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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. As of October 2022,^[update] 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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Selected article

The Principal and Fellows of Jesus College form the college's governing body. The Principal must be "a person distinguished for literary or scientific attainments, or for services in the work of education in the University or elsewhere", and has "pre-eminence and authority over all members of the College and all persons connected therewith". The Principal's Lodgings (entrance pictured) are in the first quadrangle of the college. The current Principal, Lord Krebs, was appointed in 2005 and is the 30th holder of the office. Professorial Fellows are those Professors and Readers of the university who are allocated to the college. One of these professorships is the Jesus Professor of Celtic, which is the only chair in Celtic studies at an English university. Official Fellows are those who hold tutorial or administrative appointments in the college. Past Official Fellows include the composer and musicologist John Caldwell, the historians Sir Goronwy Edwards and Niall Ferguson, the philosopher Galen Strawson and the political philosopher John Gray. There are also Senior and Junior Research Fellows. Principals and Fellows who retire can be elected as Emeritus Fellows. The college can also elect "distinguished persons" to Honorary Fellowships. (Full article...)

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Selected biography

Lieutenant-General James Thomas Brudenell, 7th Earl of Cardigan

James Brudenell, 7th Earl of Cardigan (1797–1868) was an officer in the British Army who commanded the Light Brigade during the Crimean War. He led the Charge of the Light Brigade at the Battle of Balaclava. He was educated at Harrow School and Christ Church, Oxford, but left Oxford after three years, without taking a degree. He became a Member of Parliament in his last term at Oxford, and spent time in the House of Commons before inheriting his father's peerage and with it a place in the House of Lords. Throughout his life in politics and his long military career he characterised the arrogant and extravagant aristocrat of the period. His progression through the Army was marked by many episodes of extraordinary incompetence, but this can be measured against his generosity to the men under his command and genuine bravery. As a member of the landed aristocracy he had actively and steadfastly opposed any political reform in Britain, but in the last year of his life he relented and came to acknowledge that such reform would bring benefit to all classes of society. (more...)

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Selected college or hall

Merton College was established in 1264 by Walter de Merton, chancellor to Henry III and later to Edward I. Building work began on a site to the south-east of the city centre (on what is now called Merton Street) thereafter, with the hall, college chapel (on the site of the old church of St John the Baptist) and front quadrangle completed by the end of the 13th century. The front quad is probably the earliest collegiate quadrangle; Mob Quad was built in the 14th century, with the old library occupies the upper floor of the south and west ranges. Merton purchased St Alban Hall, an independent academic hall, in 1548 and ran it as a separate institution until annexing it in 1881. There are about 300 undergraduates and 300 postgraduates. People associated with Merton include the theologian John Wycliffe, the statesman Lord Randolph Churchill, the poet T. S. Eliot and the author J. R. R. Tolkien. The college's Warden is the mathematician Sir Martin J. Taylor. It is one of the three colleges at Oxford that claims to be the oldest, on the basis that it had "statutes" (i.e. a constitution to govern the college) before Balliol and University. (Full article...)

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Credit: Simon

The cloisters of New College. Founded in 1379 by William of Wykeham, Bishop of Winchester, the college has educated distinguished names such as the author John Galsworthy, the legal philosopher H. L. A. Hart and the art historian Neil MacGregor.

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Did you know

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

... that the statue of the Virgin and Child in the porch of the University Church of St Mary the Virgin (pictured) was cited as evidence in Archbishop Laud's execution trial, and has bullet holes made by Oliver Cromwell's troops?
... that the great-granddaughter of Mahatma Gandhi, Leela Gandhi, is a senior lecturer at La Trobe University in the English program?
... that British Conservative MP Richard Hornby unsuccessfully challenged former Prime Minister and Labour leader Clement Attlee before securing a safe seat?
... that cyber law author and professor Jonathan Zittrain co-founded StopBadware.org to distribute the task of collecting data about malware to Internet users at large?
... that the military theories of the 18th-century Welsh soldier Henry Lloyd were studied by George Washington and George S. Patton?

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Selected quotation

“

I speak not of this college or of that, but of the University as a whole; and, gentlemen, what a whole Oxford is!

”

— John Coleridge, 1st Baron Coleridge

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Selected panorama

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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