Portal:University of Oxford

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The University of Oxford is a collegiate research university in Oxford, United Kingdom. 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 43 colleges, consisting of 36 semi-autonomous constituent colleges, four permanent private halls and three societies (colleges that are departments of the university, without their own royal charter), 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. The university does not have a main campus, but 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 Principal and Fellows of Jesus College form the college's governing body. The Principal must be "a person distinguished for literary or scientific attainments, or for services in the work of education in the University or elsewhere", and has "pre-eminence and authority over all members of the College and all persons connected therewith". The Principal's Lodgings (entrance pictured) are in the first quadrangle of the college. The current Principal, Lord Krebs, was appointed in 2005 and is the 30th holder of the office. Professorial Fellows are those Professors and Readers of the university who are allocated to the college. One of these professorships is the Jesus Professor of Celtic, which is the only chair in Celtic studies at an English university. Official Fellows are those who hold tutorial or administrative appointments in the college. Past Official Fellows include the composer and musicologist John Caldwell, the historians Sir Goronwy Edwards and Niall Ferguson, the philosopher Galen Strawson and the political philosopher John Gray. There are also Senior and Junior Research Fellows. Principals and Fellows who retire can be elected as Emeritus Fellows. The college can also elect "distinguished persons" to Honorary Fellowships. (Full article...)

Selected biography

Ed Miliband (born 1969) is a British Labour Party politician, currently the Leader of the Labour Party and Leader of the Opposition. He has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for the South Yorkshire constituency of Doncaster North since 2005 and served in the Cabinet from 2007 to 2010 under Prime Minister Gordon Brown. Born in London, Miliband graduated from Corpus Christi College, Oxford and the London School of Economics, becoming first a television journalist and then a Labour Party researcher, before rising to become one of Chancellor Gordon Brown's confidants and Chairman of HM Treasury's Council of Economic Advisers. As Prime Minister, Gordon Brown appointed Miliband as Minister for the Cabinet Office and Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster on 28 June 2007. He was subsequently promoted to the new post of Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, a position he held from 3 October 2008 to 11 May 2010. On 25 September 2010, he was elected Leader of the Labour Party. (more...)

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

Unlike most other colleges at Oxford, the dining hall at Wolfson College does not have a separate High Table for the college's Fellows. Instead, they dine alongside the students, who are all carrying out postgraduate work.

Did you know

Articles from Wikipedia's "Did You Know" archives about the university and people associated with it:

... that the members of the Council of Keble College, Oxford (council member Henry Herbert, 4th Earl of Carnarvon pictured) had power to move the college away from Oxford?
... that British lawyer and activist of the Indian independence movement Eardley Norton was instrumental in establishing an UK-chapter of the Indian National Congress?
... that in 1996, the University of Glasgow renamed its Chair of Drama after former professor James Fullarton Arnott?
... that while Nicholas Fitzherbert was abroad, two priests were arrested in his father's house and hanged, drawn and quartered?
... that the equipment designed by the physicist Gwyn Jones to liquefy small amounts of helium for work at temperatures near absolute zero was made from parts of a motorcycle engine?

Selected quotation

Selected panorama

A panoramic view of the First Quadrangle of Jesus College. The hall is in the centre (at the west of the quadrangle), on the right-hand of the passageway leading through into the Second Quadrangle, and lit by three large windows. The Principal's Lodgings are on the north side of the quadrangle, between the hall and the chapel.

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