Finishing School for Blokes

Who really runs Australia's elite educational institutions? Who sets the agenda and determines the culture? Just as Helen Garner's landmark work The First Stone reveals the influence of a powerful, intractable establishment on an elite Melbourne institution, so this controversial study of one of Sydney's oldest university colleges finds a similar old guard at work.
The author reveals, from a unique perspective, what really goes on in an Australian university college. It is a picture of a college clinging to the past in many ways; from the regular rituals of a culture dominated by sport and alcohol - binge-drinking, spew competitions and bizarre traditions such as Walkabout - to the darker side of 'fresher' initiations; the quaint and other-worldly atmosphere surrounding the Fellows in the Senior Common Room; the manoeuvrings of the Council of prominent businessmen; and the archaic and alarmingly narrow attitude to women as equal partners in the education process, resulting in fierce resistance to any suggestion for change.
It was this last issue that precipitated the resignation of the author as Principal of St Andrew's College after increasing disillusionment with a system he found himself unable to alter. Anyone whose own education involved one of Australia's 'elite' institutions will be engrossed by Peter Cameron's careful dissection of many sensitive, almost taboo issues; a wider range of readers will find Finishing School for Blokes a fascinating exploration of a part of Australia's traditional culture.
Peter Cameron has been a solicitor, a Presbyterian minister and a lecturer in New Testament studies. His book Heretic (1994) detailed his struggle with the Presbyterian Church of Australia and his subsequent conviction for heresy.