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Oxford’s Kellogg College comes of age

23 March 2011

Oxford’s college for lifelong learning students celebrates reaching the age of maturity itself as it turns 21 this month. The college comes of age at a time when part-time graduate education may become increasingly attractive with university graduates saddled with tuition charge repayments.

With more than 660 students from 73 countries, Kellogg is the University’s most international college, as well as the largest graduate-only college. It has close links with the University’s Department for Continuing Education, the Department of Education and other departments active in areas of professional and part-time study.

Professor Jonathan Michie, the President of Kellogg College, said: ‘As a young college with mainly part-time graduate students, Kellogg is far from a typical Oxford college. Many people inside and outside Oxford may not even be aware of us, just as they may not be aware of the 15,000 students passing through the Department for Continuing Education every year who are admitted to Oxford in addition to its 20,000 full-time students.

‘Yet the college and its students represent an important part of Oxford. It is incredible to think that just 21 years ago, someone wanting to take a postgraduate degree while continuing with their careers or other responsibilities couldn’t return – or come – to Oxford. Kellogg has opened the scholarship of Oxford to audiences who could never otherwise have benefited. And it has allowed Oxford to fish in a bigger talent pool to get the best students, no longer limited to those able to quit their jobs and careers and return to being full-time residential students – and Oxford is the better for it.’

Students at Kellogg College study on a range of graduate courses, from creative writing to evidence-based healthcare. The first postgraduate students came to study part-time master’s and doctoral degrees in English Local History and Software Engineering – both courses are still thriving, and programmes such as the MSt in International Human Rights Law are growing in popularity.

Last year saw the first students studying a new Master’s in Sustainable Urban Development, which was supported by the Prince's Foundation for the Built Environment, and in October incoming students will be enrolled on new degree offerings including a Master’s Degree in Literature and Arts, a Master’s in Surgical Science and Practice, and a Master’s in the History of Design.

This year also marks a number of steps forward in the college’s wider development – it has just purchased an additional house on Bradmore Road in North Oxford to extend its student accommodation. This year for the first time Kellogg is also sharing the cost of Clarendon Scholarships for students thanks to a fund-raising dinner with Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who addressed a packed Sheldonian Theatre as part of the college’s Bynum Tudor lecture series.

A number of current students are available for interview; for further information, please contact Julia Paolitto in the University of Oxford Press Office on 01865 280531 or julia.paolitto@admin.ox.ac.uk

Notes for editors

Kellogg College traces its origins to the start of the university extension movement in the 1870s, but did not formally come into being until March 1990. It was named in honour of Mr W K Kellogg on the 1 October 1994, in recognition of the support given by the W K Kellogg Foundation to the University over the preceding decades.

To mark its 21st anniversary, the college held a special Foundation dinner for college members, as well as a Gaudy for old members with Baroness Professor Susan Greenfield delivering a pre-dinner lecture on 'Will 20th-Century technology change our minds?’

The college is home not only to students but to a number of research centres. It hosts the Oxford Centre for Mutual and Employee-Owned Business, which is currently advising the government on mutualising the Post Office. Its Centre for Creative Writing regularly holds seminars and master-classes given by the likes of PD James and Julian Barnes.

For more on the college see http://www.kellogg.ox.ac.uk/