125th Anniversary Annual Fund

In 2011, Mansfield celebrates its 125th Anniversary.  This provides an optimum opportunity to celebrate the successes of the College to date, and also to consider ambitious new strategies to ensure the College’s ongoing development. We have been working hard on our 125th Anniversary strategy; one which will take Mansfield forward with the support of alumni, parents and friends to a firmer footing.  We hope to involve as many of you as possible in our objectives over the next few years and ensure that Mansfield is in the best position for the next 125 years.

The Case for Support

"There can be little doubt that Mansfield's donors are making a worthy investment. Mansfield students benefit from an excellent education and quality facilities that are forever improving. Mansfield remains a unique Oxford College in character and style and all donations that allow for the education of such an unusually diverse populace are greatly appreciated."

James Naish, former JCR President

"It has been enormously encouraging to see the level and the number of alumni who have supported Mansfield in the past year. People frequently ask why we need support - a simple question, to which the answers are complex, but essentially twofold. First, levels of government support have declined since the withdrawal of the direct college fee and reduction of the overall amount received by the University, which now has to be shared between the centre and the colleges. This threatens to undermine the tutorial system, a system which is much more labour-intensive than the lecture-based teaching of most universities. Hence we are giving a high priority to endowing our Tutorial Fellowships - two in Theology, one in Physics and one in Materials are already fully endowed, and we are past the half-way mark in Geography.

Secondly, Mansfield has a much smaller endowment to fall back on than almost all the other colleges, thanks to its history as a relatively recent foundation and a small theological college for most of its history. If we are to compete with wealthier colleges in terms of numbers of tutorial fellows, provision of accommodation, facilities and bursaries for students from poorer backgrounds we have to raise increasing amounts of money: it is a matter of running to stand still - but we aim to do much more than stand still!

Fortunately the success of so many of our graduates in their chosen careers is now reaching the point where increasing numbers of you are able and eager to give something back to Mansfield, so that the College may give others an environment in which academic, sporting, social and intellectual activity can flourish. We are hugely grateful."

Tony Lemon, Geography Fellow