Oxford University

Oxford University, at Oxford, England, one of the oldest English-language universities in the world. The university was a leading center of learning throughout the Middle Ages; such scholars as Roger Bacon, Duns Scotus, John Wyclif, and Bishop Grosseteste were associated with it. It has maintained an outstanding reputation, especially in the classics, theology, and political science.

Colleges

Oxford Univ. has its beginnings in the early 12th cent. in groups of young scholars who gathered around the learned monks and teachers of the town. The system of residential colleges began with Merton College (1264), although University College and Balliol had been founded earlier. Consisting of a corporation of scholars and masters, having its own statutes, property, buildings, and customs, the medieval college maintained almost complete autonomy within the university, as it does today.

The present colleges, with their dates of founding, include University (1249), Balliol (1263), Merton (1264, for men), St. Edmund Hall (1269), Exeter (1314), Oriel (1326, for men), Queen's (1340), New (1379), Lincoln (1427), All Souls (1438, for male fellows), Magdalen (1458; pronounced môd`lĭn), Brasenose (1509; pronounced brāz`nōz), Corpus Christi (1516), Christ Church (1546, for men), Trinity (1554), St. John's (1555), Jesus (1571), Wadham (1610, charter received 1612), Pembroke (1624), Worcester (1714), Keble (1871), Hertford (1874), Lady Margaret Hall (1878, charter received 1926), Somerville (1879, charter received 1926, for women), St. Hugh's (1886, charter received 1926, for women), St. Hilda's (1893, charter received 1926, for women), St. Anne's (1893, charter received 1952), St. Peter's (1929, charter received 1961), St. Catherine's (1962), and Rewley House (1990). Nuffield (1937, charter received 1958), St. Antony's (1948, charter received 1953), Linacre (1962), St. Cross (1965), Wolfson (1965), and Green (1979) are postgraduate colleges of men and women. Most of the undergraduate colleges were founded as either men's or women's colleges and later became coeducational.

Faculties, Instruction, and Facilities

Oxford's faculties include theology, law, medicine, literae humaniores, modern history, English language and literature, modern languages, Oriental studies, Japanese studies, modern Middle Eastern studies, Slavonic and East European Studies, mathematics, physical sciences, biological sciences, physiological sciences, psychological studies, social studies, music, fine arts, archaeology and the history of art, and anthropology and geography.

Instruction at Oxford is by lectures and the tutorial system, by which each student writes a weekly paper on a prescribed subject and discusses it with his tutor. Women first received degrees in 1920, but they were not admitted to full university status until 1959. A large sum was left for scholarships for foreign students by Cecil Rhodes.

The Ashmolean Museum (see under Ashmole, Elias) and the Bodleian Library are notable features of the university. The Oxford Univ. Press was established by 1478, and the Oxford Union is a world-famous debating society. Until 1948 the university had two representatives in Parliament.

Bibliography

See C. E. Mallet, History of the University of Oxford (3 vol., 1924–27, repr. 1968); F. Markham, Oxford (1967); J. P. V. D. Balsdon, Oxford Now and Then (1970).

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Oxford University 

one of the oldest and most important universities in Great Britain, founded in the second half of the 12th century or, according to some sources, at the beginning of the 13th.

In the 13th century, the university had faculties of the arts, law, theology, and medicine. In the Middle Ages, R. Bacon, J. Duns Scotus, and J. Wycliffe taught at Oxford; during the Renaissance, Erasmus of Rotterdam and T. More; and in the 17th century, J. Locke, A. Smith, and R. Boyle. In 1703, E. Halley became a professor at the university.

The historically established reputation of Oxford as a privileged aristocratic school and the strict class distinctions made in selecting students assure graduating students preference in working their way up to the highest government posts; 22 prime ministers of Great Britain, for example, graduated from Oxford.

Oxford University is a self-governing corporation, administratively subordinate only to the Parliament. Financially it is almost completely dependent on state and private contributions, which make up more than two-thirds of its budget. The tuition fee, £850 to £900 per academic year, is one of the highest in the world.

As of 1972, Oxford University included 39 colleges (29 men’s colleges, five women’s colleges, and five mixed colleges), of which five were permanent private halls for those studying for the ministry. There are faculties of theology, law, medicine, the classics, modern history, English language and literature, medieval and modern European languages, Oriental studies, physical sciences, mathematics, biological sciences, agriculture and forestry, psychological studies, social sciences, anthropology and geography, fine arts, and music. Oxford has 22 chairs and a number of specialized research institutes and laboratories. There are institutes of mathematics, medical research, Oriental studies, pedagogy, experimental psychology, economics research, and agriculture. There are also laboratories of inorganic chemistry, physical chemistry, and chemical crystallography; the Dyson Perrins and Clarendon laboratories; a computer center; the Ruskin School of Drawing and of Fine Art; and several museums. Oxford’s Bodleian Library, the university’s largest, was founded in 1602 and has 2.5 million volumes.

In 1972 there were 11,000 students at Oxford, including more than 2,500 graduate students. The teaching staff comprised 1,100 teachers, including 114 professors. It also included some 20 members of the Royal Society of London, among these the Nobel laureate D. C. Hodgkin. The Nobel laureates F. Soddy, C. Hinshelwood, and R. Robinson are among the noted chemists who have been associated with Oxford.