OXFORD'S OPEN DAY, OPEN ARMS | 14 September 2018, Walking Tour

1. Jesus College on Turl Street flaunts its
 green color, which conveys its Welsh and
Celtic appeal (or the field of its
revised arms).

Friday 7 September, 2018–Next week is Oxford's last Open Day in 2018.

One of the commitments of the Vice Chancellor of Oxford, Louise Richardson, is to continue to enlarge the pool of applications. She is embarking on her second academic year.

Achieving this goal is harder to do than it might appear. For many decades, since the days when I was up at Oxford in the 1960s, the University has been expanding the range of applications from secondary school students and the percentage of entrants from the elite (so-called "public" schools because they draw from a wide geographical area) schools has fallen every decade.

One of the problems in attracting promising students from schools that do not ordinarily send their graduates to Oxford is that the University is foreign to them. They are unlikely to know any Oxford alumni. 

2. Exeter College, also on the Turl, has
its purple Welcome banner out.

To address this problem, Oxford University and its constituent colleges have organized two "Open Days" when Oxford's 38 colleges and six Permanent Private Halls (PPHs) open their doors to visiting teenagers who are prospective applicants:

• The first is usually toward the end of June, about two weeks after the end of the last (Trinity) term.
• The other is two weeks before the opening of the first (Michaelmas) term, which in 2018 is next Friday, 14 September (the Feast of St Michael the Archangel is 29 September).

Your Oxbridge Pursuivant has taken some pictures of colleges decked out for Open Days, and have selected five of them for a Walking Tour.

If you want to check out other colleges than the ones on the list, the Oxbridge Pursuivant would like to recommend a handy guide, Oxford College Arms, which was published this month. Order it here: https://amzn.to/2NXh0F1.  It is also on sale by Blackwell's.

A guide to Oxford's 44 colleges and halls, starting from their coats of arms.

The book covers all 44 colleges and PPHs and is up to date through August 2018 (including, for example, the Norrington Table results since 2006). It is a good way for visitors to Oxford–parents, applicants, alumni, students–to stay up to date on the arms, locations, histories and current standings of the colleges and halls.

The photos show that the colleges and halls are becoming more competitive about Open Day. For that day, the college gates are opened wide. The signs signifying "Keep Out" or "£6 Admission" are replaced by welcoming banners, balloons, and open gates.  


Some colleges take the competition to the next level.  Unfairly? You be the judge. Here are some Open Day stories from four colleges and one hall–Jesus, Exeter, Trinity, Regent's Park College, and Lady Margaret Hall. 

3. Trinity College is central, next to the Morse-featured
White Horse, Blackwell's, and the Bodleian libraries.

We start our walking tour going north on Turl Street. We pass Lincoln College on our right, visit Jesus on our left, then Exeter on our right. We now face Trinity College. We take it all in and turn left at the corner, intending to head next for St Regent's College in St Giles. 

However, as we pass Boswell's, we are hijacked. We are offered a free ride akin to that in Midnight in Paris–to a place called LMH, with the promise of free ice cream at the destination. Read on.

4. Regent's Park College makes itself
known in front of the Sheldonian.

1. Jesus College. As one walks on The Turl north from High Street, Jesus is on the left. I was advised by Paul Walton, who knows a thing or two about Wales, that the green color of Jesus is related to its Welsh affiliation, because its foundation was promoted in 1571 by Welshman Dr Hugh Price of St David's Cathedral.  However, the original field of Price's coat of arms had the tincture (colour) of azure (blue). The field's tincture was later revised to vert (green), perhaps in honor of the Green family, or in homage to Price's Welsh heritage.  

Queen Elizabeth is the founder of Jesus College; it is the only college founded at Oxford during her long reign. Its Celtic Studies library is special. Its most famous alumnus is surely Welshman T. E. Lawrence ("Lawrence of Arabia"). Its student body is 15 percent Welsh.

2. Exeter College. Exeter College's color is purple, referencing the fact that it was founded in 1315 by Walter de Stapeldon, a Devon man who rose to become Bishop of Exeter and Treasurer of England under Edward II. Purple is the color of bishops. The eight pairs of golden keys in the Exeter coat of arms reflect the episcopal origin of the college, as St Peter, the first bishop, was given "the keys to the kingdom of heaven", one being for what he "bound" or "loosed" on earth and one for what he thereby "bound" or "loosed" in heaven, as the St James translation of Matthew 18:18 (https://bit.ly/2M7CyNf) goes. Exeter was originally called Stapeldon Hall; it is considered the fourth-oldest college at Oxford.

3. Trinity College. Trinity's arms are those of its Founder, Sir Thomas Pope. The tincture on his arms is azure (blue), with the metal or (gold). The college colors are blue and white. Pope was a Catholic entrusted with the task of dissolving and emptying out church-owned colleges. Durham College was a seminary established by the Bishop Prince of Durham. After Catholicism was reinstated by Mary I, Pope established a new Catholic college on the spot.

5a. Offering a Free Ride to LMH.

4. Regent's Park College. Things are not always what they seem. Regent's Park College is the smallest of the six Permanent Private Halls. The PPHs are increasingly being given similar status as the full colleges, but because of their close religious affiliations are deemed to be less independent than the full colleges. 

Regent's Park College sells itself as a quiet place near the center of Oxford. Its origins go back to a Baptist conference in 1752. The original institution was founded in 1810 and moved to Pusey Street, off St Giles, in 1927. It is near St Cross College, for graduate students, which shares an entrance with Pusey House. 

5b. Dishing the free ice cream at LMH.

Regent's Park College welcomes students in the arts, humanities and social sciences. A few study to be Baptist ministers. The Library includes a special focus on the history of dissenters. In fact, because of its history of religious dissent, members of Regent's Park College are discouraged from using Latin! The college Grace is recited in English by the Principal: For the gifts of your grace and the community of this college, we praise your name, O God. Amen. At the end of Formal Hall the Principal signals the departure of senior members (there is usually no High Table) with the words: "The grace and peace of God be with us all. Amen." Amen to that.

5. Lady Margaret Hall (LMH). Just as Regent's Park College is a hall, so Lady Margaret Hall is a college, as is St Edmund Hall.

5c. Picnic at LMH, by the Cherwell, 1918.
Two Saunders sisters (L) and C.S.L.

LMH is located at the end of Norham Gardens, with property extending to a wide frontage on the River Cherwell. Since this is a bit of a hike without a bike from central Oxford, the offer of a lift with ice cream waiting at the end is a clever way of attracting the interest of potential applicants.

While the lure of free ice cream may seem to be unfair competition, how else expose impressionable students to the glory of the banks of the Cherwell, where picnicked in a 1918 photo three LMHers (two Saunders sisters at left and someone at right identified as C.S.L. who is clearly not C.S. Lewis).