| Wolfson College | |
|---|---|
| University of Oxford | |
 | |
.svg) Arms: Per pale gules and or on a chevron between three roses and two pears all countercharged the roses barbed and seeded proper. | |
| Scarf colours: navy, with two equally-spaced stripes of red edged with yellow | |
| Location | Linton Road, Oxford |
| Coordinates | 51°46′16″N1°15′19″W / 51.770977°N 1.255263°W /51.770977; -1.255263 |
| Motto | Humani nil alienum[1][2] |
| Motto in English | Nothing human is alien to me |
| Established | 1965 |
| Named for | SirIsaac Wolfson |
| Previous names | Iffley College |
| Sister college | Darwin College, Cambridge |
| President | Sir Tim Hitchens |
| Undergraduates | none (graduate-only college) |
| Postgraduates | 788 (2021)[3] |
| Endowment | £60.4 million (2021)[4] |
| Website | wolfson |
| Boat club | Wolfson College Boat Club |
| Map | |
  Location in Oxford | |
Wolfson College (/ˈwʊlfsən/) is aconstituent college of theUniversity of Oxford in England. Wolfson is a graduate college, with particular strengths in areas like global health, environmental studies, economics, and humanities. It is located in northOxford along theRiver Cherwell. The historian and philosopherSir Isaiah Berlin was the college's first president and was instrumental in its founding in 1965. The college housesThe Isaiah Berlin Literary Trust and hosts an annualIsaiah Berlin Lecture. From 2017, the president of the college has been SirTim Hitchens.[5]
As of 2021, the college had afinancial endowment of £60.4 million,[4] and is registered as a charity.[6] Wolfson's sister college at theUniversity of Cambridge isDarwin College.
Wolfson's first president SirIsaiah Berlin, the influentialpolitical philosopher andhistorian of ideas, was instrumental in the college's founding in 1965.[7][8]
The college began its existence with the nameIffley College, which offered a new community for graduate students at Oxford, particularly in natural and social sciences. Twelve other colleges of the university provided grants to make the establishment of Iffley possible. As of 1965, the college had neither a president nor a building. Berlin set out to change this, eventually securing support from theWolfson Foundation andFord Foundation in 1966 to establish a separate site for the college, which included 'Cherwell', the former residence ofJ. S. Haldane and his family, as well as new buildings built around it. In recognition ofIsaac Wolfson's contribution to the foundation of the college, its name was changed to Wolfson College.[9]
But Berlin's work as the president of the college was far from over. Formally taking over the reins of the college in 1967, he envisioned Wolfson to be a centre of academic excellence but, unlike many other colleges at Oxford, also bound it to a strong egalitarian and democratic ethos.[10] In Berlin's words, the college would be 'new, untrammelled and unpyramided'.[10]
If Berlin was the inspiration and beacon for this most modern of academic institutions, its birth and early shape would not have happened without the tireless backroom work of Berlin's vice-president,Michael Brock, formerly ofCorpus Christi College. They were a formidable team and ensured Berlin's ideals were largely achieved.
Wolfson is perhaps the most egalitarian college at Oxford, with few barriers between students and fellows. There is nohigh table, only onecommon room for all the members of the college, andgowns are worn only on special occasions. Graduate students serve on the college's governing body and participate in General Meetings. Berlin's reputation and presence in the early years also helped shape the intellectual character of the college, attracting many distinguished fellows likeNiko Tinbergen, who won a Nobel Prize for his studies in animal behaviour in 1973. Berlin's own prominence in the humanities helped attract many graduate students likeHenry Hardy, interested inpolitical philosophy and thehistory of ideas.[10]
The main building of the college, designed byPowell andMoya Architects and completed in 1974, is one of the most modern main buildings of all Oxford colleges. It has three quadrangles: the central quadrangle named the Berlin Quad afterIsaiah Berlin, the Tree Quad built around established trees, and the River Quad into which theRiver Cherwell has been diverted to form a punt harbour. The main building and footbridge across the river weregrade II listed in June 2011.[11]
The college has student accommodation in the main college building, in three child-friendly courtyards surrounded by family housing, and also has similar accommodation in a scattering of purpose-built blocks, including theRobin Gandy Buildings, and in existing houses onLinton Road,Chadlington Road andGarford Road. The college also owns an adjacent house and orchard that was occupied by theBishop of Oxford until 2014.[12]
Wolfson College aims to cut its emissions and plans to becarbon neutral by 2030[13] , to that end they have made the building all-electric by replacing natural gas powered boilers with heat-pumps and reducing the amount of heat required but doing things such as switching from single to triple-glazed windows.
Their next planned steps are to add solar panels to their flat roofs combined with a battery.[14]
The college library, which occupies both floors of one wing of the college's main building, is open to members of the college. The main library is on the first floor, approachable from the side of the dining hall and the lodge, and two other collections, called theFloersheimer Room and the Hornik Memorial Room are on the ground floor. A mezzanine floor in the main library has books as well as carrels for individual use by graduate students of the college. The library has an extensive collection of books and journals.[15]
The college has one common room for fellows and graduate students. The common room has two floors: the upper common room, with an attached terrace overlooking thepunting harbour, which has a coffee counter, and the lower common room, which has magazines and newspapers. The college's hall is one of the few in the university to have a common table. The 'Haldane Room', a hall adjacent to the dining hall proper, is where formal meals, especially theconvocation lunch, are held.[16]
The college owns grounds on both sides of the river, including two meadows on the opposite side, towardsMarston.[17] It has a small but well-maintained garden with mature trees behind its main building, and beside the river. The garden is landscaped well on the riverbank, with a flight of steps leading up to a green-house and a sundial. The college also has a smaller garden beside the Robin Gandy building, which stands on the banks of the river.[18]
The college has its ownsquash court andcroquet lawn, and takes part in many university sporting events, including cricket, football, and the yearly rowing competition. It is one of the few in Oxford with its ownpunting harbour, with a fleet of punts for use by all members of the college. TheWolfson College Boat Club is on the ground floor of 'C' Block.[19]
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In 2021, Wolfson had approximately 800 graduate students, many of whom wereDPhil students.[4] The remainder were studying forMPhil, MSc, MSc by Research,MSt, MSt by Research,MBA,EMBA,MLitt, MLitt by Research,BPhil, andCert degrees. The college also acceptsMJur andBCL candidates.[20]
Wolfson is home to a number of research clusters:[21]
It has also been home to the Centre for Socio-Legal Studies, which has now moved to an independent location in Oxford.[22] The Foundation for Law, Justice and Society, which is affiliated with the college and the Centre for Socio-Legal Studies, was based there between 2005 and 2021.[23]
Wolfson is associated with a number of prominent individuals. These include former students, Fellows of the college and past presidents including twoNobel Prize winners. As Wolfson is a graduate-only college, most students will have been associated with another college or institution, before coming to study at Wolfson College for a Masters or DPhil degree.[20]
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In the sciences, alumni of the college include the human geneticist DameKay Davies, the astronomer andCaltech professorRichard Ellis, theoretical physicistDavid Deutsch, mathematician and geneticistEric Lander and mathematicianJames R. Norris. Entrepreneurs includeReid Hoffman, who was the co-founder and executive chairman ofLinkedIn.
In law and public policy, alumni include Chief Medical Adviser to the UK GovernmentChris Whitty, former Minister of External Relations of Brazil and Supreme Court JusticeFrancisco Rezek, chief prosecutor of theInternational Criminal CourtKarim Ahmad Khan.Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson, the youngest serving Prime Minister of Iceland, studied at the College.
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Notable current and former fellows of the college include:
Jiyuan Yu, a moral philosopher noted for his work on virtue ethics.
William Bradshaw, Baron Bradshaw, Member of theHouse of Lords.
Anthony Epstein, discoverer of theEpstein–Barr virus.
Steven Schwartz, Vice Chancellor ofMacquarie University in Sydney, Australia.
Denis Mack Smith, historian at Oxford.
Niko Tinbergen, Dutch ethologist and recipient of theNobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
Dorothy Hodgkin, winner of theNobel Prize in Chemistry.
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