggest and best.
When it comes to self-development and enhancing your personal effectiveness the opportunities in our College are very numerous indeed. Hild Bede will give you the opportunities through which you can become more confident, self-possessed, resilient and more able to contribute to making the world a better place.
There are around 36 clubs and societies through which you can hone or develop a skill, get fit, keep fit, or enjoy competition, self-expression and also contribute to our local community. Hild Bede Theatre (HBT) is well-known not least for its musical productions which have secured awards for the best musical in Durham for twelve consecutive years. We have dance and music and possibly the best College Chapel Choir in Durham. Our art collection is extensive and includes several important works by post-impressionists and other artists.
Team HildBede provides the umbrella for all our very many sports and games clubs. Hild Bede Boat Club is popular and successful, so too our football, rugby, hockey, basketball, netball and badminton clubs. Many have several teams catering for all ambitions and talents. Hild Bede Cheer came second in the inter-collegiate competition this year and won the top award for best choreography. You can also join our pool team or poker club if you like your pleasures more sedentary.
And, at the heart of a lot of our activities sits the ‘ New Vern’, our bar and social area. It is here that you can take part in our quizzes, ‘open mic’ nights, bingo, silent discos or even just have a quiet drink.
One of the other great assets of Hild Bede, in part associated with our history and traditions, is the extent to which we are gifted and granted the means to support you in what you want to try and to achieve. Our College has a wide range of funds and trusts, many generously set up in memory of students, by alumni and others, which provide, under their various articles and purposes, several thousands of pounds of year to applicants from within College.
College is not just about what offer you but also what you can contribute to College. Hild Bede is looking to you for your ideas, energy and engagement. We are looking for students who will bring us willingness to support the SRC and through it, for instance, to help us develop our annual College plan, to refine our long term vision and strategy, to enhance our place and status in the wider family of Colleges and also our local community and communities beyond Durham. If you come to Hild Bede you can expect to be part of our ‘conversation’ and the work to keep turning our power and capabilities to enhance both you and your wider experience of University and also what you can do for others outside College and out into life beyond.
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