Emmanuel front court and the Wren chapel

Emmanuel College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, founded in 1584 by Sir Walter Mildmay. Mildmay, a Puritan, originally intended Emmanuel to be a college of training for Protestant preachers to rival the successful Catholic theological schools that had trained Dominican friars for years. Emmanuel still has a few theological students, but has broadened itself to include students of a wide variety of subjects, and opened its doors to women in 1979.

Emmanuel graduates had a large involvement in the settling of North America. Of the first 100 university graduates in New England, one-third were graduates of Emmanuel College. Harvard University, the first university in North America, was named after John Harvard (B.A., 1632), who was an Emmanuel graduate. Other alumni of Emmanuel include

• F.R. Leavis
• Fred Hoyle
• Griff Rhys Jones
• Graeme Garden
• Cecil Parkinson
• Tim Yeo
• John Wallis
• Michael Frayn
• Graham Chapman
• Choudhary Rahmat Ali
• Rory McGrath

Emmanuel College is also noted as the home of a wide variety of duck species, including the Mallard, the Carolina, the Mandarin, the Pintail, the Tufted, and the Wigeon. The more exotic species were donated to the college by a former Master as a gift to the college at the beginning of his term. There is also a fine example of a Chinese plane tree in the College grounds.

Emmanuel College, or 'Emma' as it is known throughout the University, attracts large numbers of undergraduate applications due to its reputation as being a 'friendly college' (although several other colleges also claim this title). Emmanuel topped the 'Tompkins Table' in 2003 and 2004, which ranks colleges according to end-of-year examination results.

Students' Union

Emmanuel College Students' Union (ECSU) provides a bar, common room and funding for sports and other societies, as well as acting as the channel of communication between the students and the College.

The daily business of ECSU is managed by the Executive, or 'Exec', members of which have specific responsibilities. The Exec is elected on a yearly basis at the end of Michaelmas Term.

External links

• Emmanuel College website
• Emmanuel College Students' Union