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Now entering its forty-second year, the University of Massachusetts Amherst's Summer Seminar at Trinity College, Oxford is one of the oldest American summer programs at Oxford University. Unlike in other American programs abroad, Summer Seminar students take small classes organized around discussion rather than lecture and are taught by Oxford faculty.
These features shape the Seminar's teaching and learning.
- Courses and Instruction Last summer the Seminar offered more than a dozen courses in British literature, politics, law, and culture. Most major courses employ the Oxford tutorial system in which students meet regularly with their tutors in small groups. During the Summer Seminar 2007, the average major course enrolled six students.
- Faculty Seminar tutors are all experienced scholars either currently teaching at Oxford University or with experience teaching there in the past.
Any students interested in the Seminar are welcome to contact Jenny Adams, the Seminar Director, by email. Copies of the Seminar application may be printed from this website or obtained by contacting Professor Adams.
TRAVEL Students often to use their time in Oxford to explore other parts of the British Isles. Some people travel to such rural enclaves as the Cotswolds and Stonehenge on Salisbury Plain and small cities such as Canterbury. Others head to London and Edinburgh. Whatever your preference, Oxford is conveniently located near London and its airports and rail stations. No classes are scheduled on Fridays, which leaves the three-day weekends open for travel around Britain and Ireland or to such continental destinations as Paris and Amsterdam. The Seminar organizes some day trips, for which there is only a nominal charge to cover the expenses of transportation.
Apart from the formal curriculum, Trinity College itself offers rich and varied learning opportunities. The Seminar sponsors Tuesday evening lectures to complement the courses and introduce students to a broad range of British intellectuals and issues. Some summers, organized weekend movie showings have grown out of course topics and themes.
All Seminar students reside at Trinity College, many of them living in a quadrangle originally designed by Sir Christopher Wren in the seventeenth century. The College's spacious gardens, among the finest in Oxford, provide a beautiful setting for conversation, reading or a casual stroll. Meals are served in the College Dining Hall, constructed in 1618. The meal plan includes five dinners—Sunday through Thursday nights—and breakfast seven days per week. Social and intellectual life extends beyond the College walls, and Oxford itself has all the cultural vibrancy expected of one of the world's great university towns. Streets rich in literary and historical significance meander among the University's thirty-nine colleges. During any summer week one can find concerts in college chapels and plays produced in college gardens. Coffee shops, pubs, bookstores, churches, and gardens all lie just outside the College gates. Blocks away from Trinity College are the University Parks, with beautiful trails for running and jogging, fields for pick-up soccer, and other recreational opportunities. For those who need a harder work-out, Oxford has several gyms that offer short-term memberships.The Oxford Summer Seminar offers its students an opportunity not just to dwell among these academic treasures, but also to study and learn at a university that has been educating students since the Middle Ages. The Seminar invites its students to participate in a great academic tradition that has, for many former Seminar students, profoundly enriched their lives.
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