St Paul's College, University of Sydney

History

St Paul's was one of the two earliest university colleges in the Australian colonies along with Christ College, Hobart, which was founded in 1846. 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 (Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of New South Wales). The college is independent of the Anglican Diocese of Sydney, although the warden must be an ordained Anglican priest. There are 18 fellows, six of whom must be Anglican clergy in priests’ orders and 12 laymen. Fellows serve six-year, renewable terms and are elected by graduates of the college who have spent at least three semesters in residence. The Reverend Canon Dr Ivan Head has governed the college as warden since 1995. The college is an independent body corporate, legally designated as "The Warden and Fellows of St Paul's College".

Founded to promote liberal Anglicanism, St Paul’s College is the oldest community in Australia possessed of a single continuing intellectual tradition. The ongoing liveliness of that tradition and its impact beyond the Church is due to the way old forms are used to engage new energies. It relies on hierarchy but also on collective decision-making, or collegiality. It is therefore extremely well suited to a university college. At St Paul’s this tradition shows itself partly in robust student leadership.

Originally a national and established faith, the teachings of Anglicanism also imply public responsibility (as in the College motto, Deo Patriæ Tibi). Among the college alumni are seven bishops, including two who promoted women’s ordination in the Anglican Church; three High Court judges; Sir Denis Browne, the father of paediatric surgery in the UK; Sir Lorimer Dods, a pioneer researcher in child diseases; W.C.B. Harvey, who first persuaded Australians that smoking was dangerous; and Patrick McGorry, an international leader in the area of youth mental health.

Educators affiliated with the college participated in the founding, in the 1890s, of the adjacent Women's College. The two colleges are still closely linked; St Paul's has remained men-only, since 2000 the two other large former men's colleges have become co-residential. The College has formal dinner five nights a week, to which college members wear tie, jacket and academic gown.

The first students enrolled in February 1857 and moved into the new buildings a year later. After a slow start, numbers increased markedly from the 1880s and this was a time of remarkable flowering for the college. Meanwhile, St John’s College and St Andrew’s College had opened, and in 1892 the Women’s College. By the last decades of the nineteenth century the main traditional features of the college's community had emerged, including a collective spirit and various sporting and cultural activities. Debating and public speaking flourished. With the gradual evolution of student self-government within the university and college, in 1906 the students' club came into existence. The intercollegiate Rawson Cup was established in 1907 by Governor Sir Harry Rawson, whose son was at the college. The college's magazine, The Pauline, dates from 1910.

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 (designed by John Leslie Stephen Mansfield and completed in 1960) 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 (all players on the same social soccer team) 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 (or sexually violent) way. What was not well appreciated by actors interested in this episode was that the target of the Facebook site was not in fact women or any person but other soccer teams against which the social soccer team played. Warden Ivan Head issued a public response condemning the students' behaviour.

In the 2010 World University Debating Championship two former Paul's students (Chris Croke and Steve Hind) 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 (as part of the liberal Anglican tradition) 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.

Aims of the college

The college follows the ideas of John Henry Newman who advocated a model of "a good college" in the The Idea of a University.

Culture and academic life

The college has a full tutorial program, supporting and extending university work, and hosts frequent seminars and symposiums. Its Wednesday night forums bring leading intellectuals and public figures to the college for debate with students, and its "History of University of Life" seminars are also popular. The college hosts an annual symposium focused on historical and theological issues. Its Senior Common Room (numbering 30–35 scholars) plays an important part in the life of the college, and includes several senior scholars and postgraduates. Academic life is the responsibility of the Senior Tutor, until January 2010 Dr Dugald McLellan and Professor Alan Atkinson after that date. St Paul's also has an active Middle Common Room, with gatherings led by honours students and others.

The college has a substantial tutorial program. It uses the principle of peer tutoring, a development of the idea of "peer assisted study", first developed in the United Kingdom. Nearly all tutors are students in college, and most of them are undergraduates, at most a year or two further advanced than their class. As a result, university work is drawn to the centre of college life, and teaching and intellectual leadership is part of the mainstream conversation. The organization of the tutorial system is largely in the hands of students, under the supervision of the Senior Tutor. Social networking is used by the students to supplement teaching.

In 2013 the college introduced a Positive Education program for students. There is a variety of activities during the year, culminating in a course of ten seminars leading to the St Paul's College Certificate in Positive 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."

Facilities

The college has a substantial library (named in honour of John Leslie Stephen Mansfield, an alumnus), which is being restocked to meet ongoing undergraduate needs. It includes the Cannington Law library and an enlarged college archive, which holds manuscript material dating to the 1850s. The Old Library, assembled mainly during the 19th century, has many valuable books from as far back as the 15th century (the older ones are held in the university library), and includes an original edition of Thomas Hobbes's Leviathan.

St Paul's is one of three colleges within Sydney University to have its own fully licensed bar. The Salisbury Bar usually opens Sunday to Thursday from 8 pm. Each year the bar is run by a student group committed to the legacy of alumnus Charles Salisbury, whose donation created the service; according to legend, Salisbury set a condition requiring the establishment of a bar for the residents. He reportedly declared that "no man should have to walk more than 50 metres for a beer". St Paul's has a fully stocked wine cellar (providing members of the college with reduced-price entry-level wines) and a large collection of stored vintages. The wine cellar is also run by senior residents of the college.

Dramatic society

The St Paul's College Mummers (the college's dramatic society) is one of the longest-continuously-running university drama groups in Australia. College men are involved as actors, producers, directors, and stagehands to create theatrical productions which may be enjoyed by the wider University community.

Sports

As do most of the Sydney University colleges, St Paul's has its own oval where informal touch football is played every weeknight. All are welcome; many players are academics on study break. The Rawson Cup was donated for the intercollegiate competition by Governor Sir Harry Rawson (who had a son at Paul's) in 1907. Each year, St Paul's College competes for the cup with the other Sydney University men's colleges – Wesley, St Andrew's College, and St John's College. Rawson sports are played throughout the university year and include cricket, rowing, Rugby, swimming and diving, soccer, tennis, basketball and athletics. St Paul's won the Rawson Cup for five consecutive years, from 2005–2009 until St Andrews college regained the cup.

Annual events

During the year the college holds a number of large events, of which the largest are Victoriana!, the Informal, the Jazz Dinner Dance, and the College Formal. The Jazz Dinner Dance ('JDD') is an intimate black tie occasion for collegians and their guests. The College Formal is an annual event, organised and run by a committee (usually selected from senior students). Up to 500 guests attend the black tie function. Usually held in the quadrangle, recent themes have included School of Rock (2007- including a guest performance by Austrian glam-metal band Gerspunken), Neon Mirage (2005 – Las Vegas) and Circus Royale (2004). The 2004 Formal took the event to the college oval, with dodgem cars, a jumping castle, fire breathers and the largest traveling Ferris wheel in Australia. Previous years have also allowed guests to bathe in hot tubs, ride in hot air balloons, take motorbike rides around the oval and view fireworks displays.

Honouring ex-servicemen

The college had several former members serve in the Great War (World War I) of which some were killed in action. In 1935 the college along with two other colleges from Sydney University decided to raise some funds to honour these deceased members and help their families, by surcharging (by means of privately overprinting) the then current two-penny ANZAC commemorative stamp standard letter rate stamps with the amounts of one, five and ten shillings and also one pound. It is not known if this action was endorsed by the Postmaster General’s Department at the time. It is also not known how many stamps were sold or how much money was raised.

Cultural engagement

Since about the mid-1990s life in the college has been coloured especially by an interest in what has been called social entrepreneurship – the combination of economics, problem-solving and philanthropy. This echoes the social justice concerns of Radford’s days, and even the Christian Socialism brought from England in 1856 by the first warden, Henry Hose. Recently, members of the college have founded two philanthropic enterprises which have attracted much support, the Australian Indigenous Mentoring Experience Nat Ware’s 180 Degrees Consulting.

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:

Wardens

Controversy

In 2009 a "pro-rape" Facebook page was formed by a group of past and present St Paul's students. The page ("Define Statutory") 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 ("white tie or colonial uniform"), 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". In a separate Facebook thread another male student suggested that there was nothing wrong with a little "nostalgia" for a bygone era. 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.