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, 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 is made up of 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 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 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 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 1874 FA Cup Final was played between Oxford University A.F.C. and Royal Engineers A.F.C. on 14 March 1874 at Kennington Oval in London. It was the third final of the world's oldest football competition, the Football Association Challenge Cup (known in the modern era as the FA Cup). Both teams had previously reached the final but been defeated by Wanderers F.C. The Engineers had reached the final with comparative ease, scoring sixteen goals and conceding only one in the four previous rounds. Oxford's opponents in the earlier rounds had included two-time former winners Wanderers. The final was decided by two goals from Oxford in the first twenty minutes. Their opponents had spent two weeks training for the match, an innovative concept at the time, but were repeatedly thwarted by Charles Nepean, the Oxford goalkeeper. The Engineers were said to have missed their best back, Lieut. Alfred Goodwyn, who had been posted overseas. The 1874 final was the only occasion upon which Oxford University won the FA Cup; the team made further appearances in the 1877 and 1880 finals, but lost on both occasions. (Full article...)

More articles

edit

Selected biography

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) was an Irish writer, poet, and prominent aesthete, remembered for his many epigrams, his plays, and the tragedy of his imprisonment and early death. Wilde proved himself to be an outstanding classicist, first at Trinity College, Dublin, then at Magdalen College, Oxford. After university, Wilde moved to London and into fashionable circles. Known for his biting wit, flamboyant dress, and glittering conversation, Wilde was one of the best known personalities of his day. He produced a series of dialogues and essays that developed his ideas about the supremacy of art. However, it was his only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray that brought him more lasting recognition. Wilde produced four society comedies in the early 1890s, culminating in his masterpiece The Importance of Being Earnest in 1895. At the height of his fame, Wilde sued his lover's father for libel. After a series of trials, Wilde was convicted of gross indecency with other men and imprisoned for two years. In prison he wrote De Profundis, a long letter which discusses his spiritual journey through his trials. Upon his release he left immediately for France. There he wrote his last work, The Ballad of Reading Gaol, a long poem commemorating the harsh rhythms of prison life. He died destitute in Paris at the age of forty-six. (more...)

More biographies

edit

Selected college or hall

St Antony's College is a college for graduate students and researchers only, specialising in international relations, economics, politics, and modern international history. The college was established in 1950 by gift of Antonin Besse, a merchant of French descent; students were first admitted in 1953 (women in 1962) and it became a full member of the university in 1963. It is named after St Antony of Egypt. The college buildings, a former Anglican convent built in the 1960s, are to the north of the city, with Woodstock Road to the west, Bevington Road to the south and Winchester Road to the east. Libraries on the site include the Middle East Centre Library, the Latin American Centre Library, the Bodleian Japanese Library and the Russian and Eurasian Studies Centre Library. The Warden is the Canadian historian Margaret MacMillan; former Wardens have included the social theorist Ralf Dahrendorf and the diplomat Marrack Goulding. There are about 400 students; alumni include the historians C.A. Bayly and Richard J. Evans, the journalists Anne Applebaum and Thomas Friedman, the American Senator Gary Hart and the BBC's diplomatic correspondent Bridget Kendall. (Full article...)

More colleges and halls

edit

Selected image

Credit: Sir John Everett Millais (1829–1896)

John Henry Newman, a student at Trinity College and then a fellow of Oriel College, was a leading religious figure in the 19th century; he was beatified by Pope Benedict XVI in 2010.

More pictures

edit

Did you know

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

... that Lord Nuffield rejected the first designs for the buildings of Nuffield College, Oxford (tower as later designed pictured) by the architect Austen Harrison, saying that they were "un-English"?
... that George West, the Lord Bishop of Rangoon 1935–54, became for two months the Bishop of Atlanta, Georgia, while the Japanese occupied Burma?
... that the financial endowment by Edmund Meyrick, a Welsh cleric and philanthropist who died in 1713, is still awarding scholarships to students at Jesus College three centuries later?
... that William Hayter was secretary of the UK delegation to the Potsdam Conference, later Ambassador to the Soviet Union, and then Warden of New College?
... that Lancelot Blackburne was thought to have spent time in the Caribbean as a buccaneer as a young man, and lived openly with his mistress whilst Archbishop of York?

More facts

edit

Selected quotation

“

Nowhere else, nowhere but in Oxford, do [books] seem to be so thoroughly natives of the place, so natural and withal so entrancing; from the moment when one first visits Blackwell, which is the initiation of the neophyte, to that when first the book-boy at the Bodleian staggers to one's desk with his piled folios.

”

— Vera Brittain

More quotations

edit