THE church foundation of Christ's College first attracted me to what is now Liverpool Hope University College. From its inception there was an expectation that all staff should contribute to a collegiate course in general divinity. As a young lecturer in science education I made my contribution as best I could. Reflecting back to that period in the late 1960s and early 1970s there was a sense that Christ's College was a self-conscious attempt by the hierarchy to establish a Catholic university in the spirit of John Henry Newman's The Idea of a University. The publication of the James Report in the early 1970s heralded a period of considerable uncertainty in teacher education and precipitated a merger between Christ's College and Notre Dame College, to be followed shortly afterwards by a loose federation with S. Katharine's College to form the Liverpool Institute of Higher Education (LIHE). The changes were about survival and continuity, even if in a modified form. At this time, my own career in higher education was moving increasingly into administration as I began to work with other colleagues on student admissions.

Soon after LIHE became Liverpool Hope, new opportunities opened up and my personal professional development included a study visit to several universities in the USA. Recently, I have been involved in representing Hope to external bodies, especially the Higher Education Funding Council for England and the Teacher Training Agency, at a time when we have not been afraid to challenge the quangos. This period, which could be regarded as running from the Dearing Committee's inquiry through to the publication of the 2003 White Paper, has been one in which widening participation has been at the forefront of government thinking. This political context, my work at Hope, my doctoral studies and my research collaboration with Professor Mantz Yorke at Liverpool John Moores University have converged to shape the latest phase of my career: my commitment to higher education through research. Whether or not this is a typical sequence of interests, it is all consistent with the foundation and mission of Hope's original three colleges. In this chapter I shall explore some of the thinking behind these doings and relate it to the current government concerns about widening participation. The story of S. Katharine's College is well documented through the scholarship of Dr Janet Hollinshead.