Student voices in the archives

The online Rylands Lunchtime Seminar Series highlights the breadth and quality of our unique Special Collections and showcases world-class collections-based research activities. It brings together experts from the University of Manchester Library and University of Manchester academics working closely with the special collections held in the Library.

Student Voices in the Archives

Professor Sue Heath and Dr Grant Collier

The University of Manchester’s archives offer a rich resource for researching student life and the history of the institution more generally. In this seminar, Grant Collier (Curator for University Heritage) will introduce the range of materials available to researchers, highlighting the value of the archives for both historical and contemporary studies of student experience. Sue Heath (Professor of Sociology) will then reflect on using the University’s archives in her research on the social history of student housing. Drawing on examples from the 1950s and 60s, the speakers will present the ways in which students’ experiences and agency were captured in the archives during a period of higher educational expansion.

Prfessor Sue Heath, Professor of Sociology, School of Social Sciences and Grant Collier, Curator of University Heritage, University of Manchester

Sue Heath is a Professor of Sociology at the University of Manchester. Her main research interests revolve around young people, housing, and shared living arrangements. She has also conducted research on issues of access and widening participation in higher education. Since 2021, Sue’s interest in these two areas have come together and taken a historical turn; she has been conducting researching into the social history of student housing in the English redbrick universities, latterly with the support of a Leverhulme Research Fellowship.

Dr Grant Collier is Curator for University Heritage at the University of Manchester. He has worked across the University’s Special Collections, including the University Heritage Collection and University Archives. His research areas concern histories of space and place, histories of the everyday and student life. He also has an interest in public history, having contributed to historical exhibitions and television documentaries.

Library image attached is from the News Bulletin, February 1959, Students’ Union Archive, SUA/8/1/16

Image is from the News Bulletin, February 1959, Students’ Union Archive, SUA/8/1/16