Inside Harper Adams University, the very elusive and scandal prone UK uni

It specialises in farming and in making the front page

2 months ago

Claudia Cox | News

Harper Adams University appeared in all the UK papers again this month, after the rugby team was banned from playing because of sexual and physical abuse allegations. Where in the UK actually is Harper Adams University? Why are they all so obsessed with hunting? Why is Princess Anne’s name associated with it? We will explain all.

Who is Harper Adams and what is his University?

Harper Adams University was founded as Harper Adams Agricultural College in 1901. Initially, only six students signed up. The name comes from Thomas Harper Adams, a posh farmer who donated the land for the uni.

The Uni is pretty much in the middle of nowhere. It’s close to a village called Edgmond in the Shropshire countryside. It’s kind of near Newport.

It only gained University Status in 2012. It now has about 5,000 students.

Princess Anne is the chancellor. Seriously.

What weird things do students study there?

@jazveitch

It is what it issssss #harperadams #HAU

♬ Spongebob Tomfoolery – Dante9k Remix – David Snell

Harper Adams University specialises in farming and estate management. Students can take courses in agribusiness management, agriculture, rural property and real estate, and rural property management and food science. Big Tory vibes.

Despite specialising in agriculture, Harper Adams University only came fifth out of the nine unis on The Times’s 2024 subject league tables for agriculture and forestry.

Some of the students have very outdated viewpoints

On this Reddit thread, some Harper Adams Uni students revealed what the rest of the Uni was like.

One Reddit user described the other students as “the strangest, most bigoted group of people I have ever had the misfortune of meeting.” They wrote: “Honestly it is actually scary to be in the same uni as them.

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“A girl in my dorm was spiked, so was one of my friends, and I almost was too. They’re very backwards in terms of beliefs.”

Another added: “A microcosm of rural landowners children. I found their social attitudes quite concerning to be honest.”

Students criticised its toxic campus culture in 2021

I News investigated the campus culture at Harper Adams Uni in 2021, and not going to lie, the former students said some pretty harrowing things.

One anonymous grad said lots of people at the Uni were very into hunting. This makes sense, considering the Uni lets students bring shotguns with them and offers qualifications in deer stalking. When the grad said she thought it wasn’t very nice to kill critters for sport, she was bullied. She told i: “Because I had a different opinion, one threatened to put a dead badger in my room. Instead they put loads of gun pellets on my bed. They went into my room and did that.”

A student who was at that point in their second year at the uni told i News, “Going to Harper is like travelling back in time to the 1950s… full of racism, homophobia, sexism and transphobia.”

An aerial view of Harper Adams University
(Credit: Tklages via Creative Commons. Image was resized and brightened)

Other students told i News they’d seen students wear blackface and Arab male dress to parties at jokes. Someone’s flatmate kept a collection of dead foxes’ tails in their room.

Harper Adams University told i News: “In line with our data protection obligations, we will not be able to address specific claims with the media. We are, however, deeply concerned about the allegations made and have accordingly reminded our current community of staff and students of the correct channels through which to report any concerns or complaints directly.”

The accommodation is some of the most expensive in the UK

In 2021, Harper Adams Uni ranked 32nd on The Tab’s list of the most expensive student halls in the UK. The nicer en-suite rooms in catered accommodation cost about £190 a week. If you share a room with someone, you still have to pay £123 a week.

This picture is of the most luxurious accommodation which Harper Adams has to offer – a £190 a week en-suite room.

Is this is the picture they choose for the website, then what are the rest of the rooms like?
(Image via the Harper Adams University website)

This is one of the cheaper rooms without an en-suite.

Apparently burgundy is cool among wannabe land owners
(Image via the Harper Adams University website)

I guess if a uni is in the middle of nowhere, it doesn’t have to compete with private accommodation in the same way?

The rugby team was banned from competitions after abuse allegations

In September 2024, the rugby team at Harper Adams Uni was banned from playing in competitions after students claimed they’d been physically and sexually abused at the team’s initiations. The Uni began investigating the abuse allegations last year. According to claims in this report which was seen by The Telegraph, older students sexually assaulted some of the younger students with wine bottles on buses back from matches. One student was reportedly “stripped naked and abandoned in unknown locations” by the rugby players.

Another apparently had to go to hospital because the rugby team sprayed a livestock marker – the spray paint which farmers use to write numbers on sheep – in their eye.

Harper Adams University told The Tab: “The safety and wellbeing of all our students continues to be our unequivocal priority. We offer an enriching programme of activity during Welcome Week to help students familiarise themselves with their new surroundings and as part of this, every student will attend mandatory training on our Respect Policy to understand the code of conduct at our University.”

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Harper Adams University has been contacted for comment.