Oxford Round Table

About the Oxford Round Table

The Oxford Round Table is a not-for-profit interdisciplinary conference held at one or more of the 39 colleges in the University of Oxford for about 20 years. The Oxford Round Table is an Illinois not-for-profit corporation, although there is a Kentucky for-profit entity registered under the same name. (See notes for incorporation information.) The first meeting of the Oxford Round Table [2] was held at St. Peter's College in 1989. The round table brings together scholars from a variety of intellectual backgrounds, from new professors to college presidents, to discuss research on specific topics usually related to public policy. According to the conference's web site:

"Invitees to Round Tables are determined based on several criteria, among which are nominations by earlier attendees, courses that invitees teach, their presentations and writings, and their professional involvement in a relevant area of interest. An attempt is also made to diversify as to the type of institution, public or private, and to involve institutions representing different levels of education, i.e. schools, community colleges, four-year colleges, graduate and research universities."

The approximate cost of attending the Oxford Round Table is $2,940; it is not known if that rate will change with the depreciation of the American dollar.

Despite the name of the event, the Oxford Round Table has no formal ties to the University of Oxford, but rather with individual colleges in the University of Oxford. The ORT cooperates with various Oxford colleges, including Harris Manchester, St. Anne's and others to hold the meetings at the colleges when the undergraduate students not in session. Professors from UK universities, including Oxford, Cambridge and London, are invited to make presentations and facilitate the meetings.The Oxford Round Table is a not-for-profit corporation based in Illinois, though the same corporation has been chartered in Kentucky and Florida, and the Florida entity was chartered specifically as a for-profit corporation, though it is currently inactive.

Journal

The Oxford Round Table publishes a biennial Journal, The Forum on Public Policy: A Journal of the Oxford Round Table. The stated mission of the journal, according to its website, is

"to disseminate knowledge with regard to salient issues in public affairs. This includes research and policy advancement in both the public and private sectors that address government issues at state, national and international levels of discourse . . . articles must advance knowledge, theory, and practice . . . the content of articles must be accurate and technically competent . . . Third, articles must be well written, clear, well organized, and stylistically correct. A manuscript submitted for publication to the Forum must be original and not under consideration for any other publications. When a manuscript is published by the Forum, it become the property of the Forum with the Forum possessing exclusive right to publication. All authors will be required to sign a consent to publish form upon acceptance."

Issues of the Journal are thematic in nature. More recently the Journal moved to online publishing. The journal is indexed by Ebsco and Gale.

Hosting College: Harris Manchester

The Oxford Round Table cooperates with various Oxford Colleges, including Harris Manchester, to hold meetings at the colleges when the students are not in session. Harris Manchester college was originally created by the English Unitarians as an alternative to established colleges that had a religious test requirement that would exclude dissenters from degrees. Since its founding in 1786, the College has been located in Manchester, York, London, and then arrived at Oxford in 1889. Harris Manchester College became a "Permanent Private Hall" in 1990. It became a full college under Royal Charter in 1996, primarily to serve mature (non-traditional) students.

Recent American Academics Attending the Oxford Round Table

Diane L. Reinhard, President, Clarion University

John B. Noftsinger Jr., associate vice president for academic affairs at James Madison University

L. Preston Mercer, University of South Florida-Lakeland Vice-President and Campus Executive Officer

Intellectual Controversy

The Oxford Round Table has been subject to an intense (and sometimes irreverent) debate on the internet discussion boards of the Chronicle of Higher Education. The price of the conference and the relative intellectual merit are discussed at great length, though the credibility of any posting criticizing or lauding the conference is of limited merit given the anonymous nature of such discussion boards.

Insistence on anonymity by forum participants may be in part the result of the vigor with which the Oxford Round Table goes after its critics for offering their opinions. In June, 2007, the Oxford Round Table, Inc., sued Sloan Mahone, an Oxford University researcher, over emails that she had sent and posts she had made on the Chronicle of Higher Education forum. Ms. Mahone characterized the Oxford Round Table as a "tourist venture, not a prestigious academic event" and characterized the $3,000 participation fee as "outrageous." Claiming that these and other statements were "tortious interference" with "existing contractual relationships" and with "prospective contractual advantage," as well as defamation, Mr. Klint Alexander, the brother of the president of Oxford Round Table, Inc., Mr. Kern Alexander, filed a lawsuit, claiming in excess of $75,000 in damages from her emails and internet discussion board postings. On November 7, 2007, the court dismissed the case, finding no basis to assert jurisdiction over the Oxford lecturer.

Many participants offer interesting and laudatory accounts of their experience at the Oxford Round Table. An example, from a Texas Montessori day school director, Norma Morris:

There you have it….the week of March 12-17 was the stuff of fairy tales (actually we all felt a bit like we were having a Harry Potter experience). Oxford University with its 39 colleges presented a treasure box full of history, sights, tales and traditions that I will continue to absorb throughout the year. The Oxford Round Table with its 35 delegates and 35 guests, 15 presentations and panel discussions, professional and volunteer staff, and Round Table facilitator Elizabeth Bohon Alexander, M.D. served up the latest in early childhood information, best practices and research that we can all take back to our states, countries and communities to savor, implement and model.

An aspect of the controversy over the ORT is how participants are selected. This remains unclear, as Ms. Morris indicates from her own experience:

A lot of things have dropped out of the sky for me over the years, but none quite so unexpected or mysterious as the invitation to participate in the Oxford Round Table on Early Childhood Education held at Harris Manchester College of Oxford, University, Oxford, England. I promptly called them and asked how they got my name. They said that I had been recommended to them by a past early childhood round table delegate. I have yet to find out who that person is.

The criticisms of the Oxford Round Table made by anonymous posters who have never attended a meeting focus on four areas: 1) apparent lack of intellectual rigor in the presentations, 2) the promiscuous nature of the invitations, which are documented as having been issued to beginning graduate students, people in fields unrelated to the purported topic of the session to which they were invited, and to at least one convicted felon, 3) the extremely high cost for an academic conference, and 4) the seemingly purposeful attempt to make invitees think they have been invited by Oxford University, rather than by a private outfit in Kentucky.