Portal:University of Oxford

  Indices   Projects

The University of Oxford portal

Coat of arms

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 expanded rapidly from 1167, when Henry II prohibited English students from attending the University of Paris. When disputes erupted between students and the Oxford townspeople, 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 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 that are organised into four divisions. Each college is a self-governing institution within the university that controls its own membership and has its own internal structure and activities. All students are members of a college. Oxford does not have a main campus. Its buildings and facilities are scattered throughout the city centre and around the town. Undergraduate teaching at the university consists of lectures, small-group tutorials at the colleges and halls, seminars, laboratory work and 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. In 2024, Oxford ranked first nationally for undergraduate education.

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, 73 Nobel Prize laureates, 4 Fields Medalists, and 6 Turing Award winners have matriculated, worked, or held visiting fellowships at the University of Oxford. Its alumni have won 160 Olympic medals. Oxford is home to a number of scholarships, including the Rhodes Scholarship, one of the oldest international graduate scholarship programmes in the world. (Full article...)

Selected article

The position of Marshal Foch Professor of French Literature at the University of Oxford was founded in 1918 shortly after the end of the First World War. Ferdinand Foch, or "Marshal Foch" (pictured), was supreme commander of Allied forces from April 1918 onwards. The chair was endowed by an arms trader, Basil Zaharoff, in Foch's honour; he also endowed a post in English literature at the University of Paris in honour of the British general Earl Haig. Zaharoff wanted the University of Paris to have a right of veto over the appointment, but Oxford would not accept this. The compromise reached was that Paris should have a representative on the appointing committee (although this provision was later removed). In advance of the first election, Stéphen Pichon (the French Foreign Minister) unsuccessfully attempted to influence the decision. The first professor, Gustave Rudler, was appointed in 1920. As of 2014, the chair is held by Michael Sheringham, appointed in 2004. The position is held in conjunction with a fellowship of All Souls College. (Full article...)

Selected biography

V. Gordon Childe (1892–1957) was an Australian archaeologist and philologist who specialized in the study of European prehistory. He wrote many influential books and was an early proponent of culture-historical archaeology and Marxist archaeology. He studied Classics at the University of Sydney and Classical archaeology at The Queen's College, Oxford, where his involvement with the socialist movement prevented him from working in academia on his return to Australia. Emigrating to London in 1921, he continued his research into European prehistory, introducing the concept of an archaeological culture into British archaeology. He was the Abercromby Professor of Archaeology at the University of Edinburgh (1927–46), overseeing excavation of the unique Neolithic settlement of Skara Brae and the chambered tomb of Maeshowe, both in Orkney, Scotland. After serving as director of the Institute of Archaeology (1947–57), he returned to Australia and committed suicide. He is widely regarded as one of the most important archaeologists and prehistorians of his generation, and was renowned for his emphasis on revolutionary technological and economic developments in human society. (Full article...)

Selected college or hall

St Mary Hall was one of the longest-surviving academic halls of the University of Oxford. It was associated with Oriel College from 1326 onwards, but functioned independently from 1545 to 1902. The building was originally the rectory of the University Church of St Mary the Virgin, and was acquired by Oriel along with the Rectorship in 1326 when Oriel was founded. St Mary's was used, along with the adjoining Bedel Hall, as an annexe for nearby Oriel. Over time, the two halls became one and developed an independent identity, until in 1545 the door between St Mary's and Oriel was blocked on the order of Oriel's Visitor, Bishop Longland of Lincoln. The Principals of St Mary's continued to be Fellows of Oriel for another century and Oriel gave financial support to the hall. The number of students at St Mary's grew and even overtook Oriel in some years, and it was one of the largest of the surviving halls. In 1902, St Mary's was incorporated into Oriel, and the site is now the college's Third Quadrangle. Former students include the mathematician Robert Hues and Sir Christopher Hatton, Lord Chancellor. (Full article...)

Selected image

The Codrington Library of All Souls College, named after Christopher Codrington and completed in 1751

Did you know

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

Selected quotation

Selected panorama

The main quadrangle of Worcester College; on the left are the medieval buildings known as "the cottages", the most substantial surviving part of Gloucester College, Worcester's predecessor on the same site.

On this day

Events for 9 July relating to the university, its colleges, academics and alumni. College affiliations are marked in brackets.

Wikimedia

The following Wikimedia Foundation sister projects provide more on this subject:

This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.