A Catholic institution of higher education at the University of Oxford will have its licence to teach students withdrawn from the end of the 2021-2022 academic year and may close permanently.
St Benet’s Hall, a permanent private hall (PPH) in Oxford with a Benedictine and Catholic ethos, was founded in 1897 for the education of Ampleforth Abbey monks and became a private hall, attached to the university, in 1918.
In a statement, the Master of St Benet's, Professor Richard Cooper and the University’s Pro-Vice Chancellor for Education, Professor Martin Williams, announced the decision and confirmed that student admissions would be halted for the next academic year, 2022-2023.
According to their statement, the governing body of Oxford University decided 9 May that “the University cannot be confident that the Hall can support a full cohort of students for the full duration of their studies for the next academic year”.
As a result, the University has “decided to not grant a long-term licence to St Benet’s Hall to continue to operate as a permanent private hall when the current licence ends”. Expressing hope that teaching might continue, the statement promised that measures were being taken to ensure St Benet's 80-plus current undergraduates would complete their education at other halls and colleges “as and when” the hall closes permanently.
Last year, St Benet’s halted undergraduate admissions when doubts arose about the its ability to sustain itself financially after its separation from the Ampleforth Abbey Trust. In an email to students dated December 2021, Professor Cooper explained that the Hall would “need to demonstrate to the university that, as an entity independent of Ampleforth Abbey, we would have a necessary level of medium/long term financial resilience” before taking on more students.
A key part in demonstrating this resilience to the University involved the purchase of two Hall buildings, 38 St Giles and 11 Norham Gardens, from the Ampleforth Abbey Trust. The Oxford Student reported that students were told the arrangement to halt admissions was made in the context of the Ampleforth Trust’s “independent decision to sell the buildings” in question.
After a call for funders to help secure the properties in December 2021, the hall’s leadership informed students that “credible financing was in place” to guarantee the future of the hall, according to Cherwell.
Speaking to The Tablet about the announcement, a spokesperson for the Ampleforth Abbey trust said: “The situation of St Benet’s following the university council’s decision now places an unacceptable level of risk on the Abbey Trust. It has therefore taken the decision to put the two properties on the market.
“The Abbey needs to look to the future to ensure the sustainability of the community here, and therefore it needs to focus on its core mission. It was always the preference of the Abbey Trust to sell the buildings to St Benet’s Trust if it could afford to buy them, but St Benet’s fundraising campaigns and funding options have not produced the desired results within the necessary timescales.”
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