Making room for a cohort of new students

The last blackberries of summer are eaten; dew sits on the grass in the early mornings; international coffee chains try to sell us pumpkin spice flavour drinks. It can only mean one thing: a new academic year is about to start in Oxford!

We’ve been hugely busy over the last few months admitting 70 new students, bringing our total student body up to nearly 150: one of the largest in decades. We’re delighted that so many people are choosing to join the community here. They arrive at Wycliffe from seventeen different countries (from Australia to the USA) and are enrolling on fifteen different programmes, from part-time one-year certificates in theology to full-time doctoral programmes. A few of them have shared a little about what brings them to Wycliffe this year.

27 of these new students will be training for ordination in the Church of England during their time at Wycliffe, but all will be discerning their future calling, whether that be to service in the church, the world of business, the third sector, or in academia. The first term of the year in Oxford is named after St Michael (the archangel, not our Principal), whose feast day falls a week or so before the start of term. In the Church of England lectionary at this time of year, therefore, we hear about the war that broke out in heaven and the defeat of “the deceiver of the whole world”. Moving to Oxford, starting study, and the ongoing discernment of vocation can all combine to challenge the spirituality of new students, and many may well feel like they are fighting a war against deception in the coming weeks. Your prayers for all of them would be hugely appreciated; may they hear clearly that “loud voice in heaven proclaiming ‘Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God!’”. 

If this tempts you to think about joining Wycliffe yourself, or if you know of someone else who you think would benefit from studying here, you can read here about the range of courses we offer and how to apply for them. We have a wide range of opportunities to find out more and to sample the community for a brief period of time, ranging from one-day events up to week-long study programmes, and we’d love to see you at one of them this coming year.