Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
Oxford College Arms is an accessible 112-page handbook designed to open up the treasure chest of ancient coats of arms and relate them to today's university and college branding. The book is written for current students and college applicants, as a reference for college and university staff, school advisers, parents and alumni. But the potential market is broader, as a reference for tourists, Oxfordshire residents and visitors. It has interest and value for anyone interested in British history. The rich existing market for branded goods in tourism and college souvenir shops provides a fertile context for promoting the book. The book will also serve as a guide for purchase of heraldic souvenirs.
The colleges are the human face of Oxford. Before there was a university, Oxford as long ago as 1096 had students coming to study. Starting in 1167, when Henry II prohibited students going to Paris to study, Oxford began to grow and it stopped growing, temporarily, only during the eras of Henry VIII, who dissolved the monastic colleges, and Charles I, who depleted the assets of the colleges during his civil war with Parliament. Halls were established where students lived and their teachers taught. The number of students spurted after the Second World War when the British Government wisely invested in educating the armed-services war survivors and strengthened university programs to develop needed new skills and specialties:
- New graduate (aka "postgraduate") programs independent of the colleges, as students were attached to their academic departments rather than colleges. Students and faculty in these department-based programs missed the intimacy and brand affiliation of being attached to a college, and so the University creating new college places.
- Existing colleges expanded in size.
- Several new colleges were created.
- Permanent Private Halls, which were religious in origin and of which six remain today, were encouraged to admit more students and to behave more like the colleges; some PPHs were promoted to college status.
Students and faculty must apply to a college or hall, and nowadays they almost always live in one. That means they need a quick link to identifying each college. The coat of arms is designed to do exactly that.