Portal:University of Oxford

Portal topics: Activities; Culture; Geography; Health; History; Mathematics; Nature; People; Philosophy; Religion; Society; Technology; Random portal

The University of Oxford portal

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...)

Refresh with new selections below (purge)

edit

Selected article

The university's position of Savilian Professor of Astronomy was established in 1619. It was founded (at the same time as the Savilian Professorship of Geometry) by Sir Henry Savile, a mathematician and classical scholar who was Warden of Merton College and Provost of Eton College. He appointed John Bainbridge as the first professor. There have been 21 astronomy professors in all; Steven Balbus, the current professor, was appointed in September 2012. Past professors include Christopher Wren (1661–73) (pictured), architect of St Paul's Cathedral in London and the Sheldonian Theatre in Oxford; he held the professorship at the time of his commission to rebuild the cathedral after it was destroyed by the Great Fire of London in 1666. Three professors have been awarded the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society: Charles Pritchard (1870–93), Harry Plaskett (1932–60) and Joseph Silk (1999–2012). The two Savilian chairs have been linked with professorial fellowships at New College since the late 19th century. The astronomy professor is a member of the Sub-Department of Astrophysics at Oxford. (Full article...)

More articles

edit

Selected biography

Tom Hooper (born 1972) is a British film and television director. He began making short films at the age of 13, and had his first professional short, Painted Faces, broadcast on Channel 4 in 1992. He then read English at University College, Oxford, and joined the Oxford University Dramatic Society, where he directed Kate Beckinsale and Emily Mortimer. After graduating, he directed episodes of programmes including EastEnders and Cold Feet. Hooper directed the costume dramas Love in a Cold Climate (2001) and Daniel Deronda (2002), and the 2003 revival of the Prime Suspect series. Hooper made his feature film debut with Red Dust (2004) before directing the historical drama Elizabeth I (2005). He also worked on Longford (2006) and John Adams (2008). His subsequent features include The Damned United (2009), The King's Speech (2010), and Les Misérables (2012). Hooper won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Directing for Elizabeth I. The King's Speech won multiple awards, including Best Director wins for Hooper from the Directors Guild of America and the Academy Awards. (Full article...)

More biographies

edit

Selected college or hall

All Souls College was founded by Henry Chichele (the Archbishop of Canterbury) and King Henry VI in 1438. There are no undergraduates at the college, although there have been at some stages of its history, but the Codrington Library is open to some students from the wider university. All of the college's members are Fellows, including many distinguished scholars. Several of the university's professorships are attached to the college, such as the Chichele Professorships and the Marshal Foch Professor of French Literature. Many academics from overseas spend time at the college as Visiting Fellows. All Souls is centrally located on the High Street, near the Bodleian Library and the University Church of St Mary the Virgin. The chapel contains a complete set of misericords from the 15th century. The architect Nicholas Hawksmoor remodelled much of All Souls in the 18th century. The customs of the college include a feast every one hundred years (last held in 2001) at which the Fellows parade around All Souls, carrying flaming torches and singing the "Mallard Song", to commemorate an incident when a mallard is said to have flown out of the foundations as it was being built. (Full article...)

More colleges and halls

edit

Selected image

Credit: Velvet

The New Building of Magdalen College was meant to form part of a quadrangle, but only one side was completed. Edward Gibbon and C. S. Lewis had their rooms here.

More pictures

edit

Did you know

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

... that before Charles Aitken installed electric lighting, the Tate Gallery (pictured) was cleared of visitors on dark and foggy days?
... that in 1964 J. N. L. Baker, Bursar of Jesus College, became the first member of the university to hold the post of Lord Mayor of Oxford?
... that although George Bernard Shaw called fellow Edwardian playwright St John Hankin's death "a public calamity," his work was largely neglected until the 1990s?
... that "many-sided" priest Father Patrick McLaughlin promoted links between the church and the world of literature by staging plays, and by commissioning lectures from T. S. Eliot and Dorothy L. Sayers?
... that in 1612 Jewish teacher Jacob Barnet was arrested and imprisoned by officials of the university for changing his mind about being baptized?

More facts

edit

Selected quotation

“

The Griffine, Bustard, Turkey & Capon
Lett other hungry Mortalls gape on
And on theire bones with Stomacks fall hard,
But lett All Souls' Men have ye Mallard.
CHORUS:
Hough the bloud of King Edward,
By ye bloud of King Edward,
It was a swapping, swapping mallard!

”

— Mallard Song, sung once a century at All Souls College

More quotations

edit