Oxford’s Department for Continuing Education launched a new interdisciplinary extra-curricular programme, “The Vice-Chancellor’s Colloquium,” this term. The programme was first announced at Vice-Chancellor Irene Tracey’s 2023 Oration speech last October, and aims to bridge the gaps between humanities and STEM subjects through “an experiment in helping students learn from each other across the divide.”
The Vice-Chancellor’s Colloquium is offered to all undergraduates currently studying at the University and comprises keynote lectures and talks, interdisciplinary projects, and a panel which comes at the end of the term. The programme’s primary focus is to promote critical approaches to complex global issues, with climate change taking centre stage as its inaugural theme.
Participants will work on group projects guided by DPhil students in teams that are representative across the broad scope of humanities and mathematical, physical, life, social, and medical sciences. The programme also offers summer internship opportunities to support “the University’s goals for local and global engagement.”
The Vice-Chancellor’s oration centred on progress, and her introduction of the program notes the changing world the University is working to keep up with. Interdisciplinarity has been emerging across other universities across the UK: Oxford follows in the footsteps of other Russell Group institutions such as University College London (UCL) and the recently formed London Interdisciplinary School (LIS), which provides undergraduates with the opportunity to study a Bachelors of Art and Science (BASc).
