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Oxford and Yale

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One of the -- spatially distinct but connected through activity patterns -- colleges at Yale University

One of the colleges at Oxford University

Oxford University exists as a number of colleges and grounds that are not spatially continuous. Yale University occupies spatially distinct parcels of land in New Haven. Many major medical centers are composed of a number of hospitals that are scattered around their city. It might seem though, that Oxford or Yale or the medical center would be a discontinuous object, but not a discontinuous place. Compare Donald Trump's scattered real estate holdings; these might be treated as a single object but there seems no reason to think of them as a single place. But grammatical norms for action could turn scattered parcels into a single place. Oxford and Yale are more than discontinuous objects because there are activities that occur across their separated locations: educational sequences, commencement and other rituals, joint research, sports. There are activities which are activities of the university as a whole but which happen jointly or interactively in more than one location. At Oxford, for instance, examinations are set by the University, not by the Colleges, but the exams no longer occur in one central building.