University Oxford

University of Oxford

• the university of oxford (informally oxford university or simply oxford) is a  collegiate   research university  located in  oxford , england . while having no known date of foundation, there is evidence of teaching as far back as 1096, making it the oldest university in the  english-speaking world , and the  world's second-oldest surviving university . 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 northeast to  cambridge , where they established what became the  university of cambridge . the two "ancient universities" are frequently jointly referred to as " Oxbridge ".
• the university is made up from a variety of institutions, including  38 constituent colleges  and a full range of academic departments which are organized into four divisions. all the colleges are self-governing institutions as part of the university, each controlling its own membership and with its own internal structure and activities. being a city university, it does not have a main campus; instead, all the buildings and facilities are scattered throughout the metropolitan center.

History

• The University of Oxford has no known foundation date. Teaching at Oxford existed in some form in 1096, but it is unclear at what point a university came into being. It grew quickly in 1167 when English students returned from the  University of Paris . The historian  Gerald of Wales  lectured to such scholars in 1188, and the first known foreign scholar,  Emo of Friesland , arrived in 1190. The head of the University was named a  chancellor  from at least 1201, and the masters were recognized as a universities or corporation in 1231. The university was granted a royal charter in 1248 during the reign of King  Henry III .
• In 1333–34, an attempt by some dissatisfied Oxford scholars to found a new university at  Stamford, Lincolnshire  was blocked by the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge petitioning King  Edward III . Thereafter, until the 1820s, no new universities were allowed to be founded in England, even in London; thus, Oxford and Cambridge had a duopoly, which was unusual in western European countries

Colleges

• To be a member of the university, all students, and most academic staff, must also be a member of a college or hall. There are 38  colleges of the University of Oxford  and six  Permanent Private Halls , each controlling its membership and with its own internal structure and activities. Not all colleges offer all courses, but they generally cover a broad range of subjects.
• The colleges are:

Women's education

Museums

• Oxford maintains a number of museums and galleries, open for free to the public. The  Ashmolean Museum , founded in 1683, is the oldest museum in the UK, and the oldest university museum in the world. It holds significant collections of art and archaeology, including works by  Michelangelo , Leonardo da Vinci , 
• The  University Museum of Natural History  holds the University’s zoological, entomological and geological specimens. Among its collection are the skeletons of a  Tyrannosaurus rex  and Triceratops , and the most complete remains of a  dodo  found anywhere in the world.
• Adjoining the Museum of Natural History is the  Pitt Rivers Museum , founded in 1884, which displays the University’s archaeological and anthropological collections, currently holding over 500,000 items.
• The  Museum of the History of Science  is housed on Broad St in the world’s oldest-surviving purpose-built museum building. It contains 15,000 artefacts, from antiquity to the 20th century, representing almost all aspects of the  history of science . In the Faculty of Music on  St Aldate's  is the Bate Collection  of Musical Instruments, a collection mostly of instruments from Western classical music, from the medieval period onwards.  Christ Church Picture Gallery  holds a collection of over 200  old master  paintings.

Rankings and reputation

• Oxford has been among the world's top ten universities in different league tables, and regularly competes with Cambridge for the first place in UK. In particular, it had held the number one position in the Times Good University Guide for eleven consecutive years, and has also maintained its 1st place in "Clinical, Pre-Clinical & Health" of the The World University Rankings for three consecutive years.