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 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. All the colleges are self-governing institutions within the university, each controlling its own membership and with its own internal structure and activities. All students are members of a college. 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 2022, the university had a total consolidated income of £2.78 billion, of which £711.4 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 Bodleian Library

The Bodleian Library is the main research library of the University of Oxford. It is one of the oldest libraries in Europe, and in Britain is second in size only to the British Library. Known to Oxford scholars as "Bodley" or simply "the Bod", it is one of six legal deposit libraries under the Legal Deposit Libraries Act 2003 for works published in the United Kingdom and under Irish Law it is entitled to request a copy of each book published in the Republic of Ireland. Though University members may borrow some books from dependent libraries (such as the Radcliffe Science Library), the Bodleian operates principally as a reference library and in general documents cannot be removed from the reading rooms. The Bodleian was established in 1602 by Thomas Bodley, who donated some of his own books. The library has expanded considerably since its foundation, and now houses 8 million items on 117 miles (188 km) of shelving. The buildings on the main site include Duke Humphrey's Library (completed 1488), the Radcliffe Camera, the Clarendon Building and the New Bodleian (designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott and completed in 1940). (Full article...)

Selected biography

Olly Blackburn

Olly Blackburn is a film director and screenwriter. Born in London, he had an acting role in the 1982 short comedy film A Shocking Accident; the film won an Academy Award in 1983 for Best Short Subject. He studied history at Oxford, then won a Fulbright Scholarship and pursued graduate studies in film and television at the Tisch School of the Arts. While there, his film Swallowed received New York University's Martin Scorsese Post-Production Award. Blackburn began his professional film career directing commercials and music videos, and became associated with the film production company Warp X. He served as Second Unit Director on the film Reverb. Blackburn co-wrote and directed Donkey Punch, which was his first film to be shown at the Sundance Film Festival. He shot the film on a £1 million budget over 24 days in South Africa. Movie critics likened his work on the film to filmmaker Peter Berg's Very Bad Things, director Phillip Noyce's Dead Calm, and Roman Polanski's Knife in the Water. He went on to serve as writer for the film Vinyan, which critics compared to two films by director Nicolas Roeg, Don't Look Now and Heart of Darkness. (Full article...)

Selected college or hall

St Antony's College coat of arms

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...)

Selected image

All Souls College, seen from the tower of the University Church of St Mary the Virgin, was founded by King Henry VI in 1438. Uniquely at Oxford, the college does not have any students – only Fellows.
All Souls College, seen from the tower of the University Church of St Mary the Virgin, was founded by King Henry VI in 1438. Uniquely at Oxford, the college does not have any students – only Fellows.
Credit: Arnaud Malon
All Souls College, seen from the tower of the University Church of St Mary the Virgin, was founded by King Henry VI in 1438. Uniquely at Oxford, the college does not have any students – only Fellows.

Did you know

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

David Lloyd George in 1911

Selected quotation

Norris McWhirter, announcing Roger Bannister's achievement in running a mile in under four minutes on 6 May 1954 at the university's Iffley Road Track. The remainder of his announcement was drowned out by cheering.

Selected panorama

A 360-degree view of the main quadrangle of Keble College. Designed by the 19th-century architect William Butterfield, the buildings have attracted considerable praise and criticism for their use of bricks in various colours and patterns, in contrast to the older stone-clad colleges elsewhere in the city.
A 360-degree view of the main quadrangle of Keble College. Designed by the 19th-century architect William Butterfield, the buildings have attracted considerable praise and criticism for their use of bricks in various colours and patterns, in contrast to the older stone-clad colleges elsewhere in the city.
Credit: David Iliff
A 360-degree view of the main quadrangle of Keble College. Designed by the 19th-century architect William Butterfield, the buildings have attracted considerable praise and criticism for their use of bricks in various colours and patterns, in contrast to the older stone-clad colleges elsewhere in the city.

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This page was last updated at 2023-11-12 03:26 UTC. Update now. View original page.

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