Company Profile

Company Overview

St Peter’s is one of thirty-eight Colleges in the University of Oxford. Each is independent and self-governing. Colleges are a core element of the University. They have primary responsibility for the admission of undergraduates and their tutorial tuition and welfare - whereas the University has primary responsibility for the admission and academic supervision of graduate students. The University includes many departments and faculties, organised into academic divisions. It determines the content of courses, organises lectures, sets and marks examinations, and awards degrees. It provides a wide range of resources for teaching and learning, including libraries, laboratories, museums and computing facilities. Many academic staff are employed by both a College and the University. The complex structure of the University is described in detail at www.ox.ac.uk.

St Peter's College occupies a central but quiet location on the site of two of the University's oldest inns or medieval hostels, Bishop Trellick's, later New Inn Hall, and Rose Hall, which can be traced back to the thirteenth century. It began in 1929 as St Peter’s Hall, a Permanent Private Hall founded by Francis James Chavasse, Bishop of Liverpool, who was concerned at the rising cost of education in the older universities in Britain, and envisaged St Peter’s as a college where promising students who might be deterred by the cost of college life elsewhere could obtain an Oxford education. His son, the Revd Christopher Chavasse, later Bishop of Rochester, was the first Master. St Peter’s has been a full college of the University of Oxford since 1961, and is one of the younger colleges.

The College currently comprises a Master, Mark Damazer CBE, and 65 Fellows and College Lecturers actively engaged in teaching and research in a wide range of subjects, about 200 graduate and 350 undergraduate students, 20 Visiting Students and 90 members of administrative and domestic staff.

Governance

The College is a registered charity. It is governed by the c.35 Official and Professorial Fellows who sit on the Governing Body under the chairmanship of the Master, and who have the status and responsibilities of charity Trustees. Most of the Official Fellows are employed jointly by the College and the University, though some are College-based. Professorial Fellowships are held by Statutory Professors of the University.

Finance

Apart from the buildings on its core site and its annexes, the College has total assets in property and investments to a net value of about £56m, including debts of £12.3m. The College has an annual turnover from all its activities of around £8m. The College is determined to continue to build up its capital and increase its income.

Context

St Peter’s is almost 90 years old - over 50 of these as a fully established Oxford college. It has an alumni base of over 7,000. It is a distinctive and well regarded component of the University of Oxford.

Many more want to study at St Peter’s than we can admit. Those that gain a place at undergraduate level are overwhelmingly awarded either a 2:1 or a First class degree. Graduate students study for a broad range of taught course and research degrees. St Peter’s alumni are highly employable: they include the current Governor of the Bank of England, the first woman to be made a Church of England bishop, the former Chief of the Defence Staff, the recently retired First Sea Lord, the Chief Justice of Rwanda, high court judges, a range of leading business people, university vice-chancellors, newspaper editors, charity Chief Executives, actors, artists and many others. These and many others have seized the opportunity that a St Peter’s and Oxford education provide to make a difference in the world.

The College has helped young people from all backgrounds to make the most of their talents, academic and otherwise, and provided a home for outstanding teaching and research.