It may be Sydney University’s oldest residential college, but St Paul’s is definitely forging a new future for itself.
At the start of this year, the college welcomed Dr Don Markwell as the first non-clerical Head.
Dr Markwell was born and spent his early years in the outback Queensland town of Quilpie and is particularly aware of the benefits to country students of collegiate life.
He has previously served as a Fellow of three Oxford colleges, Warden of Trinity College, University of Melbourne, and Warden of Rhodes House, Oxford.
Dr Markwell said he believes passionately in the benefits to students from living and learning together in a residential academic community such as St Paul’s and other colleges of the University of Sydney.
“There is growing focus in universities on the value to students of immersion in the academic, extra-curricular, and social life of a residential college,” he said.
“As well as academic and extra-curricular success, this includes upholding the values for which the college stands, including genuine respect for women and men alike.”
In his leadership of the Rhodes Scholarships, Trinity College and elsewhere, Dr Markwell has been an active champion of equality of respect and opportunity for women and men.
“I am committed to St Paul’s College being a centre of excellence, not a bastion of privilege,” Dr Markwell said.
This year also sees the completion of the first two stages of the largest and most ambitious building program undertaken by St Paul’s College in its 160 year history.
The Ivan Head Building, the first stage in the new development, will open in the second semester this year, making an additional 100 residential places available for undergraduate men on campus.
Nestled between the existing college buildings and the university’s Nanoscience Hub, the Ivan Head Building offers air-conditioned studios, two, or three room units, ensuite bathrooms, a library/study centre, tutorial rooms and gymnasium.
It is named after the 10th warden of St Paul’s, Reverend Canon Dr Ivan Head, who retired at the end of last year.
Graduate House, the second stage of the building program, is even more ground-breaking for St Paul’s.
With the university’s growing focus on higher degrees, St Paul’s will welcome 140 post graduate students and academics, both women and men, into its new Graduate House at the start 2019.
Offering independent-style living within a collegiate community, the state-of-the-art Graduate House will feature studios and shared apartments, its own dining hall, common room, library and study centre, music centre, rooftop terrace and gardens.
Academic House, the final project in St Paul’s building program, will sit opposite the university’s new administration building on Fisher Road.
It is intended to provide superior accommodation for up to 200 visiting national and international scholars and university staff.
- Visit: www.stpauls.edu.au.
