Main page | Indices | Projects |
The University of Oxford portal
The University of Oxford (legally The Chancellor, Masters and Scholars of the University of Oxford, also known as Oxford University) is a collegiate research university in Oxford, Oxfordshire, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world, the world's second-oldest university in continuous operation and one of the most prestigious academic institutions in the world. 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 is made up of 39 semi-autonomous constituent colleges, six permanent private halls, and a range of academic departments which are organised into four divisions. All the colleges are self-governing institutions within the university, each controlling its own membership and with its own internal structure and activities. All students are members of a college. It does not have a main campus, and its buildings and facilities are scattered throughout the city centre. Undergraduate teaching at Oxford is organised around weekly small-group tutorials at the colleges and halls – a feature unique to the Oxbridge system. These are supported by classes, lectures, seminars, laboratory work and occasionally further tutorials provided by the central university faculties and departments. Postgraduate teaching is provided predominantly centrally.
Oxford operates the world's oldest university museum, as well as the largest university press in the world and the largest academic library system nationwide. In the fiscal year ending 31 July 2019, the university had a total income of £2.45 billion, of which £624.8 million was from research grants and contracts.
Oxford has educated a wide range of notable alumni, including 28 prime ministers of the United Kingdom and many heads of state and government around the world. As of October 2020, 72 Nobel Prize laureates, 3 Fields Medalists, and 6 Turing Award winners have studied, 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 Neda Agha-Soltan Graduate Scholarship is a scholarship for post-graduate philosophy students at The Queen's College (pictured), with preference given to students of Iranian citizenship or heritage. It was established in 2009 following the death of Neda Agha-Soltan, an Iranian philosophy student, in the street protests that followed the disputed Iranian presidential election. The college received offers from two anonymous donors to establish a scholarship, followed by many individual donations from members of the public and former students of Queen's. The Iranian embassy in London told the college that the university was involved in a "politically motivated campaign... in sharp contract with its academic objectives". In response, The Times praised the scholarship, saying that the establishment of the scholarship was indeed politically motivated, "and admirably so", given the regime's reaction to her death and continuing problems in Iran. The college has denied that it took a political decision in establishing the scholarship, arguing that refusing the donations would itself have been a political act. Anonymous British diplomatic sources were reported as saying that the scholarship put "another nail into the coffin" of relations between Britain and Iran. (Full article...)
Selected biography
Reginald Heber (1783–1826) was an English clergyman, man of letters and hymn-writer who, after working as a country parson for 16 years, served as the Anglican Bishop of Calcutta until his sudden death at the age of 42. The son of a wealthy landowner and clergyman, Heber gained an early reputation at Brasenose College, Oxford, as a poet. He was ordained in 1807 and took over his father's old parish of Hodnet in Shropshire, before taking office as Bishop of Calcutta in October 1823. During his short episcopate he travelled widely in the areas of India within his diocese, and worked hard to improve the spiritual and general living conditions of his flock. However, a combination of arduous duties, hostile climate and indifferent health brought about his collapse and death after less than three years in India. Monuments were erected to his memory in India and in St Paul's Cathedral, London. A collection of his hymns was published shortly after his death; one of these, "Holy, Holy, Holy", has survived into the 21st century as a popular and widely known hymn for Trinity Sunday. Later commentators have asserted that although Heber's example and writings inspired others to devote their lives to the mission fields, the paternalism and imperial assumptions expressed in his hymns are outdated and generally unacceptable in the modern world. (Full article...)
Selected college or hall
St Hugh's College was established in 1886 as a college for women by Elizabeth Wordsworth, great-niece of the poet William Wordsworth. She used money inherited from her father, who had been Bishop of Lincoln, and named the college after St Hugh, a 13th-century Bishop of Lincoln. Men were first admitted in 1986. It is based in north Oxford, between Banbury Road on the east and Woodstock Road on the west, and has large grounds. There are about 370 undergraduates and 225 postgraduates; the college is able to house all undergraduates and many of the postgraduates in buildings on the main college site for the duration of their studies. Two large lawns are used by students all year round, and the gardens are also the venue for croquet and tennis. St Hugh's is the only Oxford college with its own basketball courts. Alumni include the politicians Barbara Castle and Theresa May, the Burmese activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, the suffragette Emily Davison and the child-prodigy mathematician Ruth Lawrence. The Principal, appointed in 2007, is the Scottish lawyer Elish Angiolini. (Full article...)
Selected image
Did you know...
Articles from Wikipedia's "Did You Know" archives about the university and people associated with it:
- ... that it was the British geologist Joseph Prestwich (bust pictured) who confirmed the findings of Boucher de Perthes?
- ... that a Regius Professor of Civil Law was elected to parliament, gaoled, exiled, re-elected, kidnapped, put in the Tower, tortured, hanged, drawn and quartered, then beatified?
- ... that Mike Woodin was the Principal Speaker of the Green Party of England and Wales for six years and a city councillor for Oxford for 10 years?
- ... that A.W. Lawrence, the former Professor of Classical Archaeology at Cambridge University, was the brother of "Lawrence of Arabia"?
- ... that the winners of the university's Gaisford Prize for Greek Verse include the fictional Duke of Dorset in Max Beerbohm's 1911 novel Zuleika Dobson?
Selected quotation
Selected panorama
On this day...
Events for 10 February relating to the university, its colleges, academics and alumni. College affiliations are marked in brackets.
Births
|
Deaths
|