History of Templeton College
Templeton College has always had a distinctive culture – a product of the vision of its founders, of the teaching and learning approaches developed by its Fellows, and the personal dedication of its staff. Marrying practical relevance and academic rigour, this culture was built on a commitment to life-long individual development and an emphasis on partnership, participation and dialogue. The College always sought new ways to shape its role, bringing together leaders from various fields to explore key issues in management and related policy areas in the widest possible context.
Templeton College timeline
1965 Oxford Centre for Management Studies established under the Chairmanship of Sir Norman Chester, Warden of Nuffield College, and the Directorship of Norman Leyland, Bursar of Brasenose, supported by a gift from Clifford Barclay to provide companies and individuals in mid-career with post-experience management education. 1966 First Senior Managers Development Programme offered. 1967 University of Oxford introduced the BPhil (later MPhil) in Management Studies with tuition based at OCMS. 1969 Opening of Kennington (Egrove Park) site. 1971 First Oxford doctoral student in Management Studies registered. 1983 Major benefaction received from Mr (later Sir) John Templeton. 1984 Name changed to Templeton College and first students are matriculated. 1995 Granted Royal Charter and full College status. 1996 First MBA students matriculated. 2005 Executive (non-degree) programmes transferred to the Saïd Business School. 2006 Rewley Abbey Court graduate accommodation acquired. 2008 Merger with Green College.
Templeton College connections
Building on its role as Oxford’s specialist graduate college in Management Studies, Templeton became the centre of a high-level network in the subject, bringing together Fellows, students and alumni, business leaders, and leaders of thought from around the world in order to cross-fertilise study and debate, and catalyse new approaches.
The College formerly hosted the following organisations:
- The Emerging Markets Forum
- The Oxford Futures Forum
- The Oxford Chairs & CEOs Dinner Discussions
- The NHS Chairs Group
- The Tomorrow Project
Among events held by the College were the Oxford Leadership Prize, the Barclay Foundation Lectures, and the Symposium on Ethical Frameworks for Financial Services.
Research projects pursued by Templeton have included the Strategic Renewal Research Project (SRRP) carried out in collaboration with the European Patent Office and Shell International, the METOKIS project on the future of automated information searching, and a major EC-funded study of European business logistics.
Templeton has played a particularly important role in bridging management, government, and the public sector. The pre-office training of the Labour Shadow Cabinet was undertaken by the College in 1996. Since then Fellows, including Keith Ruddle, Chris Sauer, Roger Undy, Ian Kessler and Sue Dopson, have been closely involved in a range of projects from change management in government departments to studies of changing public sector roles and workshops on the future of work and pensions and on health and social care. Most recently, the College was the centre for a series of workshops on IT-Enabled Policy Delivery in Government.
The Templeton College Crest
The Templeton College crest features a Nautilus shell. This image was chosen because the Nautilus’s constantly evolving structure, featuring linked yet separate chambers, was thought to symbolise the College’s culture, built on independent growth at the intersection of different fields and approaches. The crest was adopted on the recommendation of Sir John Templeton and Uwe Kitzinger, College President 1980-1991.
The Nautilus has been retained in the new Green Templeton College crest.
View an archive of Templeton publications including Templeton Views and the Annual Review.