Owens Park Tutors Committee minutes

Minutes of the Owens Park Tutors Committee. Committee meetings were held regularly, and mainly discussed regulations, breaches of discipline, and provision of services to residents. The minutes date from 1967 to 1971, and 1980-1989 (with one surviving minute from 5 Dec 1974). It liaised with an Owens Park Student Committee as part of the Park's objective of promoting student involvement. The committee does not appear to have reported to a senior committee, but University Council was ultimately responsible for Owens Park, with the Bursar handling its financial management. As well as minutes of meetings, the archive contains a few papers and reports which were mostly presented to the meetings. The committee was succeeded in 1973 by a sessional University committee, the Owens Park Policy Committee. The Tutors Committee continued to meet but was now junior to the Policy Committee. By the late 1980s, formal minutes had been replaced by notes of actions.

Although small and incomplete, the archive provides interesting information on student life in the 1960s. It casts light on the success or otherwise of an innovative approach to providing student residence outside of the framework of the traditional hall, and into student-staff relations at the Park in this period.

Owens Park is a residential complex of the University of Manchester which opened in 1964. It was designed by the Building Design Partnership, and the project marked a new approach by the University to its provision of student accommodation. Owens Park differed for the traditional halls by being designed as a "student village", in which students were to be given more freedom and control over their living spaces. Owens Park, which included a 19 storey tower block, was also designed to maximise population density in a relatively limited area of land. Apart from the tower, there were four residential blocks: Tree Court, Green Court, Little Court, and the Mall. When it opened accommodation was provided for over 1000 students., and was segregated by gender, although it later became mixed.

The accommodation was structured around "houses" of around 48 students, which had common rooms, and these were subdivided into groups of six study-bedrooms with their own kitchens. Larger facilities included a library, assembly and dining halls . Houses were under the supervision of residential tutors. many of whom were University staff, and unlike the traditional halls, there was no warden.

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The collection includes material which is subject to the Data Protection Act 2018. Under the Act 2018 (DPA), The University of Manchester Library (UML) holds the right to process personal data for archiving and research purposes. In accordance with the DPA, UML has made every attempt to ensure that all personal and sensitive personal data has been processed fairly, lawfully and accurately. Users of the archive are expected to comply with the Data Protection Act 2018, and will be required to sign a form acknowledging that they will abide by the requirements of the Act in any further processing of the material by themselves.

Open parts of this collection, and the catalogue descriptions, may contain personal data about living individuals. Some items in this collection may be closed to public inspection in line with the requirements of the DPA. Restrictions/closures of specific items will be indicated in the catalogue.

Transferred from the Denis Welland papers in 2006 and accrual received from Professor Simon Ville in 2024.

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A number of items within the archive remain within copyright under the terms of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988; it is the responsibility of users to obtain the copyright holder's permission for reproduction of copyright material for purposes other than research or private study.

Prior written permission must be obtained from the Library for publication or reproduction of any material within the archive. Please contact the Head of Special Collections, John Rylands Library, 150 Deansgate, Manchester, M3 3EH.

The minutes were previously kept as part of the papers of Denis Welland, a University academic, who chaired the Tutors Committee between 1967-1971. As official copies of the minutes were not kept by the University, these minutes were extracted from the Welland papers and serve as the record of this committee's work. Welland's papers were acquired by the University Library in 2002.

A collection of OPT minutes collected by Professor Simon Ville, when he was a tutor at Owens Park, was donated in March 2024, and has been incorporated into this archive.

None expected.

For the post-1973 period at Owens Park see the minutes of the Owens Park Policy Committee USC/82.

See also the Vice-Chancellor's files on Owens Park VCA/7/598 and VCA/7/912. General matters relating to the University's residential accommodation will be covered in the minutes of the Student Accommodation Committee USC/22. The University Archives also has custody of the archives of the following halls: Ashburne Hall AHA Dalton (HDH), Hulme (HHH), Ellis Llwyd Jones (HEJ), and Langdale (HLH).