Bridgewater-at-Oxford Overview

The Bridgewater-at-Oxford Program is designed to give a brief taste of the Oxford experience to students currently attending other colleges or universities. Since it began in 1987, the program has enrolled students from a wide range of institutions besides Bridgewater including Arizona State, Auburn, Columbia, Harvard, Holy Cross, Howard, Hunter, Louisiana State, McGill, McMaster, Montréal, North Carolina, Oberlin, Oregon, Princeton, Queen's (Canada), Roger Williams, Tufts, Vassar, Western Ontario, and Yale. All have found the experience uniquely rewarding.

Westwood High School graduating seniors have been participating in the program since 2006 under the direction of Mrs. Karen Brackman, WHS English teacher and Oxford Program aluma. In the spring of 2021, Mrs. Brackman retired her role, and Mrs. Rebecca Gillespie will be the new Oxford Program Coordinator.

Westwood is the only high school that has been invited to partner with this prestigious study abroad program with over 125 students attending and earning college credit over the past thirteen years. One of the distinctive features of the Bridgewater-at-Oxford Program, which carries three credits in English Literature, is that all of the classroom teaching is provided by Oxford faculty. Other American universities offer summer programs, but the instruction in these is usually provided by American professors. In contrast, Bridgewater-at-Oxford, with its small classes designed to foster the intellectual give-and-take, the hallmark of the tutorial style of instruction, more closely resembles the typical Oxford educational experience. Indeed, the Bridgewater-at-Oxford Program has been singled out by a number of Oxford faculty and administrators as academically superior.

Outside class, students will enjoy the Oxford ambiance in a variety of ways: browsing in the multitude of bookshops (new and secondhand) scattered throughout the city, savoring cream teas at the Randolph, punting on the Thames, talking with local farmers in the Covered Market, strolling through Christ Church Meadow or the larger Port Meadow, attending Evensong at Christ Church or Magdalen, jogging in the University Parks, joining in the discussions with other students and “dons” in the King’s Arms or walking to the Trout, a pub established in the twelfth century. During the summer, plays are often performed in the gardens of the colleges, their casts ranging in expertise from gifted undergraduates to West End professionals “up” from London, and every night in Oxford there are numerous musical events.