Jesse first campaigned to establish a university in Herefordshire in 2007, and is one of the founders of the county's pioneering new university project, the New Model Institute for Technology and Engineering, or NMITE. Jesse has helped raise over £25 million to get NMITE launched.
NMITE has three objectives:
-- to give fantastic education opportunities to young people in Herefordshire and the Marches, and beyond;
-- to give a massive boost to the economic base of the county, supporting local businesses, building skills and attracting in new talent; and
-- to create a new kind of small, high-quality, low-cost teaching university that can be adopted to boost other parts of the UK in turn.
NMITE is already having a transformational effect. Its corporate partners now include BAE Systems, JCB, National Grid, the Environment Agency.
NMITE students are already getting excellent, well-paid jobs in engineering, whether after the 2 year, 2 month accelerated BEng course, or the 3 year accelerated MEng course. And it only opened its doors in September 2021!
We are now in the last month before NMITE opens its doors for the first time on September 6th. It is incredibly exciting to think that an institution is about to be born that--with our continued collective love and support--could lift the economy and well-being of Herefordshire and the Marches forever.
In February 1825 the poet Thomas Campbell wrote a remarkable open letter, in which he drew attention to the fact that there was no higher education of any description in London, and he called for the creation of a London University.
Local MP Jesse Norman joined a large gathering of local people last Friday to celebrate the move of NMITE, the New Model in Technology and Engineering, Herefordshire's new university, into its first campus buildings at Blackfriars in the city.
