User:Enochlau/University of Sydney

The University of Sydney is...

Location, dates
Affiliations
Basic statistics
Very brief history
Research credentials, other facts about reputability

History[edit]

Origins[edit]

Motivation for establishing the university
Inauguration, Royal Charter
Firstly at Sydney Grammar School buildings
First buildings, first students, first professors

The university was established in 1850 to promote useful knowledge and to encourage residents of New South Wales to pursue a regular course of liberal education, following the establishment of a public secondary education system in 1849. Teaching began in 1852 with a Faculty of Arts degree. This required three years' study of Greek, Latin, Maths, and Science. However, at first the university's growth was hampered in several ways. The under-developed secondary education system, and a curriculum that did not encourage further study, meant that it was 30 years before an annual enrolment at the university reached 100. As a result, tuition fees remained small, and government grants were inadequate.

However, the University's founders believed in building for future generations, and after a brief period of accomodation in buildings that later housed Sydney Grammar School, the University moved to more spacious grounds at Petersham Hill on (what was then) Sydney's outskirts. The magnificent Great Hall was opened in 1859, and the East Wing with its clock tower was opened in 1860. At the time, the standard of craftsmanship for these buildings was remarkably high for a small colony in the middle of a gold rush. Interestingly, the design of the main clock tower was not decided upon until after most of the tower was complete.

Early years[edit]

Admission of women
Creation of new faculties
New buildings

In 1880, the government, stimulated by news of the very large Challis bequest ot the university, increased its grant, and in 1889, provided finance for the Medical School building, which matchs the main building architecturally. However, no subsequent building matches the originals, which express the founders' faith in the future of the university and their ambition to create an architectual and intellectual focus for the settlement.

The Challis bequest brought opportunity for further expansion. Between 1880 and 1891, ten new professorships were established. The facuties of Law and Medicine were at last able to recruit staff, and a faculty of Science, which incorporated a school of Engineering, was created. Research flourished, and four of the professors appointed in that period became fellows of the Royal Society of London.

From 1890, it became possible to enrol for degrees in Medicine, Law, and [Science]] without first doing at least one year of Arts. Practising doctors in hospitals were arranged to provide clinial instruction to medical students; the Law and Dental Schools were located in the city, with practitioners doing much of the teaching.

In 1920, new faculties were created for Dentistry, Engineering, Architecture, Agriculture, Veterinary Science, and Economics. However, despite the large range of faculties, resources remained inadequate and enrolments small until after the second world war.

Wartime years and afterwards[edit]

Research and other participation in war effort
Revolution in higher education - growth, change in funding
Building boom - Darlington campus
Change in student unions
Vietnam

During the First World War, the university was requested by the Department of Defence to accelerate course, and to release staff for intelligence work, the testing and preparation for the manufacture of war materials, and for scientific advice on tunnelling in France. Some 1800 members of the university were engaged in active service, of whom 197 were killed. A carillon was erected in their memory in the great tower. A plaque, flanked by two ceremonial lances, is fixed in the archway beneath naming those who enlisted.

During the second world war, some 4000 members of the university served in the military forces, of whom 250 were killed. A plaque in the tower archway commemorates their service. From the ranks of the pre-war university regiment came four major-generals, six brigadiers, and an air commodore, and one, later governor of the state, was awarded the Victoria Cross.

University departments were engaged in war work: on medical needs, on camouflage work, on research for optical munitions and radio locations, and on a range of war-time engineering problems.

After the Second World War, the federal government provided financial support for war veterans wishing to enrol in universities, and funds for universities to expand their facilities.

This resulted in a building boom, with the constructino of large new buildings to house the expanded faculties. This includes the large Wallace and Roberts Lecture Theatres, the new Fisher Library, the Griffith Taylor, Edgeworth David, and Carslaw Building for the Sciences, the MacCallum and Brennan Buildings for Arts, the Bosch Building for Medicine, and the Macmillan and Gunn Buildings for Agriculture and Veterinary Science. The university then extended the campus across its southern boundary, City Road. Officially a separate campus (the "Darlington Campus"), this area encompassed the former premises of the Royal Institute for Deaf and Blind Children and the Darlington public school house.

Since the 1970s[edit]

Whitlam reforms
Amalgamations
The university today

By 1987, enrolments were five times greater than in 1944. In 1989, the state parliament legislated to amalgamate a number of post-secondary institues with the University of Sydney. These were the Cumberland college of Health Sciences, the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, the Sydney College of the Arts, the Institute of Nursing Studies, and the Sydney Institute of Education. Orange Agricultural College was added subsequently. The university by now had operations in rural New South Wales, the Northern Territory, and the Great Barrier Reef.

Campus 2010[edit]

Eastern Avenue work
Law school and other new teaching buildings
Usyd Central

Campuses[edit]

Main campus[edit]

2 halves - Camperdown & Darlington
General layout, main thoroughfares
Main quadrangle and a list of other large buildings with construction dates
Sandstone facades along Eastern Avenue
Union buildings

Cumberland campus[edit]

History
General layout

Sydney Law School[edit]

Location - site reserved for teaching of law
What's inside
The move

The University's Faculty of Law is housed at Sydney Law School, also known as University Chambers, and makes up the Phillip Street Campus of the University. The Law School is bounded by Elizabeth Street, King Street, and Phillip Street. It is in the heart of Sydney's legal and business districts. It faces on two sides the Supreme Court of New South Wales. The building consists of 13 levels, three of which are underground. Levels one and two house Harvard-style lecture theatres. Level three houses a car park and other amenities. Level four is the ground entrance level, and houses the assembly hall, a foyer, and some offices. Level five houses University of Sydney Union premises, including the office of the Sydney University Law Society and a cafetaria. Levels eight to ten house the Sydney University Law Library. Level 12 is the faculty's administrative division, while level 13 houses squash courts. The building is executed in the brutalist style. Busts of classical orators and jurists adorn the Phillip Street entrance, while the University of Sydney crest is found on the Elizabeth Street entrance.

The Law School is located near St James raiilway station and is serviced by a bus stop outside its entrance.

The Sydney Law School has changed locations several times in the past, but has always remained in the centre of the city because of the tradition of teaching by practitioners, and for easy access to the courts and members of the profession. However, with changes in the mode of teaching, the advantages of being integrated into the University's main campus has been deemed to outweigh the conveniences of a central location. As a result, a new law school is under construction at the main Camperdown campus, adjacent to Fisher Library and on the site of the former Edgeworth David building. The projected completion date of the new building is end of 2007. Initial plans to sell the Law School as office space were not realised, when it was discovered that a New South Wales law (University of Sydney (Law School Site) Act 1967) reserved the site for the teaching of law.

Sydney Conservatorium of Music[edit]

Summarise main article

Sydney College of the Arts[edit]

Summarise main article

Other campuses and facilities[edit]

Mallett Street
Surrey Hills
Orange
Camden
Narrabri
Three tree island (?)

Organisation[edit]

Governance[edit]

Chancellor, vice chancellor etc
University Senate

Colleges and faculties[edit]

Current situation and division into colleges and faculties, and when this came about
Find how it used to be in the past
Rumours of amalgamation of faculties

Academia[edit]

Courses and admissions[edit]

General description of undergraduate/postgraduate (coursework & research) degrees
Admission through UAC, special access for less privileged

Services for students[edit]

Disability, welfare etc - in Education Building
Computer-based services
Security

Research[edit]

Cooperative Research Centres
ARC grants
Research at the University that's made it into newspapers

Rankings[edit]

Newspapers and other journals?

Endowment[edit]

See Williams book for numerical figures
Major benefactors

The Challis bequest (by Thomas Challis) in 1880 was the first large bequest to the University, and enabled the financing of ten new professorships that provided the first staff members for the faculties of law and medicine, and for the establishment of the faculty of science. Thomas Challis is remembered by Challis House, at Martin Place, Sydney, and the Challis Professorships in various faculties.

This was followed by the Fisher bequest (by Thomas Fisher) in 1884 that enabled the establishment of Fisher Library, which was to become the largest academic library in the southern hemisphere. The original Fisher Library is now the MacLaurin Hall.

Professor Peter Nicol Russel's gifts, in 1894 and 1904, led to new fields of engineering and a major extension of the Engineering Building. Peter Nicol Russel is remembered by the PNR building in the Engineering precinct of the University.

A bequest from Samuel McCaughley (1919) enabled the appointment of new Professors in Arts, Engineering, Medicine, and Dentistry.

In 1928, George Henry Bosch funded new chairs in various fields of medicine. He is remembered by the Bosch Buildings, which houses the medical library and various teaching facilties.

By 1930, income from the challis, McCaughley, and Bosch Funds accounted fro a quarter of the University's general expenditure. Since then, the University has continued to receive important bequests, such as the John Power bequest of funds and paintins (1962) that created the Fine Arts Department; the EY Seymour Bequest (1970) that financed the Seymour Centre; and large donations to the Science Foundation that led to important developments in teaching and research in computing, astronomy, and nuclear physics.

Student life[edit]

University of Sydney Union[edit]

Summary of history from main article
O-week
Scope of services (contrast to UNSW guild)
Some of the larger clubs and societies - media society, EU
Effect of VSU

Student' Representative Council[edit]

Scope of services
Elections
Affiliated groups

Sydney University Postgraduate Representative Association[edit]

Needs an article of its own
Recent scandals

Publications[edit]

Honi soit
Union recorder, The Bull
Publications from student societies

Activism[edit]

Front lawns an iconic location
Protests against wars
Protests against VSU
Protests against university policy in the past

Sports[edit]

SUSport
Highlighted successes of University teams - rugby?

Residential colleges[edit]

A list of colleges
General description of college life
Distinguish from overseas notion of colleges - primarily just residential

Libraries and other collections[edit]

University of Sydney Library[edit]

List of branches
Basic statistics
Some important items in possession
Rare books

Museums[edit]

Nicholson Museum
Macleay Museum
(any others?)

Art collections[edit]

Sir Hermann Black Gallery
War Memorial Art Gallery
(any others?)

People[edit]

Faculty[edit]

Alumni[edit]

References[edit]

Footnotes[edit]

General[edit]

Kramer, Dame L, The University of Sydney - A Short History, the University of Sydney, Sydney 1999.

Wednesday, October 19, 2022