"At last! I've found the University!" my learner announced one Monday morning. Since he'd been at OISE at least two weeks by that time, and I knew he'd already visited Harry Potter College (sorry - Christ Church), I was a little puzzled by this opening sally. I thought I'd subtly enquire somewhat further before proceeding with the topic of the day, the Second Conditional.
"Congratulations!" I responded. "Er - where exactly did you go?"
"Oh, it's a little bit of a walk," he said, pointing vaguely in a northerly direction. "I don't recall the road names, but I was walking around on Saturday, and suddenly discovered all these laboratories and I think there was the University Museum as well."
It transpired that in his quest to discover England's most ancient university he had dismissed the whole of the City Centre and the colleges, assuming that 'college' meant the same as in France, i.e. that the colleges were for the education of English schoolchildren, and therefore they could not be anything to do with the university.
In fact the 38 or so colleges are an integral part of the University of Oxford. If you've got some good 'A' levels and want to study, say, English at Oxford, you must apply to a college in order to do so, not the university itself. This is because the great majority of teaching is done at the college level, generally by means of a weekly meeting with your 'tutor' (teacher) who will expect you to have researched and written an essay on a topic he or she gave you at the previous week's 'tutorial' (one to one lesson, usually of one hour). Your essay will be read out by you and criticized by the tutor. Tutors are employed by your college. It's because of the college teaching system that the individual colleges compete in the BBC TV quiz University Challenge, and not Oxford University.
To clear up another commonly held misapprehension, the colleges do not specialise in any particular subject: one can 'read' - i.e. study - history, for example at any college, although it is true that certain colleges get a reputation for excellence in something, and this can be self-perpetuating as better students try to get there.
Colleges are not just 'dorms', as one learner I taught recently thought. Colleges are self-governing entities. They have their own traditions and, very often, extensive land holdings. St John's College - where Tony Blair studied - is one of the largest land-owners in the UK, and used to be even richer until the Leasehold Reform Act in the 1960s resulted in much of its holdings in North Oxford being sold to its tenants. The Queen's College owns most of Southampton Docks, or so I heard the other day, and the shops on one side of Cornmarket are owned by Jesus College.
Apart from teaching their undergraduates, colleges also provide accommodation and, in their famous dining halls, meals too. They run sports teams, having (mostly) their own sports-grounds and boathouses. All of the colleges are, officially at least, Anglican; they have a priest or rector (called a Chaplain) and, usually, a beautiful chapel. Music plays a big part in college life; almost every evening in term-time one can attend a concert or chapel service in one college or another.
Although it wasn't true for the university's first 800 years, all colleges are now mixed; another fairly recent trend is that there are almost as many post-graduates as undergraduates these days.
Even before Harry Potter, Christ Church was the college most visited by tourists. Its links with Eton (a great 'public' school where many leaders of British society were and are educated), its famous Hall where one can see portraits of several Prime Ministers, philosophers and other distinguished old boys, including Lewis Carroll, the creator of Alice in Wonderland, saw to that. Second most popular is Magdalen, the grounds of which extend a full mile back from the famous Tower and Magdalen Bridge, the scene of the May Morning celebrations.
And what does that leave for the University to do? That'll have to wait for another time.....
Kit Villiers
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