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Jewel in the Crown? The Oxbridge College: Its Origins, Character and Future

Abstract:

The collegiate nature of England’s ‘ancient universities’, Oxford and Cambridge, is often cited as a central and essential part of their continuing success in the highly competitive global market of higher education. At the heart of this collegiate tradition lies the near-autonomous college. This paper explores that claim using a case study, that of St John’s College in Cambridge, the second largest Oxbridge college founded in 1511.

Starting with a brief historical sketch tracing the developments from the medieval origins of the College model as a ‘total institution’ through the significant reformation in University education of the late nineteenth century, this paper will then consider the post-1945 era and the subsequent expansion of higher education from the 1960s.

With their emphasis on residential community, commensality, character formation and the tutorial system it is often claimed that Oxbridge colleges make a distinctive and important contribution to the nature of academic life, and that this is qualitatively different from that of residential halls. This claim rests on the idea that the social organization of a College composed of ‘members of a single society with a common loyalty’ is especially effective at promoting intellectual collegiality and a fruitful inter-disciplinarity. These claims will be critically evaluated in this paper before in the final section, consideration will be given to how such colleges are responding to rapid changes in the sector, not least the global marketization of higher education.

Full Paper

About the Speaker:

The Reverend Duncan Dormor

The Reverend Duncan Dormor is the Dean of St John’s College in the University of Cambridge where he has also served as President, the elected head of the Fellowship; as a Tutor; and, the Director of Studies for Theology and Religious Studies. He teaches sociology and anthropology of religion in the University of Cambridge and serves on a number of national church bodies including the Anglican-Roman Catholic committee and the Churches Conservation Trust. He has published work on the relationship between religion, sexuality and gender, and more recently on the theology of Pope Francis.