Flinders University
Flinders University, established as The Flinders University of South Australia, is an Australian public research university based in Adelaide, South Australia, with a footprint extending across a number of locations in South Australia and the Northern Territory. The main campus is in Bedford Park, about south of the Adelaide city centre. Other campuses include Tonsley, Adelaide central business district, Renmark, Alice Springs and Darwin.
Founded in 1966, it was named in honour of the British navigator Matthew Flinders who had explored and surveyed the Australian coastline in the early 19th century. In 2022, there were 25,247 students enrolled at the university.
History
Origins and construction
By the late 1950s, the University of Adelaide's North Terrace campus was approaching capacity. In 1960, the Premier of South Australia], Thomas Playford, announced that of state government-owned land in Burbank would be allocated to the University of Adelaide for the establishment of a second campus.Planning began in 1961. The principal-designate of the new campus, the economist and professor Peter Karmel, was adamant that the new campus should operate independently from the North Terrace campus. He hoped that the Bedford Park campus would be free to innovate and not be bound by tradition.
Capital works began in 1962 with a grant of £3.8 million from the Australian Universities Commission. Architect Geoff Harrison, in conjunction with architectural firm Hassell, McConnell and Partners, designed a new university that, with future expansions, could eventually accommodate up to 6000 students.
Independence and opening
In 1965, the Australian Labor Party won the state election and Frank Walsh became premier. The ALP wished to break up the University of Adelaide's hegemony over tertiary education in the state and announced that they intended the Bedford Park campus to be an independent institution.On 17 March 1966, a bill was passed by state parliament officially creating The Flinders University of South Australia. Although the Labor Party had favoured the name "University of South Australia", academic staff wished that the university be named after a "distinguished but uncontroversial" person. They settled upon British navigator Matthew Flinders, who explored and surveyed the South Australian coastline in 1802. Its original coat of arms, designed by a professor in the Fine Arts faculty, included a reproduction of Flinders' ship Investigator and his journal A Voyage to Terra Australis, open to the page in which Flinders described the coast adjacent the campus site.
Flinders University was opened by Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, on 25 March 1966.
Originally created as an extension of the University of Adelaide, the university council resolved in August 1965 that it would become a separate and independent institution, functioning under its own council, from 1 July 1966. Peter Karmel was the first vice-chancellor. Teaching at "the University of Adelaide at Bedford Park" began in 1966 with 400 students.
A significant early initiative was the decision to build the Flinders Medical Centre on land adjacent to the campus and to base the university's medical school within this new public hospital – the first such integration in Australia. Flinders accepted undergraduate medical students in 1974, with the FMC opening the following year.
Expansion and restructuring
In 1990, the biggest building project on campus since the mid-1970s saw work commence on three new buildings – Law and Commerce; Engineering; and Information Science and Technology. Approval for the establishment of a School of Engineering was given in 1991 and degrees in Electrical and Electronic Engineering, and Biomedical Engineering were established shortly afterwards.In 1991, as part of a restructuring of higher education in South Australia, Flinders merged with the adjacent Sturt Campus of the former South Australian College of Advanced Education.
In 1992, a four-faculty structure was adopted.
In 1998, the Centre for Remote Health, a rural teaching hospital based in Alice Springs, was established jointly with the Northern Territory University. This was expanded further in 2011 with the establishment of the Northern Territory Medical Program.
Since 2000, the university has established new disciplines in areas including physiotherapy, occupational therapy and more disciplines in engineering.
In 2011, the bacteria genus Flindersiella was named after the university after the strain was found on a tree on campus grounds.
In 2015, the university opened a new campus at Tonsley, the former site of the Mitsubishi Motors Australia plant in Southern Adelaide. This campus houses the university's School of Computer Science, Engineering and Mathematics, along with the Medical Device Research Institute, the Centre for Nanoscale Science and Technology and Flinders technology start-up company Re-Timer.
In 2016, the university celebrated its 50th anniversary with a calendar of public events, and a publication summarising the highlights of the university's history, research and alumni achievements over the last 50 years. The year also saw the opening of the award-winning student hub and plaza, transforming the central campus.
The university's strategic plan, Making a Difference - The 2025 Agenda, released in 2016 set an ambitious vision for the coming decade for Flinders to reach the top ten of Australian universities, and the top one per cent in the world.
On 1 July 2017, the university restructured from a two-tier academic system of four faculties and fourteen schools, to a single-tier structure consisting of six [|colleges].
In 2019, the university announced an additional $100 million investment in research and a further $100 million in education over a five-year period to support it to meet its strategic goals.
The university also in 2019 announced plans for a substantial development on a tract on land on the northern portion of the Bedford Park Campus adjacent to the Flinders hospitals precinct. Known as "Flinders Village" the decade-long development will deliver research facilities, student accommodation, commercial premises and amenities. The catalyst for the initiative was the extension of the Clovelly Park rail line to the Flinders precinct. The $141m rail line and Flinders Station project began operation in December 2020. Stage one of the Flinders Village development is the construction of a health and medical research building. Construction began in December 2021 and the building, which will be home to the Flinders Health and Medical Research Institute, was scheduled for completion in 2024.
In 2021, the university announced that it would be expanding its Adelaide CBD presence, establishing a vertical campus as the anchor tenant in Festival Tower, a major development scheduled for completion in 2024 adjacent to Parliament House and the Adelaide Railway Station on North Terrace.
In 2022, the newly elected state Labor government led by Peter Malinauskas proposed setting up a commission to investigate the possibility of a merger of South Australia's three public universities: the University of South Australia, the University of Adelaide and Flinders University. The University of Adelaide and the University of South Australia indicated their intention to merge. Flinders University chose to remain an independent entity.
Governance and structure
University council
The responsibilities of the university council are set out in the Flinders University Act and include:- appointing vice-chancellors as chief executive officer of the university and monitoring their performance
- approving the mission and strategic direction of the university as well as the annual budget and business plan
- overseeing and reviewing the management of the university and its performance
Chancellor and vice-chancellor
The chancellor is John Hood, a chartered accountant and alumnus of the university, who has served two terms on the council.
Image:Flinders humanities courtyard.jpg|thumb|View of the courtyard of the humanities building
Constituent colleges
There are six colleges, covering teaching and research expertise in various areas:- College of Business, Government and Law
- College of Education, Psychology and Social Work
- College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences
- College of Medicine and Public Health
- College of Nursing and Health Sciences
- College of Science and Engineering
College of Business, Government and Law
- Australian Industrial Transformation Institute
- Jeff Bleich Centre for Democracy and Disruptive Technologies
- Centre for Social Impact
College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences
- Creative Arts and Media. Specialisations include acting, directing, visual arts, film and television and visual effects.
- *Drama was established as a foundational area of study in 1967 under playwright Wal Cherry. A review was undertaken in the years leading up to 2022 and four new permanent academic staff were appointed. The Flinders Drama Centre started offering professional acting and directing programs in 1971. Many successful actors, directors and playwrights are alumni of the centre. Alumni include the founding members of many performance groups of different types, including Circus Oz, the Angels, Redgum and Brink Productions. is where Bachelor of Creative Arts students study, and includes the 425-seat Matthew Flinders Theatre.
- *Bachelor of Creative Arts Screen was introduced in 2002 and proved both popular and successful, with graduates winning awards and placements in the film industry, in jobs such as production managers, editors, sound recordists, producers, and directors, in television, new media, and feature films.
- Humanities and Social Sciences. there are 24 majors available in the Bachelor of Arts degree, and the only Bachelor of Archaeology in the state, as well as diplomas and postgraduate degrees.
- Languages, Culture and Tourism. A variety of modern languages are taught at undergraduate level for Bachelor of Languages or Bachelor of Arts, as well as applied linguistics and Indigenous and Australian culture; in addition, undergraduate and postgraduate degrees are offered in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages