Portal:University of Oxford
Wikipedia portal for content related to the University of Oxford / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Portal maintenance status: (June 2018)
|
Main page | Indices | Projects |
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.
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...)
Selected article
The buildings of Nuffield College are to the west of Oxford's city centre, on the former site of the largely disused basin of the Oxford Canal. Nuffield College was founded in 1937 after a donation to the University of Oxford by the car manufacturer Lord Nuffield. The initial designs of the architect Austen Harrison, which were heavily influenced by Mediterranean architecture, were rejected by Nuffield, who described them as "un-English". Harrison then aimed for "something on the lines of Cotswold domestic architecture", as Nuffield wanted. The college was built to the revised plans between 1949 and 1960. During construction, the tower, about 150 feet (46 m) tall, was redesigned to hold the college's library. Reaction to the architecture has been largely unfavourable. It has been described as "Oxford's biggest monument to barren reaction" and "a hodge-podge from the start". However, the architectural historian Sir Nikolaus Pevsner thought that the tower helped the Oxford skyline and predicted that it would "one day be loved". The writer Simon Jenkins doubted Pevsner's prediction, though, saying that "vegetation" was the "best hope" for the tower, and for the rest of the college too. (Full article...)
Selected biography
Selected college or hall
St Stephen's House is a theological college and one of the Permanent Private Halls (PPHs) of the University of Oxford. Unlike the colleges, which are run by their Fellows, PPHs are run by an outside institution – in the case of St Stephen's, the Church of England. It was founded in 1876 by Edward King, Bishop of Lincoln and one of the leading figures in the Tractarian movement, and became a PPH in 2003. It was originally located in the centre of Oxford on the site where the New Bodleian Library now stands, but moved soon afterwards to North Oxford. In 1980, it acquired a site in Iffley Road, East Oxford, that had been vacated by the Society of St. John the Evangelist. The current buildings contain the church of St John the Evangelist, designed by G F Bodley; accommodation is provided on site for married and single students. Part of the Anglo-Catholic tradition of the Church of England, it trains candidates for ordination and accepts other students for qualifications in Theology or Education. Alumni include David Hope (Archbishop of York), Glyn Simon (Archbishop of Wales), Jeffrey John (Dean of St Alban's) and Trevor Mwamba (Bishop of Botswana). (Full article...)
Selected image
Credit: Steve Cadman |
Did you know
Articles from Wikipedia's "Did You Know" archives about the university and people associated with it:
- ... that Christopher Tin (pictured) is the first Fulbright scholar for film scoring?
- ... that the world's largest mathematical experiment, designed by Brian Butterworth, found women to be faster than men at subitizing?
- ... that Englishman James McFarlane was appointed a Knight Commander of the Royal Norwegian Order of Saint Olav for his eight-volume work Oxford Ibsen?
- ... that British plant physiologist Daphne Osborne showed that the gas ethylene is a natural plant hormone which regulates ageing and the shedding of leaves and fruits?
- ... that millionaire's daughter Rose Dugdale joined an IRA active service unit and took part in the first helicopter bombing raid on the British Isles in 1974?
Selected quotation
|
Selected panorama
Credit: David Iliff |
On this day
Events for 22 May relating to the university, its colleges, academics and alumni. College affiliations are marked in brackets.
Births
|
Deaths
|
Wikimedia
The following Wikimedia Foundation sister projects provide more on this subject:
-
Commons
Free media repository -
Wikibooks
Free textbooks and manuals -
Wikidata
Free knowledge base -
Wikinews
Free-content news -
Wikiquote
Collection of quotations -
Wikisource
Free-content library -
Wikiversity
Free learning tools -
Wikivoyage
Free travel guide -
Wiktionary
Dictionary and thesaurus