rates” and recommending that future plans include “as many aspects of its current undergraduate provision via UTC as possible (community-mindedness, well-cared for student body, a fine library and library culture, and a real sense of the scholastics in ministry).” In 2018 the Professor of Church History was controversially suspended pursuant to his participation in a radio interview. A subsequent QAA report that was described by journalists as “highly critical” expressed concerns regarding “weakness in the college’s maintenance of academic standards”, with “the potential to put academic standards and quality at risk”. In 2019, Queen’s University Belfast Senate approved a recommendation from the Academic Council regarding the Institute of Theology, with the result that the University would no longer offer Theology degrees, ending its relationship with all four Theological Colleges in the Institute of Theology, including Union Theological College. As tuition fees for 2018/19 were set at £4,160 annually, the projected annual financial shortfall to the college was estimated to be as high as £700,000 on the assumption that over 150 undergraduate students might normally be admitted in a given year. While student numbers enrolled in the colleges of the Institute of Theology had declined significantly in latter years, numbers in the College had seen a smaller decrease, from 264 in 2012 to 233 in 2017. It was subsequently argued that the immediately foreseeable shortfall in the absence of any new income streams would be £250,000 by 2022. Until 2021, the college had provided teaching and assessment for undergraduate and postgraduate awards offered through the Institute of Theology at Queen’s University Belfast. Whereas a wider range of modules was offered to students in the past, previously including a “Graduate Certificate in Youth Ministry programme”, the range of available modules had latterly been restricted “for reasons of financial viability”. Diversity of staff One of the concerns raised by the Strategic Review carried out by Queen’s University Belfast in 2016 was a lack of diversity in the faculty. It was noted that “there are now no full-time female members of staff teaching on the undergraduate programmes” and that the full-time teaching staff “are all male and from a Presbyterian background”, with a requirement that they “be committed to working within the Christian ethos and doctrinal framework of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland”. It was also noted that any Professorial appointment must be an ordained minister in the Church, or eligible to become such.