53-505: Nuffield College ( / ˈ n ʌ f iː l d / ) is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. It is a graduate college specialising in the social sciences, particularly economics, politics and sociology. Nuffield is one of Oxford's newer colleges, having been founded in 1937, as well as one of the smallest, with only around 90 students and 60 academic fellows . It
106-592: A collegiate system, all matriculated students are required to maintain an affiliation with a college or hall which is tasked with offering student support, welfare, and accommodation. Although the University of Oxford is already selective, an additional level of selectivity exists depending on different colleges and halls. Colleges and halls differ in their levels of selectivity, as evidenced by their varying offer rates. Except All Souls College which consists principally of research fellows, Nuffield College consistently possesses
159-477: A couple of modules taught at other colleges or even at faculties and departments. Most colleges take both graduates and undergraduates, but several are for graduates only. Undergraduate and graduate students may name preferred colleges in their applications. For undergraduate students, an increasing number of departments practise reallocation to ensure that the ratios between potential students and subject places available at each college are as uniform as possible. For
212-620: A defined subject focus, namely the social sciences. Nuffield appointed its first fellows in 1939, a group that notably included the historian Margery Perham , but the outbreak of World War II meant that the college's construction did not begin until 1949. During the War, Nuffield hosted the Nuffield College Social Reconstruction Survey, which examined issues related to post-War reconstruction. Nuffield admitted its first students in 1945, and received its Royal Charter from
265-608: A number of young scholars who hold distinguished awards, such as British Academy post-doctoral fellowships, some senior research fellows and a group of research-active emeritus and honorary fellows. The college also produces works in the Nuffield Election Studies . The college is also home to the Centre for Social Investigation , an interdisciplinary research group examining inequalities and social progress in Britain. The college
318-407: A porter's lodge controlling entry from the outside. The first modern merger of colleges was in 2008, with Green College and Templeton College merging to form Green Templeton College . The number of PPHs also reduced when Greyfriars closed in 2008 and when St Benet's Hall closed in 2022. Reuben College , established in 2019, is the first new Oxbridge college since 1990, when Kellogg College
371-651: A statute to allow private halls which were not run for profit to become permanent private halls and the two halls took their current names. Each college and permanent private hall has its own arms , although in some cases these were assumed rather than granted by the College of Arms . Under King Henry VIII Oxford colleges were granted exemption from having their arms granted by the College of Arms; and some, like Lady Margaret Hall , have chosen to take advantage of this exemption, whilst others, such as Oriel , despite having used
424-402: A third of Nuffield's fellows hold appointments at the University of Oxford as lecturers, readers or professors. In addition, the college fully funds around a dozen "Official Fellowships", which the college views as tenured research professorships (although most also teach on the University's graduate programme), and about a dozen three-year Postdoctoral research fellows . The college also houses
477-665: A third of all economists who were fellows of the British Academy had connections to Nuffield, as did a quarter of all political science, sociology and social statistics fellows. The Visitor of Nuffield College is ex officio the Master of the Rolls . Colleges of the University of Oxford The University of Oxford has 36 colleges , three societies, and four permanent private halls (PPHs) of religious foundation. The colleges and PPHs are autonomous self-governing corporations within
530-498: Is a descendant of the original (1221), and is sometimes described as heir to the oldest tradition of teaching in Oxford. As the university took shape, friction between the hundreds of students living where and how they pleased led to a decree that all undergraduates would have to reside in approved halls. What eventually put an end to the medieval halls was the emergence of colleges. Often generously endowed and with permanent teaching staff,
583-504: Is an officer known generically as the Head of House . Their specific title varies from college to college as indicated in the list below. While the Head of House will usually be an academic, it is not uncommon for a person to be appointed who has had a distinguished career outside academic circles. For a list of current Heads of Houses, see Heads of Houses . The dean of Christ Church is head of both
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#1732852351015636-527: Is intended for "mature students" with a minimum age of 21. The newest college of the University, Reuben College , was established in 2019 as graduate-only, enrolling its first students in 2021 using the premises of the Radcliffe Science Library . Kellogg , Reuben and St Cross are the only Oxford colleges without a royal charter . They are officially societies of the university rather than independent colleges and are considered departments of
689-463: Is some dispute over the exact order and precisely when each began teaching. The fourth oldest college is Exeter , founded in 1314, and the fifth is Oriel , founded in 1326. Women entered the university in 1879, with the opening of Lady Margaret Hall and Somerville College , becoming members of the University (and thus eligible to receive degrees) in 1920. Other women's colleges before integration were St Anne's , St Hilda's and St Hugh's . In 1974
742-564: The Church of England (subject to safeguards for religious instruction and worship), which made it possible for Catholics and Non-conformists to open private halls. The first Catholic private halls were Clarke's Hall (now Campion Hall ), opened by the Jesuit Order in 1896 and Hunter Blair's Hall (later St Benet's Hall ) opened by the Benedictine Order in 1899. In 1918 the university passed
795-522: The Norrington Table , was published annually. As the table only took into account the examination results for the year of publication, college rankings could fluctuate considerably. Beginning in 2005, the University of Oxford started publishing a list of colleges classified by a "Norrington Score", effectively replicating the Norrington Table. The university claims to have published the results "in
848-474: The University entered a Deed of Covenant and Trust with Lord Nuffield. He donated land for the college on New Road , to the west of the city centre near the mound of Oxford Castle , on the site of the largely disused basin of the Oxford Canal . As well as the land, Nuffield gave £900,000 to build the college and to provide it with an endowment. For the creation of Nuffield College and for his other donations he
901-451: The limewash on original buildings. The interiors also changed, as Cotswold-style buildings came to have higher and wider lights and “loftier” rooms. The architecture also changed during the Arts and Crafts Movement. Smaller buildings were built with a mix of concrete block and stonework or roughcast brick and stonework. This allowed architects to save on costs due to stone being expensive during
954-450: The Arts and Crafts movement. The features of the Cotswold style are primarily identifiable through the use of specific materials. In the Cotswold region, oolite limestone and hard wood are abundant. Lead, on the other hand, was scarce throughout the 17th and 18th centuries, so it is not utilized in any traditional buildings of the Cotswold style. One use of limestone in the Cotswold region
1007-665: The Cotswolds became the focal point of the 'Arts and Crafts' architecture. Cotswold architecture is a subtype of the Tudor Revival house style, and it likely came to the United States as a result of renewed interest in medieval housing styles. The Cotswold style of architecture is characterized by simplicity. The Cotswold buildings were built to 'melt into their surroundings'. The original Cotswold cottages were built for rural laborers, including farmers who reared sheep. Additionally,
1060-499: The Department of Physics, reallocation is done on a random basis after a shortlist of candidates is drawn upon and before candidates are invited for interviews at the university. For graduate students, many colleges express a preference for candidates who plan to undertake research in an area of interest of one of its fellows. St Hugh's College , for example, states that it accepts graduate students in most subjects, principally those in
1113-461: The Exchequer, future Labour prime minister James Callaghan , who had no formal university education, took tutorials in economics at Nuffield overseen by College fellow Ian Little . Such was the perceived intimacy between College and government that decades later, writer Christopher Hitchens could recall the "fast set that revolved between Nuffield and Whitehall ". Nuffield is located on the site of
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#17328523510151166-802: The World Bank and President of the British Academy ; and Jonathan Levin , President of Stanford University. Notable fellows have included psephologist David Butler , political philosopher Michael Oakeshott , political theorist and economist G. D. H. Cole , researcher of inequality Tony Atkinson , and statistician David Cox , who served as Warden between 1988 and 1994. Among the college's fellows and former fellows are three Nobel Prize laureates, John Hicks , James Mirrlees , and Amartya Sen . Visiting fellows include Stephanie Flanders , former BBC economics editor; Tim Harford , author and economist; and George Soros , investor and philanthropist. In 2008,
1219-518: The arms for many centuries, have recently elected to have the arms granted officially. The blazons below are taken from the Oxford University Calendar unless otherwise indicated. Shields are emblazoned as commonly drawn, and notable inconsistencies between blazons and emblazons (the shields as drawn) are indicated. Each college also has its own colours used on items such as scarves and rowing blades . The senior member of each college
1272-535: The basin of the Oxford Canal to the west of Oxford . The land on which the college stands was formerly the city's principal canal basin and coal wharfs.. The architect Austen Harrison , who had worked in Greece and Palestine, was appointed by the University to design the buildings. His initial design, heavily influenced by Mediterranean architecture, was rejected by Nuffield, who called it "un-English" and refused to allow his name to be associated with it. Harrison reworked
1325-442: The college and the cathedral. The president of Kellogg College is also the director of the Department for Continuing Education. As of 2019 the accounts of the Oxford colleges included total assets of £6.6 billion. This figure does not reflect all the assets held by the colleges as their accounts do not include the cost or value of many of their main sites or heritage assets such as works of art or libraries. The total endowments of
1378-415: The college was "a hodge-podge from the start". However, the architectural historian Sir Nikolaus Pevsner , although unimpressed with most of the college, thought that the tower helped the Oxford skyline and predicted it would "one day be loved". The writer Simon Jenkins doubted Pevsner's prediction, and claimed that "vegetation" was the "best hope" for the tower – as well as the rest of the college. Around
1431-419: The college. Between 2019 and 2023, 5.1% of applicants to the college were admitted. Its architecture is designed to conform to the traditional college layout and its modernist spire is a landmark for those approaching Oxford from the west. Nuffield College was founded in 1937 after a donation to the University of Oxford by Lord Nuffield , the industrialist and founder of Morris Motors . On 16 November 1937,
1484-469: The colleges were originally the preserve of graduate students. However, once they began accepting fee-paying undergraduates in the 14th century, the halls' days were numbered. Of the hundreds of Aularian houses (from the Latin for "hall") that sprang up, only St Edmund Hall (c. 1225) remains. The oldest colleges are University College , Balliol , and Merton , established between 1249 and 1264, although there
1537-416: The colleges were £5.1 billion as of 2019. Individual college endowments ranged from £1.2m (Green Templeton) to £577.6 million (Christ Church). In contrast to undergraduate programmes where the constituent college or hall handles both admissions and teaching, postgraduate students are admitted through a department, which is responsible for postgraduate education and supervision. As the university operates on
1590-417: The fields of interest of the fellows of the college. A typical college consists of a hall for dining, a chapel, a library, a college bar, senior , middle (postgraduate), and junior common rooms , rooms for 200–400 undergraduates, and lodgings for the head of the college and other dons . College buildings range from medieval to modern, but most are made up of interlinked quadrangles or courtyards, with
1643-592: The first men's colleges to admit women were Brasenose , Hertford , Jesus , St Catherine's and Wadham . By 2008 all colleges had become co-residential, although one of the Permanent Private Halls, St Benet's Hall , did not start to admit postgraduate women until Michaelmas term 2014 and women undergraduates until Michaelmas 2016. Some colleges, such as Kellogg , Linacre , Nuffield , St Antony's , St Cross and Wolfson only admit postgraduate students. All Souls admits only fellows. Harris Manchester
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1696-431: The hall, library and administrative offices in the other. The chapel has stained glass windows designed by John Piper . The architectural aesthetic of the final design, particularly the tower and its flèche, has attracted some criticism; unlike the other "dreaming spires" of Oxford, Nuffield's tower is a masonry-clad steel-framed book-stack. The architectural historian Sir Howard Colvin said that Harrison's first design
1749-590: The hands of the Duke of Edinburgh on 6 June 1958. Drove to Oxford for the Nuffield College dance... Nuffield is vigorous and forward-thinking. It has absolute equality between men and women and close camaraderie between teacher and student. It draws its Fellows from a wide social background. There is no snobbery about it at all. In the 1960s, Nuffield became closely associated with Harold Wilson's "modernizing" Labour government . During his tenure as Wilson's Chancellor of
1802-588: The interests of openness". Although the university says that the college listings are "not very significant", the 2005 table was the first Norrington Table with official data and also probably the first to be accurate. Dame Fiona Caldicott , the Chairman of the Conference of Colleges, said that in previous years some students had used the Data Protection Act 1998 to ensure their results were not published, rendering
1855-458: The late nineteenth century. Cotswold architecture The Cotswold style of architecture is a style based on houses from the Cotswold region of England . Cotswold houses often have a prominent chimney , often near the front door of the house. Other notable features include king mullions and steep roofs. The Cotswold style uses local materials based on geology. This style is renowned for
1908-531: The lowest offer rate and is thus considered the most selective college. On the other hand, Kellogg College and St Antony College are among the least selective colleges, typically characterised by higher offer rates. The table below exhibits the offer rates for postgraduate applications across each college over multiple academic years. For some years, an unofficial ranking of undergraduate colleges by performance in Final Honour Schools examinations, known as
1961-471: The plans, aiming for "something on the lines of Cotswold domestic architecture ", as Nuffield wanted. The plans were approved by Lord Nuffield in 1940. Construction of the college began after the war in 1949. Restrictions on construction after the Second World War meant that work on the college was not completed until 1960. The original plan for the college to occupy land on both sides of Worcester Street
2014-500: The rural location of the Cotswold region limited access to building materials. This style used local materials to create the distinctive look of the Cotswolds. The Cotswold style later came to be influenced by the Classical style of architecture . These influences led to changes in the exteriors as well as interiors of Cotswold-style buildings. Classical influences to the exteriors included the use of stucco on walls, which often replaced
2067-419: The steepness of the roofs, most original Cotswold cottages had dormer windows and were not waterproof. Occasionally, lead was employed in gutter systems around the roof. As a result of the roof angles, roofs made with pseudo- thatch , steep arch gables, and arched doorways are all common features of the Cotswold style. Like the roofs, the walls of Cotswold residences were susceptible to the elements. Though
2120-406: The university for accounting purposes. The Oxford University Act 1854 and the university statute De aulis privatis (On private Halls) of 1855, allowed any Master of Arts aged at least 28 years to open a private hall after obtaining a licence to do so. One such was Charsley's Hall . The Universities Tests Act 1871 opened all university degrees and positions to men who were not members of
2173-483: The university. These colleges are not only houses of residence, but have substantial responsibility for teaching undergraduate students. Generally tutorials (one of the main methods of teaching in Oxford) and classes are the responsibility of colleges, while lectures, examinations, laboratories, and the central library are run by the university. Students normally have most of their tutorials in their own college, but often have
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2226-541: The unofficial tables inaccurate. A tradition of the university is a friendly rivalry between colleges . Often, two neighbouring colleges will be rivals, and each college will pride itself in its athletic victories over the other one. Examples include: The Oxford and Cambridge colleges have served as an architectural inspiration for Collegiate Gothic Architecture, used by a number of American universities including Princeton University and Washington University in St. Louis since
2279-404: The use of local oolitic limestone . The Cotswold style emerged during the late 16th century and flourished throughout the 17th century. During the second and third decades of the twentieth century, the Cotswold style reached its zenith of popularity. The Cotswold 'Arts and Crafts' architecture was a very popular and prominent style between 1890 and 1930. The county of Gloucestershire in
2332-446: The walls were thick, they were hollow and filled with rocks and "rubbish" and were not reinforced with any binding materials. The stone slates were naturally thick. The walls had to compensate by being thicker than the slates in Cotswold traditional houses in order for the building to be supported. The king mullion is a common element of the Cotswold style. The windows of Cotswold cottages were glazed with lead . In smaller structures,
2385-424: The windows were the only elements in which lead was used. Buildings of the Cotswold style typically have one or two large fireplaces, depending on the size and function of the building. The fireplaces both release into a chimney. The interiors of the chimneys as well as the mantles are made of stone. The rooms of residence constructed in the Cotswold style are often small and irregularly shaped. The floorplan of
2438-519: The year. Nuffield fields men's and women's cricket and football teams, while rowing is in association with the Linacre College Boat Club . Many prominent people have studied at Nuffield, including Mark Carney , former Governor of the Bank of England ; Manmohan Singh , former Prime Minister of India; Geoff Gallop , former Premier of Western Australia ; Nicholas Stern , former Chief Economist of
2491-447: Was Oxford's "most notable architectural casualty of the 1930s"; it has also been described as a "missed opportunity" to show that Oxford did not live "only in the past". Reaction to the architecture of the college has been largely unfavourable. In the 1960s, it was described as "Oxford's biggest monument to barren reaction". The tower has been described as "ungainly", and marred by repetitive windows. The travel writer Jan Morris wrote that
2544-486: Was also the first Oxford college to accept both men and women, having been coeducational since foundation, as well as being the first college exclusively for graduate students in either Oxford or Cambridge. As of 2021, the college had an estimated financial endowment of £282 million. Due to its small intake, it was the wealthiest educational institution per student in the world in 2013. Since 2017, Nuffield has committed to underwriting funding for all new students accepted to
2597-602: Was called limestone walling. This technique gives a range of color to the Cotswold style due to the amount of iron oxide in the limestone layer. The limestone was also used as slates for the Cotswold roofing. The leading feature of Cotswold architecture is the grouping of the gables . Since lead was not available, slate was used in its place. Henry Ford is noted to have appreciated the "distinctive architectural style and attractive weathered appearance of typical Cotswold buildings," whose stone elements "all blended together unbroken by other visible construction materials." Due to
2650-519: Was described in 1949 by an editorial in The Times as "the greatest benefactor of the University since the Middle Ages". From its inception, Nuffield College initiated a number of trends at both Oxford and Cambridge. It was the first college to have both women and men housed together. It was also the first college to consist solely of graduate students. In addition, it was the first in modern times to have
2703-512: Was established. The collegiate system arose because Oxford University came into existence through the gradual agglomeration of numerous independent institutions. Over the centuries several different types of college have emerged and disappeared. The first academic houses were monastic halls. Of the dozens established during the 12th–15th centuries, none survived the Reformation . The modern Dominican permanent private hall of Blackfriars (1921)
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#17328523510152756-510: Was scaled down as a result of budget and material shortages, and to this day the land to the west of the college is occupied by a "temporary" car park. In one change, the tower, which had been planned to be ornamental, was redesigned to hold the college's library. It was the first tower built in Oxford for 200 years and is about 150 feet (46 m) tall, including the flèche on top. The buildings are arranged around two quadrangles , with residential accommodation for students and fellows in one, and
2809-544: Was the birthplace of the "Oxford School" of Industrial Relations ; it pioneered the development of cost-benefit analysis for developing countries; and it has made a major contribution to the methodology of econometrics . All Nuffield students are members of the College Junior Common Room . Annual traditions include the Nuffield ball and Christmas Pantomime. All members of the College enjoy free lunches throughout
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