The College Plan

To deliver on our core commitment to excellent undergraduate teaching and learning, we will continue to:

• prioritise, protect and support the tutorial system as the cornerstone of an Oxford undergraduate education to ensure that our undergraduates’ learning environment is attentive, challenging, and stretching.
• train our students in evidence-based modes of enquiry, and vigorously support curious, rigorous, adventurous and well-argued learning.
• appoint to tutorial fellowships academics who demonstrate a clear commitment to teaching as well as to research excellence, thereby protecting research-led and research-enriched teaching as a means of educating and inspiring our students.
• provide sufficient resources to support students’ studies, including through continued investment in the College Library, and ensure that the available study spaces in College are both sufficient and fit-for-purpose.
• admit undergraduates in line with our current intake numbers. We will keep numbers at current levels to ensure that the students whom we admit can continue to benefit from a high level of personalised attention in how they are taught and supported.

And we will look to:

• endow more academic posts to assure our tutorial teaching for the long term.
• ensure that our students acquire life skills to equip them for a fast-changing world, specifically including the adept and responsible use, interrogation and governance of AI.
• increase the amount of resource available to support undergraduate students’ academic activities (including travel, internships, fieldwork and academic support).

To deliver on our core commitment to providing an enriching and supportive base for postgraduate students, we will continue to:

• maintain a comfortable and appropriately equipped common room for the MCR, to encourage a sense of communal belonging for the postgraduate community within the broader community of the whole College. [See also 2.1 below.]
• assign a College Graduate Advisor to each postgraduate student, to provide advice and guidance when needed.
• offer postgraduate students individual academic progress reviews with the Tutor for Graduates and/or the Master.
• provide expanding and professionalising opportunities for postgraduates, including through presenting aspects of their research projects to members of the SCR and MCR.

And we will look to:

• expand the number of postgraduate scholarships the College can offer and seek out matched funding schemes to optimise the benefits of funds raised for this purpose, particularly through participation in University-wide schemes to widen access to postgraduate study.
• increase the amount of resource available to support postgraduates’ academic activities (including travel, internships, fieldwork, and conference attendance).
• grow our graduate student numbers modestly and sustainably in ways that maintain a cross-disciplinary balance.

To deliver on this core commitment, we will continue to:

• model the highest standards of research integrity and expect the same of our students.
• retain our commitment to academic independence and academic freedom; and to disseminating and applying our research without interference or undue influence, and for the public benefit in line with our charitable status.
• support, celebrate, publicise and, where possible, extend the reach of our academics’ research, and of the innovation emerging from that research, whether produced by the lone-scholar model, through a bespoke collaboration or by an established research group. We will do this as part of, and in concert with, the collegiate University of Oxford.
• work to support the research careers of our Tutorial Fellows alongside the teaching and administrative needs of the College by supporting our Tutorial Fellows in taking sabbaticals, attending conferences and in applying for research grants while still respecting and delivering on what it means to be a College Tutorial Fellow.

And we will look to:

• endow more academic posts to assure our research life alongside our tutorial teaching for the long term.

To deliver on our core commitment in relation to access, outreach and admissions, we will continue to:

• scrutinise our processes and procedures to ensure that our selection practices remain rigorous and fair, and that we are well positioned to identify the potential of all applicants, whatever their background.
• seek to increase the number of student applicants from all backgrounds who select St Peter’s as their first-choice college.
• invest in well considered outreach activities, including free, aspiration-raising, on-site programmes, to help us to find, attract and inspire students of significant potential from underrepresented backgrounds.
• enlist the help of our students as ambassadors on access and outreach programmes in challenging stereotypes about Oxford and the Oxford admissions process.
• monitor the results of our access and outreach work in encouraging applications from underrepresented communities to maximise the efficacy of the work we undertake.
• offer financial assistance to students on course who are in need, and to ensure that potential applicants for whom this might be relevant are alerted to the helpful provision that is available in this respect.

And we will look to:

• seek new and imaginative ways to engage and attract promising students from all backgrounds, specifically including those from under-represented backgrounds.
• attract increased support for the post of Access and Outreach Officer to assure it for the future.

Building and contributing to our wider communityTo deliver on our core commitment in relation to our student community, we will continue to:

• provide a stimulating programme of cultural events both for our students and our wider community.
• maintain comfortable and appropriately equipped common rooms for the JCR and for the MCR respectively, to encourage a strong sense of communal belonging for each constituency within the broader community of the whole College.
• encourage our students to take positive, solution-focused and creative approaches to building community life.
• support our students in developing personal resilience, to help them navigate a challenging world.
• provide well-targeted in-house welfare support and appropriate onward signposting to external professional services for those in need.
• respect and celebrate our internationalism and our diversity in the multiple ways that help to make us the community that we are.
• respect and support those of all faiths and none while also supporting the life of the College Chapel as a key part of our foundation and an important ongoing element of our community life.
• value, protect and celebrate the best of our inherited traditions – including the centrality of Hall dining to our community life – while also innovating with new and creative community initiatives.

And we will look to:

• increase the support we receive for student music, sport and other individually and communally enriching activities.
• increase the support we receive for our welfare work, including the post of Dean for Welfare, as a crucial part of enabling our students to fulfil their potential, including those facing the greatest challenges.

To deliver on our core commitment in relation to our wider community, we will continue to:

• work to ensure that our former students and other friends, from the UK and around the world, feel part of the ongoing life and work of the College, warmly welcomed at College events and attuned to and supportive of our mission with current students.
• find imaginative ways to narrate to multiple audiences, internal and external, stories about the history of the College and about our current community and activities. We will use tales and objects from our archives to tell the College’s story in engaging ways.
• invite in guests of interest and distinction from our wider community to share our traditions and to keep challenging and refreshing us.
• contribute positively to, and draw benefit from, the life and work of the wider collegiate University, which is a core part of our identity and belonging.
• contribute to our civic environment, being a responsible neighbour and positive collaborator on good local initiatives.

And we will look to:

• lay on inviting events and engaging initiatives to mark the double anniversary celebrations of: (i) the centenary of St Peter’s founding; and (ii) the 50th anniversary of the admission of women to the College.
• deliver an imaginative and engaging Centenary Campaign, setting out clearly and persuasively the opportunity it represents and its potential impact for good.
• make it both simple and appealing for our wider community around the world to participate in our centenary celebrations and Centenary Campaign.
• expand the meaningful systems of acknowledgement we can offer in order to recognise and honour those who generously invest in the future of the College.

To deliver on our core commitment to be a good employer, we will continue to:

• ensure our salaries are competitive and fair, and that our conditions of work are supportive, enabling, and accessible.
• invest in training opportunities to enable colleagues to develop their skills and to progress their careers.
• take note of the varied needs of our employees, including through offering flexible working where possible, through reasonable adjustments where needed and through providing other forms of practical and emotional support as feasible.
• ensure our teams are appropriately resourced and supported, with manageable workloads and sufficient resilience to navigate change while sustaining high-quality routine work.

To deliver on our commitment in relation to our estate, we will continue to:

• progress our sustainability agenda, nurturing the biodiversity of our green spaces and making improvements to the environmental credentials of our estate including by reducing our carbon footprint.
• maintain and develop the fabric and functionality of our estate to a high standard, while carefully managing programmes of work so as to minimise the potential disruption to our core mission.
• invest in improvements to the accessibility of our estate for the benefit of all who live and work in, study at and visit the College.

And we will look to:

• increase the amount of College accommodation available to our students, so that all undergraduates can be offered three years of College accommodation within the period of this Plan.
• fundraise to improve facilities in support of our students’ sporting activities and ambitions.
• complete the creation of beautiful and accessible music facilities to support the strength of our College music-making and to enhance our capacity to host culturally enriching public events.

To deliver on our commitment in relation to our finances, we will continue to:

• engage and steward our alumni and friends with care, respect and gratitude, building and nurturing a thriving and generous community of donors.
• work to maximise our conference and catering trade in income-generating ways while not impeding the delivery of our core mission.
• pursue and refine cost-effective procurement systems to secure both high-quality work and best value from contractors.
• invest our funds wisely, in accordance with our ethical investment policy, and drawing on expert external advice, in order to improve the financial sustainability of the College.

And we will look to:

• design and deliver a thoughtful, well targeted and energising Centenary Campaign to fundraise for our endowment and for other key strategic areas, offering our community attractive and meaningful destinations for giving while helping the College deliver core mission to a high standard. This is a priority to ensure our resilience for our second century.
• publicise more widely the in-lifetime benefits of becoming a member of the College’s Howard Society by mentioning College in one’s will, and the lasting benefits to the College of doing so, with the aim of significantly increasing Howard Society membership.

To deliver on our commitment to assuring our good governance, we will continue to:

• organise and regularly review our governance systems to ensure that College decision-making through our Governing Body and its committees, is well-informed, timely and responsible.
• facilitate channels for good student representation from both JCR and MCR communities within the structures of the College.
• work to ensure that our policies and processes are both sufficient and clear.
• remain in close contact with our regulator, the Charity Commission, on matters of relevance or concern as these arise.
• communicate regularly and clearly with our key stakeholder communities – internal and external – on key matters related to the life and work of the College.

And we will look to:

• complete the major review of our governance documents (including the Statutes and By-laws), steering them through the Privy Council approvals process to ensure that they are formalised in revised form and fit-for-purpose to anchor the life and work of the College for its second century.