LIVERPOOL Hope University College is probably unique among higher education establishments in publicly acknowledging and celebrating its foundation in its structures. The Foundation Deanery was established in 1995 as one of the four ‘pillars’ of the college, and since then it has been integral to the workings of academic and communal life. By foundation we mean, in this context, the original church college foundations of S. Katharine's (Warrington Training College), Notre Dame at Mount Pleasant, and Christ's, which together evolved into Liverpool Institute of Higher Education and later Liverpool Hope University College. The story of some of these exciting developments has been summarised in Chapter 1, and is more fully written elsewhere. It is significant that, when in 1995 the new name of Liverpool Hope University College was agreed by the Governing Council, it was felt desirable to set up a Foundation Deanery which unashamedly proclaimed our indebtedness to our foundations. The constituent colleges all had title deeds, and the intentions of the original founders undoubtedly reflected the various interpretations of principle and expediency of their own times, whether the Victorian era or the second Elizabethan one. The names of the three colleges – and their mottoes, their governing bodies, their intakes and curricula, their reputation in local and national communities – all proclaimed that they were church colleges, or (depending on the time) more specifically Anglican or Catholic training colleges, or colleges of education. Everything that they did and were seen to do was both implicitly and explicitly foundation-driven.

The term foundation can have several meanings. In schools, ‘foundation governors’ represent the founding body, often a church. In higher education today, ‘foundation degrees’ are initial, two-year degrees, closely related to the world of work. At Hope, the ‘foundations’ are clearly those of our Christian heritage as exemplified by the traditions of the founding colleges and typified by our mission statement. Our mission derives from our Anglican, Catholic and (more recently) ecumenical traditions, and draws attention to the fact that we are fully committed to ‘educating the whole person in mind, body and spirit’. The Foundation Deanery exists, then, to promote all activity immediately related to the church foundation and the mission.