Zelman Cowen (1919-2011): The man who changed the tone and style of the University of England forever

Abstract

In early December, 2011, there died in Melbourne quite the most remarkable of the several Vice-Chancellors of the University of New England: Sir Zelman Cowen, a practising Jew, born and nurtured in Melbourne, and of modest Russian migrant stock whose members were much engaged in commerce during his childhood. He would serve as our Vice-Chancellor from later 1966 until 1970, when he would be appointed the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Queensland. Initially educated at a modest state school, then at Scots College in Melbourne and the University of Melbourne - where he would graduate while in his teens - he would be a distinguished Rhodes Scholar, but only taking up that period of overseas study after significant war service in the Royal Australian Navy. In his last years he would head an Oxford College, and serve, in rotation, as the Vice-Chancellor there too.