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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, some Oxford academics fled northeast to Cambridge, where, in 1209, they established 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 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 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. The university 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 31 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 Boat Race, also known as the "University Boat Race" and "The Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race", is a rowing race between Oxford University Boat Club and Cambridge University Boat Club each spring on the River Thames in London. The course (map pictured), which is 4 miles 374 yards long (6,779 metres), runs from Putney to Mortlake, passing Hammersmith and Barnes. The clubs' presidents toss a coin before the race for the right to choose which side of the river (station) they will row on: the north station ("Middlesex") has the advantage of the first and last bends, and the south ("Surrey") station the longer middle bend. Members of both teams are traditionally known as "blues" and each boat as a "Blue Boat", with Cambridge in light blue and Oxford dark blue. The first race was in 1829 and it has been held annually since 1856, with the exception of the two world wars. The 2012 race was won by Cambridge, after an interruption by a protestor swimming across the river into the path of the boats. As of 2014 Cambridge have won the race 81 times and Oxford 78 times, with one dead heat. The event is a popular one, not only with the alumni of the universities, but also with rowers in general and the public. (Full article...)
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St Cross College was established by the university in 1965 to cater for the growing numbers of graduate students and academics who lacked a college affiliation; Wolfson College was set up in the 1960s for this reason as well. St Cross has approximately 400 graduate students at any one time, studying for degrees in all subjects. There is a strong emphasis on international diversity, with 67 % of the students from outside the UK. This is reflected in the college motto Ad quattuor cardines mundi ("to the four corners of the earth"). The Fellowship (led by the Master Sir Mark Jones, formerly Director of the Victoria and Albert Museum) is similarly diverse and represents a broad range of academic disciplines in the sciences and the arts. The college was originally established at a site on St Cross Road, near St Cross Church; it moved to a site owned by Pusey House in the centre of Oxford, on St Giles' Street, in 1981. The buildings, by the Gothic revival architect Temple Moore, date from between 1911 and 1926, with a new wing added in 1993. Alumni include the philosopher Alan Carter, the Olympic gold medallist Tim Foster, the historian R. Joseph Hoffmann, and the writer Hermione Lee. (Full article...)
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Did you know
Articles from Wikipedia's "Did You Know" archives about the university and people associated with it:
- ... that Lieutenant General Howard D. Graves (pictured as a cadet) was a Rhodes Scholar, the Superintendent of West Point, and the Chancellor of Texas A&M University?
- ... that Mahesh Rangarajan is a researcher, author and historian who analysed present-day conservation conflicts in India and found their roots in India's colonial past?
- ... that David Lewis and his son Stephen Lewis served simultaneously as the leaders of the Canadian and Ontario New Democratic Party?
- ... that Gail Trimble, captain of the team which won BBC TV's University Challenge before being disqualified, has been called the "human Google" and the "Usain Bolt of general knowledge"?
- ... that the poet William Dickey finished a poem about the death of his mentor, John Berryman, shortly before his own death in 1994?
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On this day
Events for 9 August relating to the university, its colleges, academics and alumni. College affiliations are marked in brackets.
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