University of Sydney


The University of Sydney is a public research university in Sydney, Australia. Founded in 1850, it is the oldest university in both Australia and Oceania. One of Australia's six sandstone universities, it was one of the world's first universities to admit students solely on academic merit, and opened its doors to women on the same basis as men. The university comprises eight academic faculties and university schools, through which it offers bachelor, master and doctoral degrees.
Five Nobel and two Crafoord laureates have been affiliated with the university as graduates and faculty. The university has educated 8 Australian prime ministers, including incumbent Anthony Albanese; 2 governors-general of Australia; 13 premiers of New South Wales; and 26 justices of the High Court of Australia, including 5 chief justices. The university has produced 110 Rhodes Scholars and 19 Gates Scholars. The University of Sydney is a member of the Group of Eight, CEMS, the Association of Pacific Rim Universities and the Association of Commonwealth Universities.

History

1850–1950

In 1848, Legislative Council members William Wentworth, a University of Cambridge alumnus, and Sir Charles Nicholson, a University of Edinburgh Medical School alumnus, proposed a plan to expand the existing Sydney College into a university. Wentworth argued that it would provide the opportunity for "the child of every class, to become great and useful in the destinies of his country" and that a state secular university was imperative for a society aspiring towards self-government.
So far from being an institution for the rich, I take It to be an institution for the poor.... I trust that, from the pregnant womb of this institution will arise a long list of illustrious names—of statesmen—of patriots—of philanthropists—of philosophers—of poets and of heroes, who will shed a deathless halo, not only on their country, but upon the University which called them into being.
He promoted access on the basis of merit rather than religious or social status. It took two attempts on Wentworth's behalf before the plan was finally adopted.
The university was established via the passage of the University of Sydney Act 1850 on 24 September 1850, and was assented on 1 October 1850 by Governor Sir Charles Fitzroy. Wentworth was among the first members of the university's senate, mentioned in the governor's proclamation alongside three religious ministers. Two years later, the university was inaugurated on 11 October 1852 in the Big Schoolroom of what is now Sydney Grammar School. The first principal was John Woolley, the first professor of chemistry and experimental physics was John Smith. Sir William Charles Windeyer was the first graduate. The university was Australia's first, as well as being one of the first public, non-denominational and secular universities in the British Empire. On 27 February 1858, the university received a royal charter from Queen Victoria, giving degrees conferred by the university rank and recognition equal to those given by universities in the United Kingdom.
In 1858, the passage of the Electoral Act provided for the university to become a constituency for the New South Wales Legislative Assembly as soon as there were 100 graduates of the university holding higher degrees eligible for candidacy. This seat in the New South Wales legislature was first filled in 1876, but was abolished in 1880, one year after its second member, Sir Edmund Barton, who later became the first Prime Minister of Australia, was elected to the Legislative Assembly.
The university was one of the first in the world to admit women on an equal basis with men, doing so from 1881. In 1885 the first women to receive BA degrees from the university were Mary Elizabeth Brown and Isola Florence Thompson, while Thompson became the first woman to graduate with an MA in 1887.
Most of the estate of John Henry Challis was bequeathed to the university, which received a sum of £200,000 in 1889. This was thanks in part due to Sir William Montagu Manning who argued against the claims by British tax commissioners. The following year, seven professorships were created in anatomy, zoology, engineering, history, law, logic and mental philosophy, and modern literature.
In 1924, the university awarded its first Doctor of Science in Engineering degree to John Bradfield. His thesis was titled "The City and Suburban Electric Railways and the Sydney Harbour Bridge". Bradfield went on to be the lead engineer for the construction of the Sydney Harbour Bridge.
The university's professor of philosophy from 1927 to 1958, John Anderson, was a significant figure referred to as "Sydney's best known academic". A native of Scotland, Anderson's controversial views as a self-proclaimed atheist and advocate of free thought in all subjects raised the ire of many, even to the point of being censured by the state legislature in 1943.

1950–2000

The PhD research degree was first discussed in 1944 and began in 1947. The university awarded the first PhD in 1951 to William H. Wittrick from the Faculty of Engineering on 28 April 1951 and the next two were awarded to Eleanora C. Gyarfas and George F. Humphrey from the Faculty of Science on 2 May 1951.
The New England University College was founded as part of the University of Sydney in 1938 and in 1954 was separated to become the University of New England.
During the late 1960s, the University of Sydney was at the centre of rows to introduce courses on Marxism and feminism at the major Australian universities. At one stage, newspaper reporters descended on the university to cover brawls, demonstrations, secret memos and a walk-out by David Armstrong, a philosopher who held the Challis Chair of Philosophy from 1959 to 1991, after students at one of his lectures openly demanded a course on feminism. The philosophy department split over the issue into the Traditional and Modern Philosophy Department, headed by Armstrong and following a more traditional approach to philosophy, and the General Philosophy Department, which follows the French continental approach. The Builders Labourers Federation placed a ban on the university after two women tutors were not allowed to teach a course but the issue was quickly resolved internally.
Under the terms of the Higher Education Act 1989, the following bodies were incorporated into the university in 1990:
The Orange Agricultural College was originally transferred to the University of New England under the act, but then transferred to the University of Sydney in 1994, as part of the reforms to the University of New England undertaken by the University of New England Act 1993 and the Southern Cross University Act 1993. In January 2005, the University of Sydney transferred the OAC to Charles Sturt University.

2000s

In 2001, the University of Sydney chancellor, Dame Leonie Kramer, was forced to resign by the university's governing body. In 2003, Nick Greiner, a former Premier of New South Wales, resigned from his position as chair of the university's Graduate School of Management because of academic protests against his simultaneous chairmanship of British American Tobacco. Subsequently, his wife, Kathryn Greiner, resigned in protest from the two positions she held at the university as chair of the Sydney Peace Foundation and a member of the executive council of the Research Institute for Asia and the Pacific.
In 2005, the Public Service Association of New South Wales and the Community and Public Sector Union were in dispute with the university over a proposal to privatise security at the main campus.
In 2007, the university agreed to acquire a portion of the land granted to St John's College to develop the Sydney Institute of Health and Medical Research, now the Charles Perkins Centre, named in honour of the first Indigenous Australian man to graduate from the university, Charles Perkins.

2010s

At the start of 2010, the University of Sydney controversially adopted a new logo. It retains the same arms, but they take on a more modern look. There have been stylistic changes, the main one being the coat of arm's mantling, the shape of the escutcheon, the removal of the motto scroll, and also others more subtle within the arms itself, such as the mane and fur of the lion, the number of lines in the open book and the colouration. The original Coat of Arms from 1857 continues to be used for ceremonial and other formal purposes, such as on testamurs.
In 2010, the university received a Pablo Picasso painting from the private collection of an anonymous donor. The painting, Jeune Fille Endormie, which had not been publicly seen since 1939, depicts the artist's lover, Marie-Thérèse Walter and was donated on the strict understanding that it would be sold and the proceeds directed to medical research. The painting was auctioned at Christie's in London and sold for £13.5 million. The proceeds of the sale funded the establishment of many endowed professorial chairs at the Charles Perkins Centre, where a room dedicated to the painting, now exists.
Action initiated by then-Vice Chancellor Michael Spence to improve the financial sustainability of the university caused controversy among some students and staff. In 2012, Spence led efforts to cut the university's expenditure to address the financial impact of a slowdown in international student enrolments across Australia. This included redundancies of a number of university staff and faculty, though some at the university argued that the institution should have cut back on building programs instead. Critics argued the push for savings was driven by managerial incompetence and indifference, fuelling industrial action during a round of enterprise bargaining in 2013 that also reflected widespread concerns about public funding for higher education.
An internal staff survey in 2012/13, which found widespread dissatisfaction with how the university was being managed. Asked to rate their level of agreement with a series of statements about the university, 19 per cent of those surveyed believed "change and innovation" were handled well by the university. In the survey, 75 per cent of university staff indicated senior executives were not listening to them, while only 22 per cent said change was handled well and 33 per cent said senior executives were good role models.
During Spence's term, the university community was divided over allowing students from an elite private school, Scots College, to enter university via a "pathway of privilege" by means of enrolling in a Diploma of Tertiary Preparation rather than meeting HSC entry requirements. The university charged students $12,000 to take the course and have since successfully admitted a number of students to degree courses. An exposé by Fairfax which turned out to be based on a misunderstanding as to VET and UAC matriculation standards, the scheme has been criticised by Phillip Heath, the national chairman of the Association of Heads of Independent Schools of Australia.
Concerns about public funding for higher education were reflected again in 2014 following the federal government's proposal to deregulate student fees. The university held a wide-ranging consultation process, which included a "town hall meeting" at the university's Great Hall on 25 August 2014, where an audience of students, staff and alumni expressed deep concern about the government's plans and called on university leadership to lobby against the proposals. Throughout 2014, Spence took a leading position among Australian vice-chancellors in repeatedly calling for any change to funding to not undermine equitable access to university while arguing for fee deregulation to raise course costs for the majority of higher education students.
An investigation by Fairfax in 2015 revealed widespread cheating at universities across NSW, including the University of Sydney. The university later established a taskforce on academic misconduct to reduce cheating and academic misconduct.
In 2016, the university introduced plans to consolidate existing degrees to reduce the overall number of programs it offered. In the 2019 Student Experience Survey, the University of Sydney recorded the second lowest student satisfaction rating out of all Australian universities, and the second lowest student satisfaction rating out of all New South Wales universities, with an overall satisfaction rating of 74.2; this was lower than the national average rating of 78.4.