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Oxford/Berkeley Summer Program Celebrates 40th Anniversary

Oxford Fellow Dr. Christopher Day to Speak March 17th at UC Berkeley Extension

Berkeley, CA., March 13, 2009 — Looking for a unique travel experience? Imagine yourself at Oxford's Merton College this summer, immersed in the history, culture, architecture, and beauty of Oxford University, the oldest university in the English speaking world.

2009 marks the 40th Anniversary of the Oxford/Berkeley Program where each summer a group of intellectually curious travellers from across the country slip the bonds of their routine lives and transform themselves into Oxford University scholars. They live and study at Merton College where they experience the centuries-old stained glass beauty of the chapel, drink tea in the cloisters, take in the theatre at the Oxford Playhouse, walk along the River Thames and engage in lively meal-time conversations with other students and tutors.

On March 17th, Dr. Christopher Day, Fellow of Kellogg College at Oxford University and co-director of the Oxford/Berkeley Program, will give a free public lecture, "Understanding Oxford Through Its Past," and answer questions about the upcoming Oxford/Berkeley Program, running July 6-25. The lecture will be held from 4:30-6 pm at UC Berkeley Extension's Berkeley campus.

"The history of Oxford provides a fascinating study since many of the great movements of English history were acted out in part or in miniature there," says Day, who is also an Oxford historian. "Medieval monasticism, the Reformation, the English Civil War, the early modern burgeoning of art, literature and science, 18th-century grandeur, Victorian dynamism, and the 20th-century technological revolution have all left solid memorials in the city or its environs."

The popular Oxford/Berkeley Summer program brings together teachers, doctors, lawyers, homemakers, and other professionals for a three week seminar that combines classroom instruction, independent study and field trips with Oxford University faculty. This year students can choose from seminars in Shakespeare, Winston Churchill, Georgian Homes, Art of the English Garden, Archaeology and History of Roman Britain, and the Scientific Imagination: from Antiquity to Quantum Physics. The program is sponsored by UC Berkeley Extension and Oxford University. More information about the Oxford/Berkeley summer program.