How students dressed. The Glasgow student has changed a great deal since 1870, particularly since the expansion of higher education and the introduction of student maintenance grants in the 1960s. Jeans and T-shirts became ubiquitous. The two student Unions, clubs which have played such an important part in student life, the Glasgow University Union for men founded in 1885 and the Queen Margaret Union for women founded in 1906, voted in 1980 to became 'mixed'. Teaching has become increasing informal.
Few lecturers wear gowns and they are likely to know their Honours students by their first names.
Even in its unfinished state the new university building dominating Gilmorehill was magnificent, the largest public building to be constructed in Britain since the Houses of Parliament were completed in 1860. Designed by the English architect Gilbert Scott to the annoyance of Glasgow architects, it was arranged around two quadrangles like the Old College. Access to the lecture theatres in the east quadrangle was by turret staircases that bore a close resemblance to those in the High Street. Scott had indeed been so impressed by the simplicity of the old building that he alone at the farewell dinner called for its preservation, at least in part. The architectural style of the new building, unusually for Glasgow with its classical tradition, was emphatically Gothic but the building technique was entirely modern, with extensive use of concrete and of cast and wrought iron columns and beams, and cast-iron windows.