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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 of Oxford 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. 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. Traditionally, each of Oxford's constituent colleges is associated with another of the colleges in the University of Cambridge, with the only exceptional addition of Trinity College, Dublin. 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 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 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...)

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The first Honorary Fellows of Keble College, Oxford, were elected in 1931, when the college's governing body was given power to elect "distinguished persons" to this position. Under the current statutes of the college, Honorary Fellows cannot vote at meetings of the Governing Body and do not receive financial reward, but they receive "such other privileges as the Governing Body may determine." Those elected have included college alumni (for example, the Pakistan cricketer and politician Imran Khan, elected 1988), benefactors (for example Sir Anthony O'Reilly, elected 2002), and individuals of distinction without academic links to the college such as former U.S. President Ronald Reagan (pictured) (elected 1994) and the poet Sir John Betjeman (elected 1972). The three longest-serving Honorary Fellows are Sir John Forsdyke (Principal Librarian of the British Museum; appointed 1937, died 1979), Sir Thomas Armstrong (conductor; appointed 1955, died 1994) and Harry Carpenter (Warden of Keble, later Bishop of Oxford; appointed 1960, died 1993). (Full article...)

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Kate Millett (born 1934) is an American feminist writer, educator, artist, and activist. She was the first American woman to be awarded a postgraduate degree with first-class honors by St. Hilda's College. She is best known for her 1970 book Sexual Politics, which was her doctoral dissertation at Columbia University. The feminist, human rights, peace, civil rights, and anti-psychiatry movements have been some of Millett's key causes. Her books were motivated by her activism, and several were autobiographical memoirs that explored her sexuality, mental health, and relationships. Besides appearing in documentaries, she produced Three Lives and wrote Not a Love Story: A Film About Pornography. In the 1960s and 1970s, Millett taught at Waseda University, Bryn Mawr College, Barnard College, and University of California, Berkeley. Self-identified as bisexual, Millett was married to sculptor Fumio Yoshimura from 1965 to 1985 and had relationships with women, one of whom was the inspiration for her book Sita. Between 2011 and 2013 she won the Lambda Pioneer Award for Literature, received Yoko Ono's Courage Award for the Arts, and was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame. (Full article...)

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Hertford College can trace its history back to 1282 as "Hart Hall", one of the university's academic halls which was linked to Exeter College for many years, but it does not have a continuous history. During the 18th century, the institution suffered a severe decline leading to its dissolution, and the site and buildings were taken over by Magdalen Hall (founded 1448), another academic hall associated with Magdalen College. Hertford was established as an independent foundation in 1874 by Act of Parliament, with the help of a benefaction from the banker Thomas Charles Baring. Some of the buildings date from the 17th century, but others (including the "Bridge of Sighs" across New College Lane) were built by the architect Thomas Graham Jackson in the late 19th century. The college is in Catte Street, opposite the Bodleian Library. It has about 600 students (undergraduates and postgraduates), and the Principal is the historian John Landers. It was one of the first of the men's colleges to admit women. Fellows of the college include the historian Roy Foster and the philosopher Peter Millican, and alumni of the college or its predecessor institutions include the Prime Minister Henry Pelham, the newsreader Fiona Bruce, the archeologist Bernard Ashmole and the American judge Byron White. (Full article...)

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Credit: Winky

A men's crew from Keble College training for Eights Week (the main inter-college rowing races). Rowing is a popular student sport at Oxford, even though most students will not have rowed before starting at Oxford.

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Did you know

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

... that Harrison Oxley was the youngest cathedral organist in Britain when he became organist of St Edmundsbury Cathedral (pictured) at age 24?
... that the Rev. George W. Bridges libelled anti-slavery activists Escoffery and Lecesne when he said they wanted to "sheath their daggers in the breasts of their white inhabitants"?
... that Ian Harvey, a Conservative junior minister in the United Kingdom, resigned his seat in 1958 after a sex scandal?
... that English musician and poet Robert Wydow is the earliest known recipient of a Bachelor of Music degree from the university?
... that, after being defrocked as a Church of England priest, Harold Davidson became a seaside entertainer and was killed in 1937 by a lion when he trod on its tail?