Professor Don Markwell
Warden of Rhodes House, Oxford University
Professor Don Markwell is currently Warden of Rhodes House at Oxford University. He served as Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Education) at The University of Western Australia from 2007 to 2010. He is responsible for University strategy and policy on academic programs, including international education, with strong focus on enhancing the student learning experience.
Born in outback Queensland, Don graduated from the University of Queensland with the University Medal and a Bachelor of Economics with First Class Honours.
Rhodes Scholar for Queensland for 1981, he secured the degrees of Master and later Doctor of Philosophy in International Relations at the University of Oxford.
After short-term or visiting appointments at the University of Western Australia, the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University, the Reserve Bank of Australia, and as a Research Fellow of New College, Oxford, he was from 1986 to 1997 a University Lecturer in Politics at the University of Oxford, and Fellow and Tutor in Politics at Merton College, Oxford. In 1996-97, he was a visiting professor of political science at Melbourne's Victoria University.
From 1997 to January 2007, Don served as Warden of Trinity College in the University of Melbourne, and was a Professorial Fellow of the Department of Political Science and Centre for Public Policy at the University of Melbourne.
His teaching has focused on international politics, comparative government, and other aspects of political science and history. He has supervised over 45 theses successfully submitted in Oxford and Australia.
Don has published widely on international relations, constitutional politics and history, and education. His most recent major works are John Maynard Keynes and International Relations: Economic Paths to War and Peace, Oxford University Press, 2006, and A large and liberal education: higher education for the 21st century, Australian Scholarly Publishing and Trinity College, University of Melbourne, 2007. His recent research has also included assisting in the preparation of A Public Life: The Memoirs of Zelman Cowen, Miegunyah Press, 2006.
A long-standing member of the international advisory board of The Round Table: The Commonwealth Journal of International Affairs, he has contributed to a number of professional associations in Australia, Britain, and the U.S. He was appointed by the Secretary-General of the Commonwealth to the Commission on Commonwealth Studies (1995-97), including presenting its final report to the conference of Commonwealth Education Ministers in Gaborone, Botswana.
Don is a member of the international executive of the Association for Commonwealth Studies, the Advisory Council of the Global Foundation, and the International Academic Advisory Committee of the US Studies Centre at the University of Sydney.
He is also a member of the Council of the Anglican Schools Commission (WA), the Board of St George's College, UWA, and the Chapter (governing body) of St George's Cathedral, Perth.
Amongst many other roles, he has served on the Council of Geelong Grammar School (1999-2006) and the governing body of the Melbourne College of Divinity (1998-2005).
