University of Queensland
The University of Queensland is a public research university located primarily in Brisbane, the capital city of the Australian state of Queensland. Founded in 1909 by the Queensland parliament, UQ is one of the six sandstone universities, an informal designation of the oldest university in each state. UQ is also a founding member of edX, Australia's leading Group of Eight and the international research-intensive Association of Pacific Rim Universities.
The main [|St Lucia campus] occupies much of the riverside inner suburb of St Lucia, southwest of the Brisbane central business district. Other UQ campuses and facilities are located throughout Queensland, the largest of which are the Gatton campus and the Herston campus, notably including the Mayne Medical School. UQ's overseas establishments include UQ North America office in Washington D.C., and the UQ-Ochsner Clinical School in Louisiana, United States.
The university offers associate, bachelor, master, doctoral, and higher doctorate degrees through a college, a graduate school, and six faculties. UQ incorporates over one hundred research institutes and centres offering research programs, such as the Institute for Molecular Bioscience, Boeing Research and Technology Australia Centre, the Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology, and the UQ Dow Centre for Sustainable Engineering Innovation. Recent notable research of the university include pioneering the invention of the HPV vaccine that prevents cervical cancer, developing a COVID-19 vaccine that was in human trials, and the development of high-performance superconducting MRI magnets for portable scanning of human limbs.
UQ counts two Nobel laureates, over a hundred Olympians winning numerous gold medals, and 117 Rhodes Scholars among its alumni and former staff. UQ's alumni also include University of California, San Francisco Chancellor Sam Hawgood, the first female Governor-General of Australia Dame Quentin Bryce, former President of King's College London Ed Byrne, member of United Kingdom's Prime Minister Council for Science and Technology Max Lu, Oscar and Emmy awards winner Geoffrey Rush, triple Grammy Award winner Tim Munro, former CEO and chairman of Dow Chemical Andrew N. Liveris, and current director of multiple organisations including IBM.
History
Foundation of the university
According to the Queensland Government's Heritage Register's History section:
Proposals for a university in Queensland began in the 1870s. A Royal Commission in 1874, chaired by Sir Charles Lilley, recommended the immediate establishment of a university. Those against a university argued that technical rather than academic education was more important in an economy dominated by primary industry. Those in favour of the university, in the face of this opposition, distanced themselves from Oxford and Cambridge and proposed instead a model derived from the mid-western states of the U.S.A. A second Royal Commission in 1891 recommended the inclusion of five faculties in a new university; Arts, Law, Medicine, Science, and Applied Science. Education generally was given a low priority in Queensland's budgets, and in a colony with a literacy rate of 57% in 1861, primary education was the first concern well ahead of secondary and technical education. The government, despite the findings of the Royal Commissions, was unwilling to commit funds to the establishment of a university.
File: Founding Professors of the University of Queensland.tiff|thumb|The four founding Professors of the University of Queensland, 1911. From left to right: Professor John Lundie Michie, Professor Alexander James Gibson, Professor Henry James Priestley, Professor Bertram Dillon Steele.|left
In 1893, the Queensland University Extension Movement was begun by a group of private individuals who organised public lecture courses in adult education, hoping to excite wider community support for a university in Queensland. In 1894, 245 students were enrolled in the extension classes and the lectures were described as practical and useful. In 1906 the University Extension Movement staged the University Congress, a forum for interested delegates to promote the idea of a university. Opinion was mobilised, a fund was started and a draft Bill for a Queensland University was prepared. Stress was laid on the practical aspects of university education and its importance for the commerce of Queensland. The proceedings of the Congress were forwarded to Premier Kidston. In October 1906, sixty acres in Victoria Park were gazetted for university purposes.
The University of Queensland was established by an Act of State Parliament on 10 December 1909 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Queensland's separation from the colony of New South Wales. The Act allowed for the university to be governed by a senate of 20 men and Sir William MacGregor, the incoming Governor, was appointed the first chancellor with RH Roe as the vice-chancellor. Old Government House... in George Street was set aside for the university following the departure of the governor to the Bardon residence, Fernberg..., sparking the first debates about the best location for the university.
In 1910 the first teaching faculties were created. These included Engineering, Classics, Mathematics and Chemistry. In December of the same year, the Senate appointed the first four professors; BD Steele in chemistry, JL Michie in classics, H. Priestley in mathematics and A Gibson in engineering. In 1911 the first students enrolled.
The university's first classes in the Government House were held in 1911 with 83 commencing students and Sir William MacGregor is the first chancellor. The University of Queensland began to award degrees to its first group of graduating students in 1914.
1920s to 1990s
The development of the university was delayed by World War I, but after the first world war the university enrolments for education and research took flight as demand for higher education increased in Australia. Thus, in the early 1920s the growing university had to look for a more spacious campus as its original site in George Street, Brisbane, had limited room for expansion. In 1927, James O'Neil Mayne and his sister, Mary, provided a grant of approximately £50,000 to the Brisbane City Council to acquire of land in St Lucia and provided it to the University of Queensland as its permanent home. In the same year, the pitch drop experiment was started by Thomas Parnell. The experiment has been described as the world's oldest and continues to this day. Lack of finance delayed development of the St Lucia campus. Hence, the construction of the university's first building in St Lucia only began in 1938. It was later named the Forgan Smith Building, after the premier of the day and it was completed in 1939. During World War II, the Forgan Smith Building was used as a military base and it served first as advanced headquarters for the Allied Land Forces in the South West Pacific.File:University of Queensland fountain.webm|thumb|Victor and Evelyn Lewis Fountain, in the main lake at the St Lucia campus. This is a 2012 replica, which replaced the 1960s fibreglass original, designed by Kelvin Crump.
The first Doctor of Science was awarded in 1942. The first PhD was awarded in 1952.
1990s to present day
In 1990, Australia reorganised its higher education system by abolishing the binary system of universities and colleges of advanced education. Under this transition, the university merged with Queensland Agricultural College, to establish the new UQ Gatton campus. In 1999, UQ Ipswich began operation as one of the completely web-enabled campuses in Australia.In 2010, The University of Queensland was a recipient of the Queensland Greats Awards.
In May 2013, UQ joined edX, an international consortium of massive open online courses. From May 2014, the initial four UQx courses cover hypersonics, tropical coastal ecosystems, biomedical imaging and the science of everyday thinking.
Campuses and buildings
The University of Queensland maintains a number of campuses and facilities throughout Queensland. UQ has its main campus in the suburb of St Lucia in Brisbane, bordered by a meander in the Brisbane River to the north, east, and south. UQ's main campus has been recognised for its beauty by a number of sources. Its other campuses include Gatton, Herston and Dutton Park.St Lucia campus
In 1927, the land on which the St Lucia campus is built was resumed by the Brisbane City Council using money donated by James O'Neil Mayne and his sister Mary Emelia Mayne to replace the less spacious city campus. The city campus is now home to the Gardens Point campus of the Queensland University of Technology. Construction of the new university at St Lucia began in 1937.Great Court
At its centre is the heritage-listed Great Court – a open area surrounded by Helidon sandstone buildings with grotesques of great academics and historic scenes, floral and faunal motifs and crests of universities and colleges from around the world. This central semi-circular quadrangle features a connected arcade so students could reach any section under cover. The Great Court was added to the Queensland Heritage Register in 2002.Museums
The University of Queensland Art Museum is located in the James and Mary Emelia Mayne Centre on the St Lucia campus. The Art Museum was established in the Forgan Smith Tower in 1976 to house the artworks collected by The University of Queensland since the 1940s, relocating to its present site in 2004. Today, with more than 4,400 artworks, the university's Art Collection is Queensland's second largest public art collection.The university also houses the R.D. Milns Antiquities Museum in the Michie building which contains Queensland's only publicly accessible collection of antiquities from ancient Rome, Greece, Egypt and the Near East. The museum supports research and teaching at the university. The UQ Anthropology Museum contains a significant collection of ethnographic material. It is also open to the public.