St Paul's College, University of Sydney


St Paul's College is an Anglican residential college which is affiliated with the University of Sydney in Sydney, Australia. Founded in 1856 by an 1854 act of the New South Wales Legislative Council, it is Australia's oldest university college. St Paul's is familiarly referred to as "Paul's", its residents as "Paulines" and its alumni as "Old Paulines". Alumni include prime ministers, deputy prime ministers, federal and state government ministers, High Court of Australia justices, Court of Appeal presidents and justices, Supreme Court chief justices and justices, pioneering surgeons and physicists, Australian of the Year recipients and 29 Rhodes Scholars.
The college has nearly 360 residents, of whom about 260 are undergraduate men; the remainder are postgraduate women and men undertaking further study or holding university positions. In 2019, the college opened its modern "Graduate House" community with rooms for an additional 140 postgraduate students and university academics. It retains most of its original grant and has its own oval.

History

St Paul's was the first university college in Australia. Its development followed an unsuccessful attempt by members of the Anglican Church to incorporate the earlier St James's College within the new University of Sydney, and was led by Sir Alfred Stephen.
The new governing document provides for a college council with 12 fellows, four of whom must be elected Anglican clergy, six elected laymen and two appointed laymen - one of which must be a University of Sydney academic. Fellows serve six-year, renewable terms and are elected by graduates of the college who have spent at least three semesters in residence. The college is an independent body corporate, legally designated as "The Warden and Fellows of St Paul's College".
By this time the college had its own distinct intellectual tradition, foreshadowed by the founders, a liberal Anglicanism which took seriously the challenges involved in combining religious and secular knowledge and in making the English Church useful to the Australian nation. The number of Paulines from this period who are now listed in the Australian Dictionary of Biography is evidence of the way the college was in step with the times.
The original building was designed in Gothic style by English-born architect Edmund Blacket. Blacket was a distinguished ecclesiastical architect; he also designed the main university building and supervised the construction of the Catholic St John's College at the same university. Other buildings include a chapel and a residential wing designed by Clive Lucas, Stapleton & Partners which opened in 1999.
In November 2009, a Sydney paper reported that several former residents of the college were members of a Facebook group described itself as "pro-rape, anti-consent". The group was alleged by the reporter to be part of a broader culture amongst privileged youths which demeaned women in a sexist way. Warden Ivan Head issued a public response condemning the students' behaviour.
At the 2010 World University Debating Championship two former Paul's students took the title, winning the final against teams from Oxford, Harvard and the London School of Economics. Since the 1890s, the college has fostered social-justice ideals and most students are involved at some point in philanthropic activities. During the first decade of the 21st century, half the male Rhodes Scholars from Sydney University have been Paulines. In 2010, Jack Manning Bancroft was named NSW Young Australian of the Year for his work in indigenous education.

Heraldry

Officially granted by the Earl Marshal in 1961, the college coat of arms displays crossed swords and the Maltese cross to represent St Paul in the official colours of gold and gules. The college's motto, Deo Patriae Tibi, can be translated as "For God, country and yourself."

Academic honours

The college boasts a long list of academic honours and its website lists many University Medallists since 2005. Its Rhodes Scholarship list is given below:
The following individuals have served as Warden of St Paul's College:
OrdinalOfficeholderTerm startTerm endTime in officeNotes
1The Revd Henry Judge Hose18561862 years
2The Revd William Henry Savigny18621865 years
3The Revd William Scott18651877 yearsFormer NSW government astronomer
4The Revd Canon William Hey Sharp18781908 years
5The Revd Lewis Bostock Radford19091915 yearsAfterwards Bishop of Goulburn
6The Revd Canon Arthur Henry Garnsey19161944 years
7The Revd Felix Raymond Arnott19461963 yearsAfterwards Archbishop of Brisbane
8The Revd Canon Alexander Peter Bruce Bennie19641985 years
9The Right Revd Maxwell McNee Thomas19851994 yearsFormer Bishop of Wangaratta
10The Revd Canon Ivan Francis Head19942017 years
11Dr Donald John Markwell20182019 yearsFormer Warden of Rhodes House, Oxford
12The Revd Dr Edward Loane2020 years

Controversy

In 2009 a "pro-rape" Facebook page was formed by a group of past and present St Paul's students. The page described itself as "anti-consent". For this, the students of St Paul's received the 2009 Ernie Awards for sexist behaviour.
In June 2012, an article critical of one of St Paul's dinner events appeared in a local Australian newspaper. The controversy was over an event with the theme "End of the British Raj". When the college students arrived in the dress code, they were met by the usual college catering staff, of Indian and south Asian descent, dressed in colourful traditional cultural garments following which the university student newspaper protested against it in a letter, "British Raj beyond bad taste". On 6 June 2012, the University Student Representative Council passed a motion condemning the themed party by writing a letter to the college's spokesman and the warden asking for an explanation. Later, many Indian media groups covered this news with copies of the original Sydney Morning Herald article.
Allegations of systemic sexism and misogyny surfaced again in 2017 following a post on the College's Facebook page which compared women to "harpooned whales". The college had refused to participate in a University-wide review into culture led by Elizabeth Broderick. Michael Spence, the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Sydney raised concerns regarding the "deep contempt for women" and the "cultural problems" at the college. In June 2017 Ivan Head, the Warden of the College, who had been in the role for 22 years, retired amid concerns regarding his leadership.
Appearing on 60 Minutes in July 2017, the parents of Stuart Kelly, the brother of one-punch attack victim Thomas Kelly who committed suicide in 2016, stated that Kelly had been subjected to hazing and bullying at the college. Kathy Kelly stated "He went off to university at Sydney, for one night at a college, and he came home a different person the following day... He was broken."
Again the college came in for sustained criticism after the release of "The Red Zone" report by Nina Funnell on 26 February 2017. Reportedly, some rituals allegedly involved male students at Sydney University's residential colleges masturbating into shampoo bottles belonging to female students and defecating in hallways. In particular, Funnell called for the criminalisation of hazing rituals at colleges like St Paul's. Her call for the criminalisation of that conduct follows public comments by Kathy and Ralph Kelly that they believe their son, Stuart Kelly, committed suicide as a result of hazing rituals at the college in 2016. In response, Spence said the University would support a coronial inquest into Stuart's death. Following Broderick's review into College Culture at the University of Sydney's Colleges, St Paul's released a response in which it indicated it would address all recommendations.

Alumni

Gallery