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Wycliffe Hall, Oxford

Brian Leiter

What do Oxford or UK readers make of this:

The college head thinks 95% of us are going to burn in hell. His new deputy believes it’s wrong for women to teach men. Insiders are complaining about an "openly homophobic" atmosphere. A third of the academic staff have resigned. Others are unwilling to speak openly to the press because they fear disciplinary action. Is this perhaps the notorious Bob Jones University in South Carolina, where rock music and mobile phones are banned, where men must have short hair and where women can’t wear trousers to class? No. Welcome to the University of Oxford.

Strictly speaking Wycliffe Hall is a permanent private hall of the University of Oxford, rather than a full college. But the difference is pretty academic. Wycliffe has control over its admissions policy and those who graduate do so with a full Oxford University degree. Which is why the thought that Wycliffe has been taken over by Christian fundamentalists is ruffling senior common room feathers all over the university. For having a cell of religious extremists succeed in claiming one of its precious institutions does little to enhance Oxford’s reputation.

As always, post only once and be patient!

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8 responses to “Wycliffe Hall, Oxford”

  1. Ralph Wedgwood

    My friends in the Theology Faculty here in Oxford have confirmed that "most of what has come out in the press [about Wycliffe Hall] is true".

    What this demonstrates rather dramatically is that Oxford colleges are autonomous academic institutions, and are not under any direct control of the University of Oxford. Indeed, the control that the University can exercise over any of these permanent private halls (PPH's), like Wycliffe Hall, is even less than it can exercise over a real college (such as my own college, Merton College, for example): at a real college, most of the Fellows will be employees of the central University as well as being Fellows of the college; but at a PPH, practically all the Fellows and other academic employees will be solely employed by the PPH, and not by the University.

    These PPH's are very small institutions, much smaller than the colleges. Unlike the colleges, most of them have practically no endowment to speak of. Many of them specialize in teaching Theology, although some of them (St Benet's Hall, for example) teach a slightly wider range of subjects. This obviously makes it much easier for a small clique to take over a PPH than it would be in a real college. So there is essentially no chance that anything similar to what has happened at Wycliffe Hall will happen at any of the more familiar Oxford colleges.

    Incidentally, the long-term future of the PPH's within the University is somewhat uncertain. There has been some talk of introducing various changes at some point (although such changes may not come for a while, and it is not clear exactly what form these changes will take).

    Reply
  2. Michael Rosen

    Originally, the "Permanent Private Halls" existed in Oxford as a way of letting those who couldn't sign up to the Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England (Catholics and Evangelical Protestants — I don't think that there were any catering for Jews or Atheists!) still get an Oxford degree. Students could take their degrees without being full members of the University. A typical British fudge and compromise and a definite positive for the intellectual diversity and quality of the place. Philosophers like Herbert McCabe (Greyfriars) and Frederick Copleston (Campion Hall) were significant intellectual contributors to Oxford life in recent times.

    Lately, the Permanent Private Halls have become problematic — not so much (when I was in Oxford, at least) because of the views being promoted in them but because the PPHs have been conspicuously "free riding" on the rest of the University. Many of them started admitting considerable numbers of visiting students (whom they charged substantial fees), provided them with tutoring that they bought in from whomever was available (usually graduate students), and sent along to use university libraries and attend lectures. That is, no doubt, what Colin Lucas was asked to investigate.

    I suspect that thirty years ago most people would have said that bizarre religious views were just what the Permanent Private Halls were set up to accommodate and that they should be left to get on with things in their own way. Anyone who didn't like it could leave. But really that won't do now. They are a part of Oxford University in the most practical way — as a route for students to come and get an Oxford education — and Oxford can't just stand back if the values it stands for are being flouted in the way that institutions that are to all intents and purposes constituent parts of it are run.

    But I don't envy them trying to sort it out.

    Reply
  3. John Gardner

    I've often taught interesting students from PPHs, and I'm reluctant to tar all these curious institutions with the same brush. Wycliffe Hall (under the current regime) seems a particularly bizarre example and I suspect that the university may have to threaten to withdraw its power to matriculate students by statute if its management isn't overhauled. But so far as I can see (and I've seen a lot) other PPHs are not in such an appalling state. They are largely friendly to academic freedom in spite of their denominational affiliations and, as Michael says, some have been home to distinguished scholars.

    Nevertheless, the PPH system is unsustainable. PPHs are at liberty to admit, and sometimes do admit, students that they have no satisfactory arrangements to tutor or supervise. They sometimes appoint utterly unsuitable people (faute de mieux?) as tutors, who then benefit from the psuedo-respectability of being (to outside eyes) card-carrying Oxford dons. They tend not be party to (or not to regard themselves as bound by) the intercollegiate agreements on admissions standards (or most other things) and it sometimes shows. As Michael says, they are free riding on the University's generally tremendous provision of lectures, libraries, and so forth.

    My sense is that the remaining PPHs should be put to the challenge: convert into full colleges, with full adherence to the standards that this status entails, or lose the right to matriculate Oxford students. But maybe Colin Lucas will have to arrive at more conciliatory conclusion. It's a lot easier to favour a simple 'put-up-or-shut-up' solution if one doesn't have to make it work politically, as poor Colin will have to. For a start, any new conversion to full college status will need an injection of funds from somewhere.

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  4. Mohan Matthen

    I suppose there is a difference between the question of what religious views people are allowed to have (in PPHs or elsewhere) and that of how they treat members of Oxford University. Oxford can't very well be neutral on the second question. Thus, it may be permissible for Oxford to leave Wycliffe Hall alone with regard to the religious beliefs professed by its head of house, but surely it should defend the rights of its students to be gay or atheistic. It may actually be unfair to students for Oxford to refuse to matriculate them if they join Wycliffe, but it is also unfair to them if WH refuses them their rights.

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  5. Ralph Wedgwood

    I should have made it clear that I don't want to criticize the PPH's in general. In a number of cases, they have employed distinguished scholars — and usually without any financial support from the central University for doing so. So it's not a straightforward judgment to say that they're just "free riding" on the University's generosity. The main point that I wanted to make in my previous post was just to emphasize the ways to which they are different from the regular Oxford colleges.

    Reply
  6. Adrian Briggs

    Why should they not all PPHs tarred with the same brush ? Their primary purpose is to peddle obscurantism, and although a university can properly study weird doctrines and those who adhere to them, weird diesases and those who suffer from them, and so forth, it is altogether different where the institution is established to propound the doctrine or the disease. That is not what a university is for. The fact that one or the other of these institutions has gone unusually feral is interesting but irrelevant: it ought not be part of or associated with the university in the first place. There is no doubt that some of the students who belong to PPHs are decent, diligent, deserving students. There is no reason to suppose that they would be prevented from applying to a college in the usual way if these PPHs were cut adrift. But the quality of the junior members is no reason to overlook the quality of the institution. What is going on at Wycliffe is bizarre, but it shoule be none of the university's business because it should be none of the university's business.

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  7. Adrian Boutel

    For what it's worth, Turnbull has a response in today's Guardian:

    http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/comment/story/0,,2092904,00.html

    I'm not terribly reassured. He complains, for example, that the report of his 95% comment omitted the qualification that they could escape by listening to the message of the gospels. (I'd guessed.) He "knows of no" homophobia or misogyny (but "there are various views" on women preaching in local churches). And they publish, you know.

    Reply
  8. G

    The PPHs vary amongst themselves as the colleges do, so John Gardner's point about not tarring them all with the same brush is an important one. Although there is certainly a religious aspect to each, this does not necessarily need to affect one's life as a member of the University: it is entirely possible to live an almost-normal undergraduate life in one. They are like very small colleges, and as such, rather more intimate.

    The problem they face is that because of their size and limited resources, they cannot provide for their students in the way that colleges can. Tutorials will almost always be given at other colleges (perhaps apart from for theology students) and in this regard teaching is indistinguishable from that given to other undergraduates. Libraries are a significant problem, and the subject faculties (or friends at other colleges) will invariably make up what the PPHs themselves cannot provide. This is not ideal, and there is indeed a two-tier system in operation. One might be inclined to question whether PPHs should be allowed to offer certain subjects without demonstrating a commitment to their students that goes beyond directing them to University-wide resources.

    It is not true in the strictest sense that they are 'free riding' on the University (surely they pay for what they receive?) but the benefits they obtain from it outweigh their contributions.

    Those conducting the upcoming review are probably aware of the relevant facts. If their aim is to effect a real change rather than to conduct a periodic study that restates them, they would do well to think carefully about what is best for the students within them as well as for institutional autonomy.

    Reply

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