Academic Affairs

The University of Oxford is a Collegiate University, with many Departments under 4 Divisions that feed into the Central University. The teaching you’ll receive will be split between your Departmental teaching, and your College. Lectures and Classes are provided by the Department. Your tutorials are normally provided by your College, at least typically in the first year, before some courses swap to tutorials being organised centrally within the Department. However, even if you mostly have central tutorials, if you are concerned about your tutorial provision in general your first best bet is to talk to your College Tutor.

Lectures are there to provide, typically, a wide-breadth of knowledge to you, and expose you to the thoughts and thinking patterns of a range of different academics. College tutorials are there to help you prepare and focus in on a, usually less broad, body of work whilst under the supervision of the particular strengths of your College Tutors.

Tutorials should be a great space for you to discuss your ideas and receive constructive feedback on your submitted work. If you’re finding that you’re not having such a great time with your tutorials then the first person to speak to is your main College Tutor; they are the mostly likely person to be able to remediate and solve any problems that are arising, whether they be with the tutor, or more personal problems. If you don’t feel comfortable talking to your main Tutor then your next option would be Mark Wormald, the Senior Tutor. If you don’t feel comfortable talking to Mark then the next option would be Rachel Clifford, the Academic Registrar. If you still don’t feel happy talking to any of the above then pursuing a more Welfare-related route would be a good option, with Judith Maltby The Dean of Welfare being an excellent person to communicate any worries you have.

Additionally, the JCR Committee has a number of people you can express your concerns to: Eli Morhayim, The Academic Affairs and Suspended Students’ Officer; Will Jenkinson, The President; and any of the Welfare Officers. Your Subject Ambassador should also remain a good port of call for you, with them collecting termly feedback to send on to the Acad. Affairs Officer, who can raise issues within College further, or within the wider University through the SU.

For concerns primarily relating to College Tutorial provision, you should use internal College protocol to best effect changes. For concerns relating to Lectures, Classes, and other Departmental or Divisional teaching, you should use those feedback platforms to best mediate change. College-based changes are most likely mediated through internal academic committees. Departmental and Divisional change is most likely mediated through Student Representatives and Surveys such as the Student Barometer. As Acad. Affairs, I am happy to advise you on the best route to take, and to help you with that route if you have any concerns you’d like to raise.