Kim Shapiro - Strengths

The main strengths in the School of Psychology are that we have 131 outstanding staff that are spread over three different buildings, plus our imaging centers I mentioned previously. We have state-of-the-art research labs in each one of those buildings. We also have very modern teaching space and student computer labs so that students all have access to do their assignments, do their email and any other functions for which they may need a computer. We have a series of staff that manage an undergraduate center, and the staff are available during the entire week to answer student questions, take assignments, deal with any problems that our undergraduates may be having. We also have excellent IT facilities, as provided by the university, which is important these days to students' educational experience. I think we also have a very well-run university, a top-ranked university in the country in which the school exists and is very supportive of our school. Birmingham is a wonderful city in which to live, and our students have a great experience here.

Perhaps the most important single fact about the School of Psychology is that in 2008 we were ranked the third best school of psychology in the United Kingdom, in the research assessment exercise.

We have an outstanding group of staff within the School of Psychology as one would expect of such a top-ranked school such as ours. These people are experts in the areas in which they teach and research. They're equally devoted to the teaching of their disciplines as they are to the research of that discipline and what students would expect at a top institution and school such as this is that they're actually learning from the people who've written the textbooks themselves. These people are the experts that are collecting the information that's going into the books. What they're teaching to the students is essentially what's coming out of their laboratories, hot off the press.