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The University Parks are a 70-acre (28 ha) parkland
area in the northeast of the city. It is open to the public during daylight hours. As well as providing gardens and exotic plants, the Parks contains numerous sports fields, used for official and unofficial fixtures, and also contains sites of special interest including the Genetic Garden, an experimental garden to elucidate and investigate evolutionary processes.
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Student life
Academic dress is required for examinations, matriculation,
disciplinary hearings, and when visiting university officers. A referendum held amongst the Oxford student body in 2015 showed 76% against making it voluntary in examinations – 8671 students voted, with the 40.2% turnout the highest ever for a UK student union referendum.[125][126] This was widely interpreted by students as being a vote on not so much making subfusc voluntary, but rather, in effect, abolishing it by default, in that if a minority of people came to exams without subfusc, the rest would soon follow.[127] In July 2012 the regulations regarding academic dress were modified to be more inclusive to transgender people.[128] 9th week of Trinity Term, are called Commemoration balls; the dress code is usually white tie. Many other colleges hold smaller events during the year that they call summer balls or parties. These are usually held on an annual or irregular basis, and are usually black tie.