Professor Peter Mandler gives the 2014 Emden Lecture at St Edmund Hall.

St Edmund Hall

The Crisis of the Meritocracy: Education and Democracy in Modern Britain

St Edmund Hall is a friendly, informal college with a strong sense of community; an excellent place for academic and social life. We admit about 115 undergraduates every year, evenly divided between sciences and arts, who bring a wide range of intellectual, sporting and other interests. We take a keen interest in students' careers: our Bridge to Business programme, funded by the generosity of a former student, is particularly popular. We also have a strong commitment to graduate students and graduate study. Graduate students form an increasing proportion of the Hall and represent a diverse population of students from across the world studying a wide range of subjects. With our roots in the early 13th century, we are the only medieval academic Hall to have survived. St Edmund Hall formally became a college on being granted a Royal Charter in 1957. Our architecture is a happy blend of ancient and modern. The library was the medieval church of St Peter-in-the-East, a large and beautiful building; much of the front quadrangle is 16th- and 17th-century; the remainder of our buildings are modern. Our graduates include Terry Jones (of Monty Python), John Wells (co-founder of Private Eye), Anna Botting (Sky News journalist) and Dr Michael Nazir-Ali (former Bishop of Rochester).

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St Edmund Hall