University of Adelaide

History

The University of Adelaide was established on 6 November 1874 after a £20,000 donation by grazier and copper miner Walter Watson Hughes, along with support and donations from Thomas Elder.

The first Chancellor was Sir Richard Hanson and the first vice-chancellor was Dr Augustus Short. The first degree offered was the Bachelor of Arts and the university started teaching in March 1876. John Davidson was the first Hughes professor of English literature and mental and moral philosophy.

The University has a long history of championing the rights of women in higher education. It was the second University in the English-speaking world (after the University of London, 1878) to admit women on equal terms with men (1881), though women studied alongside men from the commencement of classes in 1876, and were equally eligible for all academic prizes and honours. Its first female graduate was Edith Emily Dornwell, who was also the first person in Australia to receive the degree of Bachelor of Science (BSc., 1885). The university also graduated Australia's first female surgeon Laura Fowler (MB, 1891). Ruby Davy (B. Mus., 1907; D. Mus., 1918) was the first Australian woman to receive a doctorate in music. The University was also the first to elect a woman to a University Council in Australia, Helen Mayo (MBBS, 1902).

The great hall of the University, Bonython Hall, was built in 1936 following a donation from the owner of The Advertiser newspaper, Sir John Langdon Bonython, who left £40,000 for a Great Hall for the University.

Smoke-free university initiative

On 2 July 2010, the University officially implemented its "Smoke-Free Policy". This move was the culmination of an anti-smoking agenda headed by Professor Konrad Jamrozik and subsequently, following Jamrozik's death, the Executive Dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences, Professor Justin Beilby. Security have the right to eject people smoking within the University buildings and also fine people smoking in the gardens or walkways. Also, It is the first higher education institution in South Australia to institute a smoke-free policy. The North Terrace campus has been smoke-free since July 2010, it was planned that the Waite and Roseworthy campuses would be smoke-free by 2011, and the University's residential facilities have also been made smoke-free.

North Terrace

The main campus of the University is on North Terrace. It is bordered by the Art Gallery of South Australia, the State Library of South Australia, the South Australian Museum and the "City East" campus of the University of South Australia, with the Adelaide University Medical and Dental Schools located across Frome Road, behind the Royal Adelaide Hospital.

The vast majority of students and staff of the University are based at the North Terrace campus, where the majority of courses are taught and schools are based. The central administration of the University and the main library, the Barr Smith Library, are both located on this campus. While many other universities have law and business schools or satellite campuses within the central business district, the University of Adelaide is unique among Australian sandstone universities for having its main presence adjacent to the main business and shopping precinct.

Bonython Hall, (the great hall of the University), the Mitchell Building, the Elder Hall, the Napier building and the Ligertwood building, form the North Terrace street frontage of the campus. Bonython Hall is one of the many historic and heritage listed buildings located at the North Terrace campus. Others include the Mitchell Building, Elder Hall, and the Reading Room of the Barr Smith Library.

In 2016, the university commenced work on a $1 billion, 20-year "Masterplan" for its three campuses. The masterplan envisages new facilities for all Schools, and greatly enhanced campus amenities for students, with a focus on pedestrians and cyclists, providing better, safer pathways through the campus, and eliminating vehicle traffic where possible. At North Terrace, the Schulz building will be repurposed as an on-campus residential college, with accommodation, and recreational facilities including a gym. This major transformation of the university's physical presence across all campuses comes in conjunction with the multi-million dollar renewal and redevelopment of the old Royal Adelaide Hospital (RAH) site on North Terrace. In 2016, the RAH moved to the West end of North Terrace, amongst the $4 billion Biomedical Precinct site, at which the University of Adelaide also has a physical presence in the form of its Medical, Dental, Nursing, and Medical Sciences schools.

National Wine Centre

Located in the Adelaide Park Lands at the eastern end of North Terrace, the Wine Centre offers some of the university's oenology courses. Opened in 2001, the facility also hosts public exhibitions about winemaking and its industry in South Australia. It contains an interactive permanent exhibition of winemaking, introducing visitors to the technology, varieties and styles of wine. It also has a wine tasting area, giving visitors the opportunity to taste and compare wines from different areas of Australia.

The Wine Centre is situated at the eastern end of North Terrace, Adelaide in the eastern parklands and adjacent to the Adelaide Botanic Gardens. The building, designed by Cox Grieve Gillett, uses building materials to reflect items used in making wine.

Waite

The Waite campus has a strong focus on agricultural science, plant breeding and biotechnology. A number of other organisations are colocated in the Waite Research Precinct, including the South Australian Research and Development Institute (SARDI), the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), and the Australian Centre for Plant Functional Genomics (ACPFG). The School of Agriculture, Food and Wine is based on the Waite campus and the campus contains components of the School of Earth and Environmental Sciences. It is adjacent to the Urrbrae Agricultural High School.

It is situated in Adelaide's south-eastern foothills, in the suburb of Urrbrae on 174 hectares (430 acres). A large amount of the land was donated in 1924 by the pastoralist Peter Waite. A large amount of money was donated by Rosina and John, the widow and son of William Tennant Mortlock. These donations were initially used to establish the Peter Waite Institute of Agricultural Research (first Director A. E. V. Richardson), which later became the Waite campus.

A Soil Research Centre was founded in 1929 with a donation of £10,000 from Harold Darling of J. Darling and Son, grain merchants.

In 2004, Premier Mike Rann opened the multimillion-dollar Plant Genomics Centre at the Waite Campus. Then in 2010 Premier Rann opened The Plant Accelerator, a $30 million research facility - the largest and most advanced of its kind in the world.

Malcolm Oades was the director from November 1996 to 2001.

Roseworthy

Located north of the city, the Roseworthy campus comprises 16 km² of farmland and is a large centre for agricultural research. It was the first agricultural college in Australia, established in 1883. Other organisations linked to the campus include SARDI and the Murray TAFE.

In 1991, the College merged with the University of Adelaide and became the University's Roseworthy Campus, part of the Faculty of Agricultural and Natural Resource Sciences. The merger would see teaching and research in oenology and viticulture transferred to the University's Waite Campus, along with the bulk of its work in plant breeding. Before the degree in oenology was transferred to Waite Campus, Roseworthy produced a number of highly-regarded and awarded winemakers and wine critics.

From the mid-1990s, the major focus of the campus turned to dryland agriculture, natural resource management and animal production. The campus is also now home to South Australia's first pre-service Veterinary Science training program, which commenced in purpose-built facilities in 2010. In 2013, the focus on veterinary science was expanded with the opening of the Equine Health and Performance Centre, a state-of-the-art facility for equine surgery, sports medicine, internal medicine and reproduction.

Thebarton

The Thebarton campus, which is also known as Adelaide University Research Park, is the base of the University's Office of Industry Liaison. The campus works in conjunction with the University's commercial partners. Commercial enterprises at Thebarton campus include businesses involved in materials engineering, biotechnology, environmental services, information technology, industrial design, laser/optics technology, health products, engineering services, radar systems, telecommunications and petroleum services. The campus also provides much of the infrastructure for the Graduate Entrepreneurial Program which allows recent graduates to start businesses with support from the University. The flames for the recent Sydney and Athens Olympic Games were developed at the Thebarton campus by the TEC group.

Singapore

The Singapore presence, located at the Ngee Ann – Adelaide Education Centre (NAAEC), is the University of Adelaide's first overseas centre. It is a joint venture with the Ngee Ann Kongsi foundation.

The educational facility combines under-graduate and post-graduate academic programs with applied executive and professional development courses. Courses are taught at the Teochew Building on Tank Road in the city centre. The Ngee Ann – Adelaide Education Centre also serves as a platform for potential research collaboration in strategically important areas for both Australia and Singapore. Public lectures in the form of "3rd Tuesday: Where Great Minds Come Together", are presented by University of Adelaide professors on a regular basis.

Organisation

The University is divided into five faculties, with various constituent schools:

The University has a long history of indigenous education, and established its first formal courses in the Centre for Aboriginal Studies in Music (CASM) in 1972. The recruitment, administration and support of indigenous students, as well as overseeing the Indigenous Employment Strategy and delivering Foundation Studies Programs, is conducted by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Education: Wilto Yerlo in the Division of the Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Vice-President (Academic).

The University currently enrolls in excess of 27,000 students, including over 7,000 international students (2015) from more than 99 countries. Adelaide University has approximately 130,000 Alumni worldwide, along with 400 student exchange agreements.

Residential colleges

The University of Adelaide, unlike most universities, did not set any land aside on its North Terrace campus for student accommodation, due mainly to an ideological opposition to the culture of live-in students, but also influenced by the small size of the original campus. However, demand for residential college accommodation led to the establishment of private colleges affiliated to the University. St. Mark's College was founded by the Anglican Church (then called the Church of England) in 1925, Aquinas College in 1950 by the Catholic Church, Lincoln College in 1952 by the Methodist Church, and later St Ann's College, Kathleen Lumley College and Australian Lutheran College. All are located within close walking distance of the University, across the River Torrens in North Adelaide. In addition to providing accommodation and meals for local, interstate and international students, each college organises academic support, social activities and sporting opportunities for its members.

Commercialisation

Through forward thinking strategies, the University of Adelaide has capitalised on a number of opportunities to commercialise its research. It engages in extensive contract research and collaborative work in conjunction with local and international companies, as well as Federal, State and Local Governments. This activity is managed by the University's commercial development company, Adelaide Research & Innovation Pty Ltd (ARI).

Some examples of recent influences to the University's teaching and research priorities are the Defence Science and Technology Group (DSTG; previously the Defence Science and Technology Organisation, or DSTO) in Adelaide's northern suburbs to which the University provides many physics, engineering, and IT graduates; and the growth in South Australia's wine industry, which is supported by the Waite and National Wine Centre campuses producing oenology and agriculture/viticulture graduates.

In addition, the university participates in the Auto-ID Labs.

Lectures

The University hosts a number of lecture series, including the Joseph Fisher Lecture in Commerce, established in 1903 following a donation by politician and newspaper proprietor Joseph Fisher of £1000 to the University “for the purpose of promoting the study of commerce”. The Gavin David Young Lectures in Philosophy began in 1956, owing their existence to a bequest made by Jessie Frances Raven, in memory of her father, for "the promotion, advancement, teaching and diffusion of the study of philosophy…". The University also presents the James Crawford Biennial Lecture Series on International Law, named for James Richard Crawford SC, a graduate of the University who went on to be Dean of Law at the University of Sydney and subsequently Whewell Professor of International Law at the University of Cambridge. Crawford delivered the first lecture in 2004. The University is one of a number of institutions to have established an Edward Said Memorial Lecture. The first in this series was given in 2005.

Research

The University of Adelaide is one of the most research-intensive universities in Australia, securing over $180 million in research funding annually. Its researchers are active in both basic and commercially oriented research across a broad range of fields including agriculture, psychology, health sciences, and engineering.

Research strengths include Agriculture, Environment, Mineral & Energy Resources, Social Innovation, Health & Biomedical Sciences, and Sensing & Computation.

The University is a member of Academic Consortium 21, an association of twenty research intensive universities, mainly in the Asian region though with members from the USA and Europe. The University holds the Presidency of AC 21 for the period 2011–2013 as host the biennial AC21 International Forum in June 2012.

Rankings

The University of Adelaide consistently features in the top 150 international universities as ranked by the Academic Ranking of World Universities, the QS World University Rankings, and the Times Higher Education World University Rankings, situating it securely in the top 1% of ranked universities worldwide. The University's Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, and Schools of Physical Sciences, and Social Sciences and Humanities, in particular, are reliably ranked in the top 75 of their respective worldwide ranking.

Associations

As of 1 July 2006, membership of the Adelaide University Union (AUU) has been voluntary for all students, following the passing of voluntary student unionism (VSU) legislation by the Federal Government. The AUU funds five affiliates which carry out their functions autonomously. They are the Adelaide University Postgraduate Students’ Association (AUPGSA), the Clubs Association (CA), the Roseworthy Agricultural Campus Student Union Council (RACSUC), the Student Representative Council (preceded by the now defunct Students' Association of the University of Adelaide) and the Waite Institute Students' Association (WISA).

The Adelaide University Union was responsible for organizing the annual Prosh (University of Adelaide) events.

Media

The University of Adelaide has three print news publications; these are:

The University of Adelaide Press publishes staff scholarship and works of interest about the history and activities of the University. The Press is also responsible for publishing the Adelaide Law Review.

The University of Adelaide founded Australia's first community radio station, Radio Adelaide, in 1972.

Opportunities to participate in theatre productions are available through the University of Adelaide Theatre Guild and the Law School Revue.

Sports

Most University sport is organised by the Adelaide University Sports Association (AUSA). The Sports Association was founded in 1896 by the Adelaide University Boat, Tennis and Lacrosse Clubs. The Association disaffiliated from the Adelaide University Union (AUU) on 1 January 2010 and is currently directly affiliated to the University of Adelaide. The AUSA supports 37 sporting clubs which provide a diverse range of sporting opportunities to students of the University of Adelaide (AU). The AUSA is a major stakeholder in the AU North Terrace Campus based Sports Hub fitness centre and the North Adelaide-based university playing fields.

Notable people

The history of the University of Adelaide includes a large number of distinguished alumni and staff, including domestic and international heads of state; Nobel laureates; business and political leaders; pioneers in science, mathematics, and medicine; media personalities; accomplished musical, visual, performance, and written artists; and sportspeople, including multiple Olympic medallists.

Distinguished alumni include 16 chancellors, 20 vice-chancellors, 104 Rhodes Scholars, 5 Nobel laureates (one of whom was once the youngest laureate ever, Lawrence Bragg, co-recipient, with his father William Henry Bragg for physics in 1915, at 25 years of age), and one Prime Minister (Julia Gillard, the first female Prime Minister of Australia) have all graduated or attended the University of Adelaide.

Other notable attendees and graduates include Leo Blair, the father of British Prime Minister Tony Blair; law lecturer at the University of Adelaide while Tony was a child. Robin Warren, who alongside Barry Marshall, discovered that peptic ulcers were largely caused by the infection Helicobacter pylori, graduated from the university in the 1950s. Warren and Marshall won the Nobel Prize for their discovery in 2005. Brendon Coventry, who helped discover the immune cycle, Edward Charles Stirling, a physiologist, politician and advocate for women's suffrage, Tim Flannery (Australian of the Year), Maciej Henneberg (physical anthropologist), Margaret Reid, the first female president of the Australian Senate, Janine Haines – the first female federal parliamentary leader of an Australian political party, Margaret White, the first female judge of the Supreme Court of Queensland and Roma Mitchell, the first female Queen's Counsel in Australia (1962), Justice of the Supreme Court of South Australia and the first female superior court judge in the British Commonwealth (1965).