St Anne's College, Oxford

St Anne's College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. Formerly a women's college, it has been coeducational since 1979 and now prides itself on being "a modern, forward-looking, intellectually ambitious college".^[2] Located in North Oxford and adjacent to the neighborhood of Jericho, the college was established and expanded by the gradual acquisition of Victorian houses between the Woodstock and Banbury roads. Founded in 1879 as the The Society of Oxford Home-Students, today it is one of the larger colleges in Oxford, with around 450 undergraduate and 200 graduate students, in a roughly equal mix of men and women. As of 2008, the college had an estimated financial endowment of £38m.^[3]

History

What is now St Anne's College began life as part of the Association for the Education of Women, the first institution in Oxford to allow for the education of women (see: Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford), then later the Society of Oxford Home-Students.^[4] In 1942, it became the St Anne's Society, and received a university charter to be founded as a women-only college in 1952. While it remains a common myth that it is built on land donated by St John's College, the site was acquired slowly by the purchase of existing houses and residences for the use of students.^[5]

The Ship

The annual magazine for alumnae and alumni of the college is known as The Ship.^[6] When it was still known as the Society for Home Students, the college had its first common room in Ship Street, located in central Oxford.^[4]

Location and buildings

Its grounds are bounded by Woodstock Road and Banbury Road to the west and east respectively, and Bevington Road to the north. They extend as far south as 48 Woodstock Road on the west, and 27 Banbury Road on the east side. The College formerly owned a number of houses throughout Oxford used for undergraduate accommodation, some formerly boarding houses of the Society of Oxford Home-Students; these have been largely sold off to fund the building of the Ruth Deech Building, completed in 2005. These grounds house all of the college's administrative and academic buildings, as well as undergraduate accommodation.

The Hartland House, designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, was the first purpose-built college building, finished in 1937 with an additional wing built in 1973. It now houses the Library, the junior and senior common rooms, and some administrative offices. The Dining Hall, built in 1959, has a capacity of 300, and is also used for college collections and, on occasion, college 'bops'. The Eleanor Plumer House (known until 2008 as simply 35 Banbury Road) houses the Middle Common Room, and attached facilities including a study area/computer room and kitchen, in addition to accommodation for graduate students. Four additional Victorian houses (27 and 37 Banbury, 48 and 50 Woodstock) hold teaching rooms, seminar rooms, practice rooms, and college offices.

Undergraduates at St Anne's are housed in 14 Victorian houses owned by the college and six purpose-built accommodation blocks. The Victorian houses include 1 - 10 Bevington Road, 58/60 Woodstock Road, and 39/41 Banbury Road. These houses also contain the college bar, teaching rooms, college gym, and a laundrette. The Rayne and Wolfson Buildings were built in 1964 are Grade II Listed Buildings; they are virtually identical in design, and house administrative offices on the ground floor as well as student rooms. The Founders' Gatehouse was built in 1966; it was the college lodge until 2005, and still holds pigeon holes for faculty and students. the Claire Palley Building, completed in 1992 and named after former Principal Claire Palley, was the first accommodation block to have en-suite rooms. It also houses the Mary Ogilvie Lecture Theatre. Trenaman House, built in 1995, holds student rooms as well as communal college facilities on the ground floor and, since 2008, the St Anne's Coffee Shop (STACS). It was named after Nancy Trenaman, the sixth Principal of the college (1966–1984). The Ruth Deech Building, completed in 2005,^[7] is the most recent college building. It houses extensive conference facilities (a lecture theatre, seminar rooms, and dining facilities) on the lower ground floor, in addition to the new College Lodge on the upper ground floor, and 113 en-suite student rooms.

The Robert Saunders House (1996) provides 80 rooms for post-graduate students in Summertown, an area in the north of Oxford. It was named after a former bursar of the college, who did much to strengthen its finances.

Notable alumni and alumnae

• Danny Alexander — Liberal Democrat Member of Parliament (MP) (2005—), currently Chief Secretary to the Treasury
• Mary Archer, Baroness Archer — scientist specialising in solar power conversion
• Karen Armstrong, FRSL — author on comparative religion
• Jackie Ashley — broadcaster, journalist, and contributor to The Guardian and The New Statesman
• Wendy Beckett — BBC art historian
• Dame Gillian Beer — literary critic and former President of Clare Hall, Cambridge (1994—2001)
• Nicola Blackwood — Conservative MP (2010—).
• Tina Brown, CBE — columnist, talk-show host, author, and magazine editor, notably of Vanity Fair (1984—1992) and The New Yorker (1992—1998)
• Frances Cairncross, CBE — journalist, economist, and Rector of Exeter College, Oxford (2004—)
• Edwina Currie — former Conservative MP (1983—1997)
• Ruth Deech, Baroness Deech, DBE — lawyer, bioethicist, and former Principal of St Anne's (1991—2004)
• Anne Dreydel, OBE — co-founder of the Oxford English Centre, now St Clare's International School
• Rose Dugdale — former debutante, notable IRA member and art theft
• Andrew Edmonds (current student) — contestant on the reality TV show Big Brother 11.
• U. A. Fanthorpe, CBE, FRSL — poet
• Penelope Farmer — children's writer
• Helen Fielding — novelist known for the Bridget Jones series
• Miriam Gross — literary editor and co-founder of Standpoint magazine
• Mary Harron — Canadian screenwriter and filmmaker, known for American Psycho
• Zoë Heller — journalist and novelist, known for Notes on a Scandal
• Ben Hudson — stage name Mr Hudson, British R&B/pop artist.
• Diana Wynne Jones — fantasy novelist, known for the Chrestomanci series and Howl's Moving Castle
• Martha Kearney — broadcaster and journalist, currently of BBC Radio 4's The World at One
• Penelope Lively, CBE, FRSL — novelist and Booker Prize winner for Moon Tiger
• Max More — philosopher and futurist, founder of the Extropy Institute
• Lindsay Northover, Baroness Northover — Liberal Democrat member of the House of Lords (2000—), currently a Government Whip.
• Justice Ruma Pal — judge of the Supreme Court of India (2000—2006)
• Norah Lillian Penston — principal of Bedford College, University of London, 1951—64
• Melanie Phillips — journalist and author, winner of the Orwell Prize
• Libby Purves, OBE — radio presenter and journalist, drama critic for The Times (2010—)
• Sir Simon Rattle, CBE, FRSA — prominent conductor, currently the principal conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic (2002—)^[8]
• Dame Cicely Saunders, OM, DBE — Anglican nurse, physician, writer, and pioneer of the hospice movement
• Frances Stonor Saunders — journalist, historian, television, film-maker, and former associate editor of the New Statesman
• Susan Sontag — prominent American author, literary theorist, and political activist
• Russell Taylor, MBE — writer, journalist and composer
• Polly Toynbee — journalist, writer, and columnist for The Guardian (1998—)
• Jenny Uglow, OBE — critic and noted biographer, currently editorial director of Chatto & Windus.
• Jill Paton Walsh, CBE, FRSL — novelist and children's writer
• Mara Yamauchi — noted long-distance track and marathon runner.

Notable academics

• Peter Ady — former Fellow (1947—?), eminent development economist, adviser to the Burmese Government and Ministry of Overseas Development.
• Roger Crisp - current Professor of Moral Philosophy, Uehiro Fellow and Tutor in Philosophy, Chairman of Management Committee of Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics.
• Peter Donnelly, FRS — current Fellow (1996—), Australian mathematician and statistician, and current director of the Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics at Oxford University.
• Bent Flyvbjerg — current Fellow, noted economic geographer, urban planner, and current director of the BT Centre for Major Programme Management at the Saïd Business School.
• Georg Gottlob, FRS — current Fellow (2006—), noted Austrian computer scientist specialising in database theory, logic, and Artificial Intelligence.
• A. C. Grayling, FRSA, FRSL — current Supernumerary Fellow, philosopher, author, human rights and civil liberties advocate.
• Tony Judt, FBA — former Fellow (1980—1987), author, historian, and public intellectual, later the director of the Erich Maria Remarque Institute at NYU and contributor to the New York Review of Books.
• John Lloyd — current Supernumerary Fellow, journalist, contributor to the Financial Times, and co-founder of the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at Oxford University.
• Nick Middleton — current Supernumerary Fellow, physical geographer specialising in desertification, and consultant to the IUCN, UNEP, EU, and WWF.
• Iris Murdoch, DBE — former Fellow (1948—?), philosopher, and novelist, known for Under the Net and The Sea, The Sea.
• Graham Nelson — current Supernumerary Fellow (2007—), mathematician, poet, and noted interactive fiction game designer.
• Stephen Alexander Smith — former Fellow (1991—1998), legal scholar and writer.
• Gabriele Taylor — current Senior Research Fellow, philosopher in ethics.

References

External links

• College official website
• St Anne's MCR (Middle Common Room) Website
• St Anne's JCR (Junior Common Room) Website
• St Anne's JCR Alternative Prospectus
• Virtual Tour of St Anne's College