Portal:University of Oxford
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The University of Oxford is a collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the world's second-oldest university in continuous operation. It grew rapidly from 1167, when Henry II banned English students from attending the University of Paris. After disputes between students and Oxford townsfolk in 1209, some academics fled north-east to Cambridge where they established what became the University of Cambridge. The two English ancient universities share many common features and are jointly referred to as Oxbridge.
The University of Oxford is made up of thirty-nine semi-autonomous constituent colleges, four permanent private halls, and a range of academic departments which are organised into four divisions. Each college is a self-governing institution within the university, controlling its own membership and having its own internal structure and activities. All students are members of a college. Traditionally, each of Oxford's constituent colleges is associated with another of the colleges in the University of Cambridge, with the only exceptional addition of Trinity College, Dublin. It does not have a main campus, and its buildings and facilities are scattered throughout the city centre. Undergraduate teaching at Oxford consists of lectures, small-group tutorials at the colleges and halls, seminars, laboratory work and occasionally further tutorials provided by the central university faculties and departments. Postgraduate teaching is provided in a predominantly centralised fashion.
Oxford operates the Ashmolean Museum, the world's oldest university museum; Oxford University Press, the largest university press in the world; and the largest academic library system nationwide. In the fiscal year ending 31 July 2023, the university had a total consolidated income of £2.92 billion, of which £789 million was from research grants and contracts.
Oxford has educated a wide range of notable alumni, including 30 prime ministers of the United Kingdom and many heads of state and government around the world. 73 Nobel Prize laureates, 4 Fields Medalists, and 6 Turing Award winners have matriculated, worked, or held visiting fellowships at the University of Oxford, while its alumni have won 160 Olympic medals. Oxford is the home of numerous scholarships, including the Rhodes Scholarship, one of the oldest international graduate scholarship programmes. (Full article...)
Selected article
The history of Brasenose College starts in 1509 when the college was founded on the site of Brasenose Hall by Richard Sutton and Bishop William Smyth. Its name is believed to derive from a bronze knocker (replica pictured) on the hall's door. The library and chapel were completed in the mid-seventeenth century, despite continuing financial problems. Under William Cleaver (Principal 1785–1809), the college began to be populated by gentlemen, its income doubled and academic success was considerable. New Quad was built between 1886 and 1911. Under Edward Hartopp Cradock Brasenose's academic record waned but it excelled at cricket and rowing; the reverse occurred under Charles Buller Heberden. Brasenose lost 115 men in the First World War and Lord Curzon's post-War reforms were successfully instituted. Sporting achievements again came at the cost of falling academic standards and finances. The 1970s saw the admission of women beginning in 1974, more post-graduate attendees and fewer domestic staff. Law and Philosophy, Politics and Economics were strong subjects under Principals Barry Nicholas and Herbert Hart) and the fellowship of Vernon Bogdanor. (Full article...)
Selected biography
V. Gordon Childe (1892–1957) was an Australian archaeologist and philologist who specialized in the study of European prehistory. He wrote many influential books and was an early proponent of culture-historical archaeology and Marxist archaeology. He studied Classics at the University of Sydney and Classical archaeology at The Queen's College, Oxford, where his involvement with the socialist movement prevented him from working in academia on his return to Australia. Emigrating to London in 1921, he continued his research into European prehistory, introducing the concept of an archaeological culture into British archaeology. He was the Abercromby Professor of Archaeology at the University of Edinburgh (1927–46), overseeing excavation of the unique Neolithic settlement of Skara Brae and the chambered tomb of Maeshowe, both in Orkney, Scotland. After serving as director of the Institute of Archaeology (1947–57), he returned to Australia and committed suicide. He is widely regarded as one of the most important archaeologists and prehistorians of his generation, and was renowned for his emphasis on revolutionary technological and economic developments in human society. (Full article...)
Selected college or hall
Blackfriars Hall, established in 1994, is one of the Permanent Private Halls (PPHs) of the University of Oxford. Unlike the colleges, which are run by their Fellows, PPHs are run by an outside institution – in the case of Blackfriars Hall, the English Province of the Dominican friars. The hall is on the same site as the Priory of the Holy Spirit (the friars' religious house) and Blackfriars Studium, the Province's centre of theological studies. Dominicans arrived in Oxford in 1221 at the instruction of Saint Dominic himself, little more than a week after the friar's death. Like all the monastic houses in Oxford, Blackfriars came into conflict with the university authorities, and all of them were suppressed during the Reformation. Blackfriars was refounded in 1921 on St Giles', within 600 metres of the original site. One of the smaller academic communities in Oxford, it admits men and women (over the age of 21) of any faith for undergraduate degrees in theology, philosophy, and PPE and for postgraduate degrees. Former students include Anthony Fisher OP, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Sydney; Malcolm McMahon OP, Archbishop of Liverpool; and the American journalist Delia Gallagher. (Full article...)
Selected image
Credit: David Iliff |
Did you know
Articles from Wikipedia's "Did You Know" archives about the university and people associated with it:
- ... that economist Barbara Ward (pictured), an early advocate of sustainable development, was the first woman ever to address a synod of Roman Catholic bishops?
- ... that Sir Albert Napier was described as the "midwife to civil legal aid"?
- ... that academic Anastasios Christodoulou was named 'Anastasios' ('Resurrection') by his parents as he was born on Easter Day?
- ... that cricket writer Gerald Howat won the Cricket Society's Golden Jubilee award for his biography of Learie Constantine?
- ... that William Wroth founded the first independent chapel in Wales in 1639, after he refused to obey King Charles' instruction to allow sports to be played on Sundays?
Selected quotation
— Benjamin Jowett, Master of Balliol College 1870–93 |
Selected panorama
On this day
Events for 29 April relating to the university, its colleges, academics and alumni. College affiliations are marked in brackets.
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