This week was all about looking at the roles of individuals on the history of Roehampton. This had me thinking about how individuals can form part of my project or the whole project. I like the idea of comparing the lives of several women and seeing how their time at Roehampton has influenced their future lives and careers. Potentially even looking at the effect that individuals had on education and college life. Or potentially looking at the presence of other nationalities within the colleges. All these questions are interesting and I could see myself doing any one of them for the project but they all depend upon the resources I can find within the archives next week, and the kinds of sources they have available for me to access.

The lecture was also useful in thinking about the type of thing I want to do along-side the essay. But at the same time, it is hard to decide on the project type when I am still trying to firm up a topic and question.

Women in education is an important topic to understand the struggles that women faced in getting the education that a lot of girls and young women today take for granted.

Thinking about questions for the project I was thinking of looking at the situation of women in education and how this changed over time. So for example, in Southlands, there was at one point in the early years over 150 women sharing 2 bathrooms and looking at the effect events and experiences like this had on the women in this training college. Or looking into the strict codes of conduct and rules they had to follow especially in comparing these to women’s colleges in Oxford, Cambridge and London to see if the regulations imposed on one of our colleges was off the same level as other colleges and universities.

Or looking potentially at individuals maybe within the sacred heart organisation and the links between the religious aspect of their education and the teacher training education they received. Maybe even comparing the educational practices of the women with the way they were treated and the results ( for example the number of women that finished their education.)

Whilst I could also look at the prejudices that women faced and how they dealt with this adversity on an individual level as well as within the college community.

The religious foundations of the colleges were something I had never really considered or thought about before. I knew that all the colleges began as women’s teacher training colleges but I didn’t know that three of the colleges had such a religious background or how they came together to create Roehampton University.  I loved learning about the religious interest and involvement in education as had not made a link between religion and education before.

Learning outside of the classroom was also a lot more interesting as seeing the places that are the centre of religion on campus almost made the history of the university come to life that little bit more.

This was my first insight into the denomination of the society of the sacred hearts and it really sparked my interest in the women that roamed these hallways before me.  Thinking about potential project ideas I think I might want to look at the legacy and continued involvement of the sacred sisters within the university. Or looking at when they were here initially linking it with individual stories of women and exploring their motives within the church as well as the impact they had on education and the church.

This week’s lecture was interesting as it is an aspect of history that I have not considered before. I enjoyed the linking of history and architecture and the extent of influence that the Greek and Roman world had on the architecture of the English Country House. The terminology of all the architectural aspects was hard to get my head round at the beginning of the lecture but towards the end, I was enjoying pointing out the typical aspects of the architecture and was feeling more comfortable with the time period.

With my interest being firmly placed in the classical period this lecture made me think about the different types of classical reception in the 18^th century and question how much of the classical world is still around us. Walking around campus and noticing the small details that I would not have noticed before have made me feel like my eyes have been opened to an undercurrent of antiquity that I didn’t know was there before.

I am looking forward to walking around campus next week and looking in more detail at the origins of the university and the changes it has gone through.