Oxford Inscriptions: Admission of women at former men's colleges
Jesus College
In Michaelmas Term 1974 five men’s colleges in Oxford admitted women for the first time. These were Brasenose, Hertford, Jesus, St Catherine’s and Wadham Colleges.
THE FIRST WOMEN TO
STUDY AT JESUS COLLEGE
CROSSED THIS THRESHOLD
IN 1974
This inscription is on a flagstone beneath your feet as you enter Jesus College's main entrance in Turl Street, immediately behind the wooden door to the left. (As this door is often kept closed, it is easy to miss it if you enter through the right-hand door.)
It was installed in 2014 on the 40th anniversary of co-education at the college.
The question of admitting women to Jesus was first formally raised at a college meeting on 16 December 1970, with thirteen Fellows voting for the motion and three against. It became known as the “Jesus experiment”, and they were joined by four other men's colleges – Brasenose, Hertford, St Catherine's and Wadham – all of which admitted women for the first time in Michaelmas 1974. In the first year, 22 female undergraduates out of a total of 99 were admitted to Jesus.
- Film about the flagstone with Professor Yvonne Jones
(Professorial Fellow in Medicine at Jesus and Sir Andrew McMichael Professor of Structural Immunology)
Balliol College
Balliol College admitted women undergraduates for the first time five years later in 1979, but celebrated an earlier (thirtieth) anniversary of 2009 by unveiling this stainless steel sun and moon dial in the Garden Quad in 2010:
The inscription on the mounting reads:
Celebrating the Thirtieth Anniversary of the first admission of women undergraduates to Balliol 1979–2009
The first inscription on on the base reads:
For all women at Balliol: past, present and future
The second inscription on the base is written as a mirror image, but can be read in the reflection on the base of the sun and moon dial:
About Time
The British Sundial Society explains here how it works as a sun and moon dial, and how a line on the dial lights up each year on the actual date of the first woman's admission (11 October) because of a notch on the gnomon.
Worcester College
Worcester College also accepted women for the first time in Michaelmas 1979
Women first crossed
this threshold
as students of
Worcester College
Michaelmas Term
1979
This is on the threshold of the college, and students walk over it to get in.