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, 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 is widely regarded as the best university in Europe, according to many rankings.

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. 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 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. (Full article...)

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Bodley's Librarian is the head of the Bodleian Library, the main library at the University of Oxford. Both are named after the founder, Sir Thomas Bodley (pictured). The university's library was established in about 1320 but had declined by the end of the 16th century, so in 1598 Bodley offered to restore it. The first librarian, Thomas James, was selected in 1599, and the Bodleian opened in 1602. Bodley wanted the librarian to be diligent, a linguist, unmarried, and not a parish priest, although James persuaded him to dispense with the last two requirements. In all, 25 people have served as Bodley's Librarian, some less well than others: John Price (who held the post from 1768 to 1813) was accused of "a regular and constant neglect of his duty". The first woman, and the first foreign librarian, to run the Bodleian was Sarah Thomas (2007–13). The current librarian is Richard Ovenden. (Full article...)

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Davis Tarwater (born 1984) is an American swimmer who won gold at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London for his contributions in the heats of the 4×200-meter freestyle relay. He grew up in Knoxville, Tennessee, and began competitive swimming at age seven. During high school, he set three state swimming records and was named High School Swimmer of the Year in 2002. He attended the University of Michigan, where he was a three-time NCAA national champion and won a Big Ten Medal of Honor for being the school's top student-athlete. Tarwater has represented the United States in the World Championships three times, winning a gold medal as part of the 4×200-meter freestyle relay team in 2009. He has won three individual and five relay national titles, and set an American record in the 200-meter butterfly in 2011. In 2004, 2008 and 2012, he narrowly missed making the Olympic team in the 200-meter butterfly. After failing to make the Olympic team in 2008, he retired from swimming and obtained a Master's degree in Latin American Studies at St Antony's College, Oxford, returning to swimming full-time in 2010. (Full article...)

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St Anne's College began life as "The Society of Oxford Home-Students" in 1879, which was renamed "The St Anne's Society" in 1942, finally taking its present name in 1952 when it received a charter. It was originally an institution for women only, but men have been admitted since 1979. It is one of the larger colleges in Oxford, with around 440 undergraduate and 190 postgraduate students, in a roughly equal mix of men and women. The college is to the north of the city centre between Woodstock Road and Banbury Road, on land donated by St John's. Hartland House, built in 1937 and designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, was the first purpose-built college building; other buildings include the Wolfson Building from the 1960s and the Ruth Deech building (2005), named after a former principal of the college. The current principal is the journalist and television executive Tim Gardam. Alumni include the novelists Penelope Lively and Helen Fielding, the politicians Edwina Currie and Danny Alexander, magazine editor Tina Brown, and Cicely Saunders, pioneer of the hospice movement. The novelist Iris Murdoch was a fellow of the college. (Full article...)

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Credit: Ukexpat

Wadham College was founded in 1610 by Dorothy Wadham using money bequeathed for this purpose by her husband Nicholas Wadham. The main quadrangle, seen here, was built 1610–13 to designs by William Arnold.

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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 reredos (pictured) installed in 1864 in the chapel of Jesus College, Oxford has been described variously as "handsome", "somewhat tawdry" and looking like "corned beef"?
... that the first journal articles written by the entomologist Robert Perkins were published when he was a classics student at Oxford, with no scientific education?
... that Vernon Erskine-Crum was appointed General Officer Commanding of the British Army in Northern Ireland in 1971, during the Troubles, but was relieved within a month after suffering a heart attack?
... that Kingsley Fairbridge established the first child migration scheme for impoverished British children which over 68 years housed and educated 1,195 boys and girls at his farm school in Pinjarra, Western Australia?
... that David Powel compiled and published the first printed history of Wales in 1584, which popularized the legend that Prince Madoc discovered America in about 1170?

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I did not go back to Oxford after the war. It was not just that I was still a cripple. There were plenty of cripples. But I could not face it. To me it was a city of ghosts. Of our eight scholars and exhibitioners who came up in 1912, Humphrey Sumner and I alone were alive. It was too much.

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— Harold Macmillan, Prime Minister 1957–63 and Chancellor of the University 1960–86

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