page_title: St Benet's Hall, Oxford
section_title: Modern status
hierarchical_section_title: St Benet's Hall, Oxford / Modern status
caption_attribution_description: English: Garden of St Benet's Hall, University of Oxford
context_page_description: St Benet's Hall is a Permanent Private Hall of the University of Oxford. Established in 1897 by Ampleforth Abbey, it is a Benedictine foundation whose principal historic function was to allow its monks to be able to study for secular degrees at the university. Today, most members of the hall are not monks, but lay undergraduates and graduates. The hall, which is still owned by Ampleforth Abbey, has a Benedictine and Roman Catholic ethos. However, there is no requirement that members of the hall should be Catholics.
  St Benet's was the last constituent body of the University of Oxford admitting men alone to read for undergraduate and graduate degrees. It was also the last single-sex college or hall in the university after St Hilda's College, the last all-women's college in Oxford, admitted men in 2008. In November 2013, the hall formally announced its intention to admit women graduate students within one year and women undergraduates as soon as additional housing facilities were obtained. Women were admitted as graduate students in October 2014 and as undergraduates in October 2016.
context_section_description: Until 2012, the master of the hall was always a Benedictine monk. The hall retains a monastic prior as well as a chaplain, both of whom are monks. The hall now principally admits laymen and women both as undergraduates and postgraduates. While there is no requirement that members of the hall should be Catholics - and most are not - all are asked to be supportive of the monks' life and values.
  As St Benet's is a PPH of the university, its fellows do not constitute its governing body; but they share with the master the day-to-day running of the hall, and elect one of their number to serve as a trustee of the St Benet's Education Trust. The hall matriculates students to be members of the university, and those of its members who have matriculated are full members of the university in all ways, and are able to supplicate for degrees on the successful completion of their studies. For most of its members the only noticeable difference made by the hall's legal status is that it is very much smaller than any of the Oxford constituent colleges.
  On 1 September 2012, Werner Jeanrond, formerly holder of the 1640 Chair of Divinity at the University of Glasgow, became the new master of St Benet's Hall. He was the first Catholic layman ever to run the hall. Jeanrond was a full member of the Faculty of Theology and Religion at Oxford and was engaged in both teaching and research, as well as serving as head of house.
  The current subjects in which undergraduate students are admitted by St Benet's are Theology, Philosophy and Theology, Theology and Oriental Studies, History, History and Politics, History and Economics, Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE), Classics, Classics with Oriental Studies, Oriental Studies (Egyptology; Egyptology and Ancient Near Eastern Studies, Islamic Studies, Hebrew Studies, and Jewish Studies), Oriental Studies with Classics, and Human Science. The hall admits graduate students from the same subjects as undergraduates as well as those studying at the Blavatnik School of Government, the Institute of Cognitive and Evolutionary Anthropology, and the Saïd Business School.
caption: St Benet's Hall Garden
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