, is a
Public University located in
Melbourne ,
Victoria . The second oldest university in
Australia , and the oldest in Victoria, its main campus is in
Parkville , an inner suburb just north of the Melbourne
CBD . Other campuses across Melbourne and rural Victoria have been acquired through amalgamation with smaller colleges of advanced education. It is a member of Australia's "
Group Of Eight " lobby group, and the
Sandstone Universities .
Melbourne University is ranked amongst the top universities both in Australia and the world. The University is highly regarded in the fields of the
Arts ,
Humanities , and
Biomedicine .
"Melbourne Uni ranks in top 20" , ''The Age'', October 28, 2005
The University has almost 40,000 students, who are supported by nearly 6,000 staff members (full or part-time). On , ensuring its degrees have international relevance.
The University was established by
Hugh Childers in
1853 by an Act of the Victorian Parliament passed on Saturday 22 January, and classes commenced in
1855 with three professors and sixteen students. The original University buildings were officially opened by the then Lieutenant Governor of the Colony of Victoria, Sir
Charles Hotham , on 3 October 1855. The first chancellor,
Redmond Barry (later Sir Redmond), held the position until his death in 1880.
In the university's early days, an architectural masterplan was developed, establishing the intended prevailing building style as
Gothic Revival . Early influential architect's included Melbourne's own
Joseph Reed , who was responsible for the design of many of the early campus buildings. Although the masterplan held as late as the
1930s , the
1950s saw the modernist style established as a new "house style" for the university, resulting in the mix of buildings seen today.
The inauguration of the University was made possible by the wealth resulting from
Victoria's Gold Rush , and the University was designed to be a "civilising influence" at a time of rapid settlement and commercial growth (Selleck, 2003). The University was secular, and forbidden from offering degrees in
Divinity - the churches could only establish colleges along the northern perimeter. The local population largely rejected the supposed elitism of its professoriate, favouring teaching of 'useful' subjects like law, over those they deemed 'useless' in the city's context, like
Classics . The townspeople won this debate, and law was introduced in 1857, and medicine and engineering in the 1860s.
The admission of women in 1881 was a further victory for Victorians over the more conservative ruling council (Selleck 2003, p164–165). Subsequent years saw many tensions over the direction of the emerging University, and in 1902 it was effectively bankrupt following the discovery of a ₤24,000 fraud from the period 1886-1901 (the University's yearly grant was ₤15,000) by the University's Bursar, Frederick Dickson, who was jailed for seven years.
This resulted in a Royal Commission that recommended new funding structures, and an extension of disciplinary areas into agriculture and education.
By the time of
World War I , governance was again a pressing concern. The Council, consisting of more businesspeople than professors, obtained real powers in 1923 at the expense of the Senate. Undergraduates could elect two members of the Council. In this period, the University tended to attract students drawn from affluent backgrounds, with a few opportunities for gifted scholarship students. The first Vice-Chancellor to be paid a salary was Raymond Priestley (1936) followed by John Medley in 1939.
After
World War II , demand for Commonwealth-funded student places grew in Australia, and the University followed demand by becoming much larger and more inclusive.
The University celebrated its
150th anniversary in 2003. The University is the home of the Grainger Museum, celebrating the life and work of composer
Percy Grainger .
The University has eleven faculties:
These faculties offer courses from
Bachelor Degree to
Doctorate level. Land and Food Resources offers
TAFE , diplomas, but in June 2005 it was announced that these will be transferred to other providers. Arts is the largest (7,222 students in 2004), followed by Science (6,328). The University has some of the highest admission requirements in the country, with the median
ENTER of its undergraduates being 94.5. Furthermore, around 70% of those who finish in the top 1% of school leavers choose to study at Melbourne
{Link without Title} .
Pure and applied research had already grown in importance from the late 19th century, but increased its reach and depth in the second half of the 20th century. Academic staff are expected to maintain a programme of research and to apply for funding opportunities. Science and Arts are the best-endowed Faculties in financial terms. The medical sciences benefit from proximity to a number of hospitals, and were enhanced by the opening of
Bio21 , a research centre focusing on pure and applied
Biotechnology .
The university has an endowment of approximately .
Four and
Bert Sakmann are currently based in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology, while Sir
James Mirrlees (Economic Science, 1996 - emeritus, Cambridge) and Sir
Clive Granger (Economic Science, 2003 - emeritus, San Diego), will teach a couple of months each year at the University from 2005 and reside in
Trinity College
Melbourne has produced the most
Rhodes Scholars of any Victorian university, including the two 2006 winners.
In recent years the University has expanded the numbers of international students from 2,000 in 1996 to over 8,000 in 2006, achieved under the direction of former Vice Chancellor,
Alan Gilbert . A separate venture,
Melbourne University Private was created in 1997, and merged with the University at the end of 2005.
Since 1872, the affiliated residential colleges have been an important part of the university. The earliest sought to emulate the finest European colleges, particularly those of Oxford. There are eleven affiliated colleges in total. Seven of the colleges are situated in an arc around the
Cricket oval at the northern edge of the campus, known as the College Crescent, with the other five within 15 minutes walk of the University of Melbourne.
Most of the colleges only provide residence for students within the academic semester and encourage their students to find alternatives or return home during the summer and winter vacation periods. During this time they are often occupied by conference, sporting and retreat groups. As a result of this a large part of the students who live on campus at Melbourne University come from areas outside Melbourne particularly rural regions, interstate and overseas. The college community is viewed by many students as a helpful stepping stone to living independently particularly by those who have never lived in a big city before or who lack support networks within Melbourne due to the distance from their home town. The colleges also accommodate a large number of students from inner-city private schools. These students despite having families who live within a commutable distance of the University of Melbourne will choose to attend college as a means of expanding their social circle within the occasionally daunting university, to access the additional academic assistance offered by the colleges, as well as the standard stepping stone to independence.
The colleges provide accommodation to about 2000 students , which is a small fraction of the university's total student population. As well as accommodation, the colleges provide tutorials for their students (although unlike the
Oxbridge colleges, the tutorials are purely extra assistance and do not form a fundamental part of any university course).
A larger proportion of students live in surrounding suburbs, and private city centre apartment complexes. Much like students of the
Royal Melbourne Institute Of Technology and
Victoria University , both located near the centre of Melbourne, most students catch
Public Transport , as parking is expensive and scarce.
Melbourne university has also been criticized for notoriously segregated accommodation facilities with the bulk of Australian students living in suburbs or in residential colleges,whereas international students tend to be scattered in various apartments near the university, reducing interaction.
- R1 refers to Australian and overseas Academics' rankings in tables 3.1 -3.7 of the report. R2 refers to the Articles and Research rankings in tables 5.1 - 5.7 of the report. No. refers to the number of institutions in the table against which Melbourne is compared.
However, the neutrality of this survey is disputed, as many industrial experts have consistently contemplate that ANU has excelled in Business & Economics, Law, and Engineering
The following publications ranked universities worldwide. Melbourne University ranked:
- AsiaWeek is now discontinued.
Comments:
In 2006, Times Higher Education Supplement ranked the University of Melbourne 22nd in the world. Because of the drop in ranking, University of Melbourne is currently behind four Asian universities - Beijing University , Australian National University , Tokyo University and National University Of Singapore . It dropped from 19th. However, the university ranked in the top 8 in terms of peer review. The report also put the university 16th for technology, 7th for biomedicine, 7th for arts & humanities, 10th for social sciences, and 27th for science. In each of these categories, rankings improved compared with 2005. However, these positions are still lower than those of Australian National University.
In the same year, Newsweek ranked the University of Melbourne 53rd in the world in its "The Top 100 Global Universities". "The Top 100 Global Universities, Newsweek"
In 2005, the Times Higher Education Supplement ranked The University of Melbourne 19th in the world. At the time, this was the highest ranking among Australian universities and third highest in the region (behind Tokyo University and Beijing University). Furthermore, the university was ranked 8th for arts & humanities, 10th for biomedicine, 11th for social sciences, 18th for technology and 32nd for science.
In 2003, Shanghai Jiao Tong University ranked The University of Melbourne 92nd in the world. The position went up to 82nd in 2004 and 2005. The 2006 edition ranked The University 78th, up by 4 places. In 1999, Melbourne University was ranked as the 10th university around the region by Asiaweek. The ranking is now discontinued.
Melbourne Business School's MBA course had been ranked 69th in the world in 2006 and 79th in 2007. It is the second highest ranked MBA course in Australia. {Link without Title}
See Also: List of University of Melbourne people
With more than 150 years of history behind it, The University of Melbourne is not short of notable graduates . They include: Prime Ministers Of Australia , Governors-General , Attorneys-General , Governors Of Victoria , Surgeons , High Court Justices , State Premiers , Nobel Laureates , a First Lady of East Timor , ministers of foreign countries, Lord Mayors, academics, architects, historians, poets, philosophers, politicians, scientists, physicists, authors, industry leaders, Defence Force generals, corporate leaders and artists.
See Also: Melbourne University student organisations
The university has a rich student life due to the variety of clubs and services funded by the . Many student clubs are affiliated with UMSU, as well as student theatre and the official student newspaper, ''Farrago''. A scandal engulfed the Union in 2003, eventually leading to its collapse, liquidation and subsequent rebirth as a new entity. However, given the introduction of Voluntary Student Unionism from the 1st July, 2006, it is likely the services and activities offered by this new Union will be diminished.
A celebrated tradition at Melbourne, usually held in mid-August, whereby teams of students engage in various different activities - the winner claiming the 'Prosh Week Trophy'."What is Prosh Week?", ''Farrago'', Vol. 82, No. 5, August 2007. These shenanigans include giant Boat Races , conga lines through the Melbourne CBD, a Billy Kart rally, and Jelly Wrestling . It culminates with the infamous Scav Hunt , at the conclusion of which the winning team is announced.
The term 'Prosh' is thought to have originated in one of two ways. It's chiefly considered to have evolved from an annual charity procession that once marched through the Melbourne CBD, producing the abbreviation 'prosh'. A second theory states that the term originated from when all of the faculty social balls were held in the same week. The week was nicknamed 'Posh week' due to the number of times students would have to dress up in formal attire. The effects of alcohol caused words to be slurred, and thus 'posh' became 'prosh'.
In recent times the 'Scavenger Hunt' (Scav Hunt) has attracted controversy from the wider community, especially due to the nature of many of the tasks. "Uni scavenger hunt 'offensive, sexist'" ''The Age'', November 10, 2005.
ing contest.]]
The university has participated in various sports in its history.
It is currently the defending overall champion in the Australian University Games (AUG). The University of Melbourne is defending the title for three consecutive years.
The University baseball club competes in the local Victorian Winter Baseball League competition in A, A reserve, A thirds and A fourths grades.
The Melbourne University Football Club founded in 1859, was a notable Australian Rules Football club that played seven seasons in the Victorian Football League , and has since rejoined the ranks of amateur teams.
The University women's club, the Mugars , participates in the Victorian Women's Football League and is the most successful Women's Football team in the country .
The university has several other campuses located across .
- Macintyre, S. & Selleck, R.J.W. (2003). ''A short history of the University of Melbourne''. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press. ISBN 0-522-85058-8.
- Selleck, R.J.W. (2003). ''The Shop: The University of Melbourne, 1850–1939''. Melbourne: University of Melbourne Press. 930pp
- Poynter, John & Rasmussen, Carolyn (1996). "A Place Apart - The University of Melbourne: Decades of Challenge". Melbourne: Melbourne University Press. ISBN 0-522-84584-3.
- Cain J II and J Hewitt. 2004. Off Course: From Public Place to Marketplace at Melbourne University . Melbourne: Scribe.
- McPhee, P. 2005. "From the Acting Vice-Chancellor." Uni News. The University of Melbourne. 03/10/05, p.3.
