Word: oxford
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Produced under the leadership of Lord Franks, provost of Oxford's Worcester College and a former Ambassador to the U.S., the report proves that the university is chaotically administered. Its 31 independent colleges, three graduate societies and five private halls of clerical study do not even have central admissions policies. If Oxford somehow has been making progress anyway, the report says wryly, "it is a bizarre achievement to show great skill in avoiding obstacles of one's own creation...
Frivolity Is Rife? Even though 80% of Oxford's students get substantial scholarship aid, much of this goes to students who do not really need it, since admissions examinations have been rigged against the lowly graduates of Britain's state-supported schools; the report suggests that some of the money should go instead to enlarging the faculty. In effect, Oxford prefers to continue educating boys from private preparatory schools and leave the education of others to the red brick colleges and such new universities as Sussex and Essex. All of this lends credence to a recent howl...
...Oxford, the report brings out, harbors such anachronisms as All Souls College, founded in 1438, which has only 40 fellows pursuing research, and no students at all. The university is top-heavy with chairs of theology, weak in such fields as chemistry, physics, physiology and biochemistry...
...More Girls. To correct some of these faults, the report urges a 25% increase in the Oxford faculty to produce a ratio of one teacher for each ten students. New entrance examinations would be tailored to give state-school students a better chance. Oxford's tutorials, says the report, have kept university dons too busy to prepare lectures properly, and should be cut back. Coordination would be aided by strengthening the powers of the operating chief, the university vice chancellor. Many other recommendations seem timid. For example, the report proposes that Oxford grow only by about 3,000 students...
...report stirred much double-edged comment, such as the Daily Mail's observation, entitled "An End to Dreaming," that the report was "nicely balanced between recommending radical changes and preserving traditional values. The sooner its proposals are put into force the better." A critique more likely to keep Oxford in the front ranks of such world pacesetters as Harvard and Berkeley could probably come only from a commission outside Oxford's own establishment. Philosopher Franks' report did not seem frank enough...