History – WEST | Alumni Blog

25Nov

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Professor Andrew Hursthouse Retires

At the end of September 2025, Professor Andrew Hursthouse retired from University of the West of Scotland after 35 years. Here, fellow academic and alumnus, Dr Iain McLellan writes a tribute to him and the impact of his environmental science work. Professor Andrew Hursthouse I had a look through my lecture notes to see when I first met Andrew and it was 24 years ago this month when I had a lecture from Dr Hursthouse on soils. Back then I didn't understand why I was listening to a lecture on soils in a first-year chemistry module. Little did I know that Andrew would become my Honours Supervisor, my PhD Supervisor, my Mentor and my friend. Graduating with a BA (Hons) in Geochemistry from University of Reading in 1986, Andrew went on to Glasgow University to complete his PhD in En...

Professor John Struthers: A 46 year career at University of West of Scotland

24Jan

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Professor John Struthers: A 46 year career at University of West of Scotland

This month we hear from recently retired Professor John Sruthers about his career at the University. It is with some trepidation that I write this piece about my long career at the university which commenced in December 1978. How is it possible to sum up such a long period of time in just a few words? I will attempt to do so. I arrived at the then Paisley College of Technology after almost two years spent as a young lecturer in economics at the fledgling (and now highly ranked) University of Ilorin in Nigeria where I had been instrumental in helping to establish a new economics department. The difference in the weather (and the culture) was striking. Everyone in Africa greets you. No-one in the UK did so, which I found strange although in 2025 Britain, the impact of multiculturalism ...

Nondas Pitticas Retires from the University

19Dec

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Nondas Pitticas Retires from the University

This month we bid a fond farewell to University of the West of Scotland (UWS) lecturer Nondas Pitticas who will retire from UWS on 31 December, almost 41 years to the day when he joined, what was then, Paisley College of Technology. Nondas started at the Microelectronics Educational & Development Centre (MEDC) at the Paisley Campus on a trial basis in January 1984, taking on the challenge to programme the resident robot ‘HERO’ to talk, which he achieved before going on to install and operate the College’s first weather station, receiving images from the NOAA orbital satellites. In 1986 he moved to the Department of Land Economics to install the local area network (LAN) of BBC computers and once the LAN was up and running, he turned his attention to the Department’s Resources La...

Former University Staff Group Founding Members Stand Down after 25 Years

11Dec

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Former University Staff Group Founding Members Stand Down after 25 Years

A former staff group recently saw two of its founding members stand down after 25 years of organising lunches and get togethers for former employees of the university. The Paisley Academic Lunch Society, or PALS as it’s better known, is the name adopted by a group of retired members of staff. The group has origins going back to 1997 when a small number of former staff from the then University of Paisley, including John Wylie MBE, Professor Willie McEwan OBE, Harry Adams, George Haig and Samuel Monaghan, started to meet on a regular basis for lunch. Word spread of the retired staff group lunches and very quickly the membership grew. Most of the members of PALS were former business, engineering and science academic staff but membership was open to any former member of staff. At its pea...

28Aug

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Alumni Stories

Land Economics Celebration Dinner

The University was delighted to welcome back over 80 alumni to the Paisley Campus on Thursday 24 August to celebrate the ground-breaking Land Economics programme. It was wonderful to have representation from the class of 1972 right up to 1997 in the Brough Hall (now known as Chancellor’s Hall), to recount memories of academic staff, field trips and friendships formed whilst studying on the Land Economics course. The history of the Land Economics degree traces back to the 1960s when Paisley College of Technology introduced a part-time course in 1966, focusing on the examinations of the General Practice Section of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (R.I.C.S). Two years later in 1968, the full-time Diploma in Land Economics commenced, meri...

2Mar

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Alumni Stories

On this month: March 1992 Craigie College and Paisley College merge

30 years ago at a press conference in March 1992, just weeks before university status was achieved, Principal Richard Shaw of Paisley College of Technology and Principal Gordon Wilson of Craigie College of Education announced a merger between their two Colleges under the name of the University of Paisley. Craigie College of Education had opened its doors as an all-female college, training primary education teachers on the 1st of October 1964. Work had begun only in February of the same year on the new campus in the former Craigie Estate in Ayr, such was the need to train primary teachers in Scotland. Craigie College students enrolling in October 1964 The new College campus sat alongside the eighteenth century mansion Craigie House, had halls of residence, playing fields and superb...

29Jun

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Professor Malcolm Crowe Retires

A very happy retirement to Professor Malcolm Crowe, who has retired after 46 years service at University of the West of Scotland (UWS). Malcolm, who has a degree in Mathematics from Trinity College, Dublin and a DPhil from the University of Oxford, joined the then Paisley College of Technology in 1972 (now UWS Paisley Campus) as a Lecturer Grade II in the Department of Mathematics & Computing, becoming first Associate Head and then Professor of the Department of Computing. As a Head of Department, he pursued the addition of soft skills to Computing, with the development of undergraduate and Masters courses in Business Information Technology, Software Engineering, and Information Systems at the University. He has been awarded Emeritus Professor in the School of Computing, E...

10Feb

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50 Years of Social Science in Paisley

The University of the West of Scotland's (UWS) School of Media, Culture & Society has marked 50 years since the beginnings of social science education at the institution with a celebration on Thursday 9 February 2017. In session 1966-1967, the Department of Social Studies was created to organise the then Paisley College of Technology's teaching and research in the social sciences. The department was responsible for the BA Social Studies degree and would go on to develop programmes with specialisms in Social Work, Administration, Psychology, Public Policy, Social Theory and postgraduate programmes in Careers Guidance and Alcohol Studies. https://flic.kr/s/aHsm9QjNRP Image gallery of the event Former staff and students came together with current staff and students to celebrate ...

12Feb

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The Princess Royal visits UWS

The Princess Royal opens University of the West of Scotland’s (UWS) new flexible learning space, the ‘Atrium’ during a visit to its Paisley Campus. The new Atrium at the University’s Paisley Campus High Street entrance is a vibrant, technology-rich and flexible learning area. It features new social learning areas, providing interactive smartscreen technology; meeting spaces; events areas; study and meeting spaces; display zones; and a café open to staff, students and members of the community. https://www.instagram.com/p/BBsRQdcASyb/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link The visit to UWS saw Her Royal Highness undertake a tour of the Paisley Campus, giving an insight into the significant investment UWS has recently made at the Campus to guarantee that students are given a first-class...

22Nov

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Honorary Graduates

Ceremony Marks Formal Inauguration of the University of the West of Scotland

The University of the West of Scotland will honour leading individuals from Scotland and overseas at a Special Ceremony on Friday 7 December 2007. They will be first to receive awards from the newly renamed University. The event, which is part of ongoing celebrations to commemorate the University’s merger with Bell College on 1 August this year, will mark the formal inauguration of the University of the West of Scotland. The University of Paisley became known as University of the West of Scotland (UWS) on 30 November 2007, in a move which acknowledged the University’s recent development and its ambitious plans for the future. The University’s merger with Bell College earlier in the year created a four-campus, regional University with campuses in Ayr, Dumfries, Hamilton and Paisley. I...