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The University of Cambridge

The University of Cambridge is one of the oldest and most prestigious universities in the world. Founded in 1209, it is comprised of 31 colleges and over 100 academic departments. Cambridge consistently ranks among the top 10 universities globally and has educated over 100 Nobel laureates. While the university has a long history of tensions with the city of Cambridge, known as "town and gown", it now brings significant economic benefits and employment to the area through its growth and related industries.

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127 views

The University of Cambridge

The University of Cambridge is one of the oldest and most prestigious universities in the world. Founded in 1209, it is comprised of 31 colleges and over 100 academic departments. Cambridge consistently ranks among the top 10 universities globally and has educated over 100 Nobel laureates. While the university has a long history of tensions with the city of Cambridge, known as "town and gown", it now brings significant economic benefits and employment to the area through its growth and related industries.

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The University of Cambridge

One of the most prestige universities in the world, The University of Cambridge is a
collegiate public research university based in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209 and granted
a Royal Charter by King Henry III in 1231, Cambridge is the second-oldest university in the
English-speaking world and the world's fourth-oldest surviving university.
The university grew out of an association of scholars who left the University of Oxford
after a dispute with the townspeople. The two medieval universities share many common
features and are often referred to jointly as "Oxbridge". The history and influence of the
University of Cambridge has made it one of the most prestigious universities in the world.
Cambridge is formed from a variety of institutions which include 31 constituent Colleges
and over 100 academic departments organised into six schools. Cambridge University Press, a
department of the university, is the world's oldest publishing house and the second-largest
university press in the world. The university also operates eight cultural and scientific museums,
including the Fitzwilliam Museum, as well as a botanic garden. Cambridge's libraries hold a total
of around 15 million books, eight million of which are in Cambridge University Library, a legal
deposit library.
As of September 2017, Cambridge is ranked the world's second best university by the
Times Higher Education World University Rankings, and is ranked 3rd worldwide by Academic
Ranking of World Universities, 6th by QS, and 7th by US News. According to the Times Higher
Education ranking, no other institution in the world ranks in the top 10 for as many subjects. The
university has educated many notable alumni, including eminent mathematicians, scientists,
politicians, lawyers, philosophers, writers, actors and foreign Heads of State. As of October
2018, 118 Nobel Laureates, 11 Fields Medallists, 6 Turing Award winners and 15 British Prime
Ministers have been affiliated with Cambridge as students, alumni, faculty or research staff.
By the late 12th century, the Cambridge region already had a scholarly and ecclesiastical
reputation, due to monks from the nearby bishopric church of Ely. However, it was an incident at
Oxford which is most likely to have formed the establishment of the university: two Oxford
scholars were hanged by the town authorities for the death of a woman, without consulting the
ecclesiastical authorities, who would normally take precedence (and pardon the scholars) in such
a case, but were at that time in conflict with King John. The University of Oxford went into
suspension in protest, and most scholars moved to cities such as Paris, Reading, and Cambridge.
After the University of Oxford reformed several years later, enough scholars remained in
Cambridge to form the nucleus of the new university. In order to claim precedence, it is common
for Cambridge to trace its founding to the 1231 charter from King Henry III granting it the right
to discipline its own members and an exemption from some taxes (Oxford would not receive a
similar enhancement until 1248).

Myths and Legends


As an institution with such a long history, the university has developed a large number of
myths and legends. The vast majority of these are untrue, but have been propagated nonetheless
by generations of students and tour guides.
A discontinued tradition is that of the wooden spoon, the “prize’’ awarded to the student
with the lowest passing honours grade in the final examinations of the Mathematical Tripos. The
last of these spoons was awarded in 1909 to Cuthbert Lempriere Holthouse, an oarsman of the
Lady Margaret Boat Club of St John's College. It was over one metre in length and had an oar
blade for a handle. It can now be seen outside the Senior Combination Room of St John's. Since
1908, examination results have been published alphabetically within class rather than in strict
order of merit. This made it harder to ascertain who was "entitled" to the spoon (unless there was
only one person in the third class), and so the practice was abandoned.
Each Christmas Eve, BBC radio and television broadcasts The Festival of Nine Lessons
and Carols sung by the Choir of King's College, Cambridge. The radio broadcast has been a
national Christmas tradition since it was first transmitted in 1928 (though the festival has existed
since 1918). The radio broadcast is carried worldwide by the BBC World Service and is also
syndicated to hundreds of radio stations in the US. The first television broadcast of the festival
was in 1954.

Town and gown


The relationship between the university and the city has not always been positive. The
phrase Town and Gown is employed to differentiate inhabitants of Cambridge from students at
the university, who historically wore academical dresses. There are many stories of ferocious
rivalry between the two categories: in 1381, strong clashes brought about attacks and looting of
university properties while locals contested the privileges granted by the government to the
academic staff. Following these events, the Chancellor was given special powers allowing him to
prosecute the criminals and re-establish order in the city. Attempts to reconcile the two groups
followed over time, and in the 16th century agreements were signed to improve the quality of
streets and student accommodation around the city. However, this was followed by new
confrontations when the plague hit Cambridge in 1630 and colleges refused to help those
affected by the disease by locking their sites.
Nowadays, these conflicts have somewhat subsided and the university has become an
opportunity for employment among the population, providing an increased level of wealth in the
area. The enormous growth in the number of high-tech, biotech, providers of services and related
firms situated near Cambridge has been termed the Cambridge Phenomenon: the addition of
1,500 new, registered companies and as many as 40,000 jobs between 1960 and 2010 has been
directly related to the presence and importance of the university.

Graduation
Unlike in most universities, the Cambridge Master of Arts is not awarded by merit of
study, but by right, four years after being awarded the BA.
At the University of Cambridge, each graduation is a separate act of the university's
governing body, the Regent House, and must be voted on as with any other act. A formal meeting
of the Regent House, known as a Congregation, is held for this purpose. This is the common last
act at which all the different university procedures (for: undergraduate and graduate students; and
the different degrees) land. After degrees are approved, to have them conferred candidates must
ask to their Colleges to be presented during a Congregation. This happened until the 2006, when,
for the first time, a Graduate Student (Dr Luca Epis) refused the degree approved by the Board
of Graduate Studies, creating a "leading case" on the matter.
Graduates receiving an undergraduate degree wear the academic dress that they were
entitled to before graduating: for example, most students becoming Bachelors of Arts wear
undergraduate gowns and not BA gowns. Graduates receiving a postgraduate degree (e.g. PhD or
Master's) wear the academic dress that they were entitled to before graduating, only if their first
degree was also from the University of Cambridge; if their first degree is from another
university, they wear the academic dress of the degree that they are about to receive, the BA
gown without the strings if they are under 24 years of age, or the MA gown without strings if
they are 24 and over. Graduates are presented in the Senate House college by college, in order of
foundation or recognition by the university, except for the royal colleges.

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