Portal:University of Oxford

The University of Oxford portal

The University of Oxford is a collegiate research university in Oxford, England - colloquially known just as Oxford. 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 erupted between students and Oxford townsfolk, some Oxford academics fled northeast to Cambridge, where they established the University of Cambridge in 1209. The two English ancient universities share many common features and are jointly referred to as Oxbridge.

The University of Oxford comprises 43 constituent colleges, consisting of 36 semi-autonomous 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. Oxford does not have a main campus, but its buildings and facilities are scattered throughout the city centre and around the town. Undergraduate teaching at the university 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 2024, the university had a total consolidated income of £3.05 billion, of which £778.9 million was from research grants and contracts.

Oxford has educated a wide range of notable alumni, including 31 prime ministers of the United Kingdom and many heads of state and government around the world. As of October 2022,^[update] 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 home to numerous scholarships, including the Rhodes Scholarship, one of the oldest international graduate scholarship programmes in the world. (Full article...)

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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...)

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Richard Cordray (born 1959) is an American lawyer and Democratic Party politician who has served since 2012 as the first Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. He was a Marshall Scholar at Brasenose College from 1981 to 1983, and won his "Blue" in basketball. He later became Editor-in-Chief of the University of Chicago Law Review, and a law clerk for the U. S. Supreme Court. He was a member of the Ohio House of Representatives (1991–93) before he was appointed by the office of the Ohio Attorney General as the first Ohio State Solicitor. In 1994, Cordray left his appointed position to pursue private law practice before becoming Franklin County Treasurer in 2002, then Ohio State Treasurer in 2006. In November 2008, he was elected to serve as Ohio Attorney General starting January 8, 2009, for the remainder of the unexpired term ending January 2011. (Full article...)

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Lady Margaret Hall (generally known as "LMH") was established in 1878 and was the first college for women at the university. It began to admit men as students in 1979, and was the first of the women's colleges (along with St Anne's) to become a mixed-sex institution. The college, set in spacious grounds in Norham Gardens to the north of the city centre, is named after Lady Margaret Beaufort, mother of King Henry VII and a renowned patron of learning. Its first principal was Elizabeth Wordsworth, the great-niece of the poet William Wordsworth. Giles Gilbert Scott, famous for designing Liverpool Cathedral and the K2 red telephone box, designed the college's Byzantine-style chapel. There are approximately 600 undergraduate and postgraduate students; former students include the former prime minister of Pakistan Benazir Bhutto, the writer Antonia Fraser, the former director general of MI5 Eliza Manningham-Buller, and the actor Samuel West. LMH's motto is "Souvent me Souviens", an Old French phrase meaning "I remember often". (Full article...)

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Credit: Pruneau

The Chancellor of the University of Oxford, Lord Patten of Barnes, leaves the Sheldonian Theatre after the 2009 Encaenia. He was elected in 2003, and is the latest holder of an office that dates back to the early 13th century.

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Did you know

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

... that the Indian Institute (pictured) in central Oxford was founded by Sir Monier Monier-Williams in 1883 to provide training for the Indian Civil Service?
... that sports car racer, yachtsman and rower Robert Hichens was also the most highly decorated officer of the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve during the Second World War?
... that Daniel Ernst Jablonski in the 1690s tried to bring about a union between Lutheran and Calvinist Protestants?
... that the English historian Sir Raymond Carr was knighted for services to History in the New Year Honours List, 1987?
... that John Percival, when headmaster of Rugby School, gained the nickname "Percival of the knees" because he was concerned about "impurity" and insisted that boys secure their football shorts below the knee with elastic?

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After the first Degree-giving in the Sheldonian Theatre, when honorary M.A. degrees were granted to the five Principals of the women's foundations, Oxford became suddenly filled with unfamiliar feminine figures cycling up and down the High Street in scholars' and commoners' gowns.

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— Vera Brittain

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Selected panorama

Credit: David Iliff

Oxford looking south from the University Church of St Mary the Virgin in the centre of the city – the spire on the left is Christ Church Cathedral and Tom Tower is on the right.

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