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 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.
It 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...)
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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...)
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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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Linacre College is a college for graduate students on St Cross Road, near the University Parks to the north-east of the city centre, and close to the university's science area. It was founded in 1962, originally as a non-residential and non-collegiate body called "Linacre House" to provide a base for graduates in Oxford. It moved to its present site in 1977, became financially independent of the university in 1980 and acquired full college status in 1986. The college is named after Thomas Linacre (1460–1524), a distinguished humanist, medical scientist and classicist. There are about 300 students in a range of subjects; many are from overseas, with over fifty different countries represented. Linacre was the first Oxford college to admit men and women on an equal basis. The principal is the botanist Nick Brown, appointed in 2009. There are about 50 Fellows, with former Fellows including the Nobel Prize winner Paul Nurse and the biologist Chris Dobson. Former students include the journalist Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, the literary critic Terry Eagleton and the Christian writer and academic Alister McGrath. (Full article...)
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Credit: Rob Brewer |
Did you know
Articles from Wikipedia's "Did You Know" archives about the university and people associated with it:
- ... that the establishment of the Marshal Foch Professorship of French Literature at Oxford was announced a few days after Marshal Foch (pictured) signed the Armistice with Germany to end World War I?
- ... that British international rally driver Tony Ambrose was given an MG sports car by his father for winning a scholarship to Jesus College?
- ... that Bishop Graham Chadwick served as a naval intelligence officer in World War II and was expelled from South Africa for anti-apartheid activism?
- ... that Somerset cricketer Izzy Westbury made her senior international debut for the Netherlands aged 15?
- ... that it was speculated that J. K. Rowling based the Harry Potter character Albus Dumbledore on the "splendidly bearded" T. P. Wiseman, her classics professor at Exeter University?
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