Support Progress
Innovation, Inclusivity, and the Arts
Shaping the Future of Learning
At Jesus we are creating a smarter and stronger future for our community every day by fulfilling the promise of our enterprising students, fostering scholarship, and advancing research. What does it mean to be a 16th century Oxford college in the Digital Age? It means being receptive to progress, agile in our thinking, and making the most of opportunities that will help equip us with the most state-of-the-art learning practices available.
Progress for Jesus College also means making it more accessible for its current and future members. A formalised commitment to becoming more open and inclusive began in 2016 with the creation of an Access and Outreach team led by a dedicated College Access Fellow. Digital access and outreach is a key part of the future of the University’s public engagement, and we are particularly well placed with our Digital Hub, and our growing online access presence, to be influential leaders in this space.
Thanks to the new Rosaline Wong Gallery at Jesus, there is now an unprecedented opportunity for College to forge new creative partnerships and artistic collaborations. Progress also means creating new opportunities for our students to showcase their talents, follow their passions, and provide meaningful support for their creative exploration.
Support Advancement
With our College led by a Computer Scientist as our 31st Principal, and the subsequent introduction of Computer Science as a subject of study at Jesus in 2015, we are now at the cutting-edge of this rapidly expanding academic discipline. Since then, we have graduated cohorts of students in areas such as machine learning and artificial intelligence, and our research practices and College teaching have evolved in tandem to employ computational methods and data analytics.
We continue to push these boundaries to create new opportunities at Jesus for the furthering of Digital Age learning and research. With thanks to philanthropist Dr Henry Cheng Kar Shun, we created the Cheng Kar Shun Digital Hub to offer a dedicated space in College for interactive events, workshops and performances that demonstrate how advances in digital technologies are transforming our understanding of the world around us.
College Priority: Digital Hub Symposia
College’s brand new Digital Hub is a purpose-built educational facility designed for sharing interdisciplinary digital research, knowledge exchange, and teaching. The Hub’s digital streaming technology enables students to have an exceptional learning experience, and supports academics to engage with colleagues, researchers and institutions around the world. Support for Digital Hub symposia means supporting world-leading research in critical areas such as Climate Change, Global Healthcare, and Artificial Intelligence and Ethics.
We currently run over fifty Digital Hub events per year including lectures, performances, talks, book launches, competitions, and panel discussions meant to foster collaboration and discovery on themes ranging from Big Tech to the global economy.
Recent events include the student-led Oxford Synthetic Media Forum, which was Oxford’s first conference on generative AI and the synthetic future, and ‘Archives of the Future’, which explored the challenges and benefits of curating digital archival materials.
We encourage corporate sponsorship with organisations that care about having real-world impact and that want to help support academic scholarship that leads to meaningful engagement, formal application, rigorous testing and progress. We also invite partnerships with other leading Higher Educational international institutions and academics who are on the frontiers of cutting-edge research.
Corporate Sponsorship Spotlight
SOUTHWORKS Digital Media Lab
In 2024, SOUTHWORKS became founding corporate partners of a new Digital Media Lab located in College’s Cheng Kar Shun Digital Hub. The SOUTHWORKS Digital Media Lab will be a fully equipped space for the student community to develop a range of digital media content, including podcasts and videos. The concept also includes offering a digital skills training programmes for all College members.
“Contributing to the tech community is at the core of SOUTHWORKS’ values, and we are thrilled to continue our collaboration with Jesus College Oxford and support the continued development of the Digital Hub…We are excited to see the impact of the Digital Media Lab and the skills training programme, and we are proud to be part of such an innovative and impactful initiative.”
– Alejandro Jack, alumnus and SOUTHWORKS Founder
“I’m thrilled about our continued partnership with Jesus College, Oxford. At SOUTHWORKS, we believe in empowering people and organisations to accomplish great things through technology, and this partnership allows us to do just that…This partnership exemplifies our commitment to innovation and excellence, and we’re excited to be a part of it.”
– Johnny Halife, SOUTHWORKS Chief Technology Officer
Our Progress: Digital Manuscripts Project
The medieval manuscripts of Jesus College are among our oldest possessions. The collection started with the bequest of manuscript books by Gregory Prise in 1600, before College had even built its first library, and they date back centuries before our foundation. These include manuscripts written and decorated entirely by hand, which makes each one unique. The subjects of these texts include theology, philosophy, history, heraldry, mythology, poetry, grammar, music, and even chess. The manuscripts are currently only available to scholars working in the Weston Library (formerly the New Bodleian).
Jesus College has been a pioneer in digitisation, joining the Celtic Manuscripts Project in 1996. Digitisation will open up access to current students in Oxford, to interested members of the public, and to researchers from around the world.
In all, there are 100 medieval manuscripts in the care of College and we have the ambitious aim of accomplishing their complete digitisation and cataloguing. Support from Old Members and other donors has enabled College to make 18 manuscripts available on Digital Bodleian so far, with more being added every year. This project will require £160,000 to complete, with an additional £7,000 supported by the Development Fund each year.
Support Access
Thanks to Dr Matthew Williams, we now have one of the strongest access records in Oxford, with proven results in our target areas in London and across Wales. Through the success of our Access and Outreach programme, we have seen where our efforts are most needed. We already offer and support an extensive range of school visits, outreach programmes and activities for prospective students from non-selective state schools and under-represented groups. Over time, we have extended our range to inviting school children as young as Year 5 to experience College’s openness firsthand.
We now seek to expand our successful access offering to include in-reach programmes to support students throughout their time at College, ensuring that the access journey does not end when a student has been accepted, but continues at every stage of their studies at Oxford.
Our Progress: In-Reach Programmes and MOOCs
In-reach programmes are designed to offer opportunities and support for current Jesus students. This can come in the form of supporting internships and training for students who help with student recruitment and College Open Days. These programmes not only support students by helping them build skills and confidence, but also add value to the Access and Outreach programme by creating a mentored team of student ambassadors.
We also have ambitious plans to develop Jesus Access MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses), and to create a digital facsimile of College that could be explored on any device from anywhere in the world.
With this metaverse College, we could run hybrid events with people in our actual Digital Hub experiencing the same public lectures and outreach talks as those on the other side of the globe in a virtual Hub. This is an avenue that other Oxford and Cambridge colleges have not exploited, giving us an edge. We are currently seeking support to develop this programme.
Our Progress: Summer schools with Universify
Since 2018, Jesus College has offered fully-funded summer and Easter schools for London's most disadvantaged students. This is in collaboration with Universify Education, a fantastic charity that spun out of Oxford's access work. Thirty-five young people come in the summer before starting their Year 11 to prepare for their GCSEs. These students are invited to College again in the Easter holiday before their exams to revise and learn more about university.
The aim of our summer schools programme is to raise attainment and improve A-level and university choices for every participant. This is a highly effective intervention made possible by alumni support. To ensure it can continue to the future, please consider supporting this programme at Jesus.
Support Arts
In 2023, a College Arts Committee of current students and Fellows was formalised to represent the interests of music, drama, and the visual arts at Jesus. Support for College arts helps us to celebrate the artistic talents of our community and to create more opportunities for these practices to flourish.
The arts play an invaluable part in College life, and our popular student clubs such as the Music Society and non-auditioning Chapel Choir make it an inclusive and supportive environment in which to participate.
It is thanks to the generous support of alumni and friends that we have been able to help fund Chapel Choir tours abroad, host College Visiting Fellows in Art, and stage the Jesus College Shakespeare Project. Our aim is to bring the arts closer to the heart of College, both for the enrichment of our community and wider Oxford.
Cerddoriaeth Iesu
Thanks to the generous support of the Cerddoraeth Iesu Fund, Jesus College has been able to support a dedicated Chapel Music Coordinator, provide sheet music and other choir necessities, and fund Chapel Choir tours. This donation has transformed the quality of music provision at Jesus, increased membership of the Choir, and has created more opportunities for students from all backgrounds to participate in College music.
For other ways to support our Choir and Chapel please click here.
