University of Tasmania
The University of Tasmania is a public research university, primarily located in Tasmania, Australia. Founded in 1890, it is Australia's fourth oldest university. Christ College, one of the university's residential colleges, first proposed in 1840 in Lieutenant-Governor Sir John Franklin's Legislative Council, was modelled on the Oxford and Cambridge colleges, and was founded in 1846, making it the oldest tertiary institution in the country. The university is a sandstone university, a member of the international Association of Commonwealth Universities, and the Association of Southeast Asian Institutions of Higher Learning.
The university offers various undergraduate and graduate programs in a range of disciplines, and has links with 20 specialist research institutes and co-operative research centres. Its Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies has strongly contributed to the university's multiple 5 rating scores for excellence in research awarded by the Australian Research Council. The university also delivers tertiary education at the Australian Maritime College, the national centre for maritime education, training and research.
The University has also demonstrated strong outcomes on climate change, sustainability, and resource management, earning it a high global ranking in the Times Higher Education Impact Ratings in 2022 and 2023. UTAS's initiatives include climate-focused research, offering over 100 courses with climate-focused units, low-carbon energy use in new campus developments, divesting from fossil fuels, and a commitment to carbon neutrality, which has been certified by Climate Active since 2016.
History
Founding and early years (1890–1938)
The University of Tasmania was established on 1 January 1890, after the abolition of overseas scholarships freed up funds. It immediately took over the role of the Tasmanian Council for Education. Richard Deodatus Poulett Harris, who had long advocated for the establishment of the university, became its first warden of the senate. The first degrees to graduates admitted ad eundem gradum and diplomas were awarded in June 1890. The university was offered an ornate sandstone building on the Queens Domain in Hobart, previously the High School of Hobart, though it was leased by others until mid-1892. This eventually became known as University House. Three lecturers began teaching 11 students from 22 March 1893, once University House had been renovated. Parliamentarians branding it an unnecessary luxury made the university's early existence precarious. The institution's encouragement of female students fuelled criticism. James Backhouse Walker, a local lawyer and briefly vice-chancellor, mounted a courageous defence.According to Chancellor Sir John Morris, from 1918 until 1939 the institution still 'limped along'. Distinguished staff had already been appointed, such as historian William Jethro Brown, physicists and mathematicians Alexander McAulay and his son Alexander Leicester McAulay, classicist RL Dunbabin, and philosopher and polymath Edmund Morris Miller. Housed in the former Hobart High School, facilities were totally outgrown, but the state government was slow to fund a new campus.
In 1914 the university petitioned King George V for Letters Patent, which request he granted. The Letters Patent, sometimes called the Royal Charter, granted the university's degrees status as equivalent to the established universities of the United Kingdom, where such equivalents existed.
World War II (1939–45)
During World War II, while the Optical Munitions Annexe assisted the war effort, local graduates, replacing soldier academics, taught a handful of students. New post-war staff, many with overseas experience, pressed for removal to adequate facilities at Sandy Bay on an old rifle range. Chancellor Sir John Morris, also Chief Justice, though a dynamic reformer, antagonised academics by his authoritarianism. Vice-chancellor Torleiv Hytten, a Norwegian-born economist, saw contention peak while the move to Sandy Bay was delayed. In a passionate open letter to the premier, Philosophy Professor Sydney Orr goaded the government into establishing the 1955 Royal Commission into the university. The commission's report demanded extensive reform of both university and governing council. Staff were delighted, while lay administrators fumed.Post-war years (1946–1964)
On 10 May 1949, the university awarded its first Doctor of Philosophy to Joan Munro Ford. Ford worked as a research biologist in the University of Tasmania's Department of Physics between 1940 and 1950.In early 1956 Orr was summarily dismissed, mainly for his alleged though denied seduction of a student. A ten-year battle involved academics in Australia and overseas. Orr lost an unfair dismissal action in the Supreme Court of Tasmania and the High Court of Australia. The Tasmanian Chair of Philosophy was boycotted. In 1966 Orr received some financial compensation from the university, which also established a cast-iron tenure system. The latter disappeared with the federal reorganisation of higher education in the late 1980s.
In the early 1960s The University of Tasmania at last transferred to a purpose-built new campus at Sandy Bay, though many departments were initially housed in ex-World War II wooden huts. It profited from increasing federal finance following the 1957 Murray Report. Medical and Agricultural Schools were established and the sciences obtained adequate laboratories. Physics achieved world recognition in astronomy, while other departments attracted good scholars and graduates were celebrated in many fields. Student facilities improved remarkably.
Mergers and the "new" university (1965–99)
The 1965 Martin Report established a traditional role for universities, and a more practical role for colleges of advanced education. The Tasmanian Government duly created the Tasmanian College of Advanced Education in 1966 sited on Mount Nelson above the university. It initially incorporated The School of Art, the Conservatorium of Music and the Hobart Teachers College. In 1971, a Launceston campus of the TCAE was announced. These were fateful decisions, as events over the next years showed. It was argued that the TCAE attempted to compete with the university, not complement it.In 1978 the University of Tasmania took over two of the courses offered by the TCAE in Hobart, Pharmacy and Surveying, following a report by Professor Karmel, and another by H.E. Cosgrove. Some other TCAE courses in Hobart moved to Launceston. The curious situation of three separate courses in teacher education in the State could not last, however, and following two more reports, the university incorporated the remaining courses of the Hobart campus of the College of Advanced Education in 1981, which raised its numbers to 5000. The Launceston campus of the TCAE renamed itself the Tasmanian State Institute of Technology.
In 1987, the University Council resolved to approach the TSIT to negotiate a merger to minimise ongoing conflict. The 'Dawkins Revolution' and the 'unified national system' provided later support for this initiative. The Tasmanian State Institute of Technology became the Newnham Campus of the university on 1 January 1991, exactly 101 years after the university's founding. A new campus at Burnie on the North-West Coast of Tasmania was opened in 1995, and later became known as the Cradle Coast Campus.
21st century
In 2001, the Tasmania Law Reform Institute was established to create a link between institutional law reform in the State created by the demise of first the Tasmanian Law Reform Commission in 1989, and then its replacement, the Tasmanian Law Reform Commissioner in 1997. The new institutes model was based on the Alberta Law Reform Institute, an agency based on an agreement between the Canadian province of Alberta, the Law Society, and the University of Alberta and funded primarily by the Government and the Law Society of Alberta. The TLRI has been used as a template for the establishment of similar institutes at the University of Adelaide with the South Australian Law Reform Institute and in the Australian Capital Territory.Damian Bugg became the university's chancellor in 2006, having previously served as a member of the University Council since 2001. Bugg was an alumnus of the university who studied law and resided at John Fisher College where he was president. While chancellor, he also served as Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions. That year the university opened two satellite campuses in Sydney, offering nursing and paramedic education in partnership with local hospitals and health services such as St Vincent's Hospital.
File:Mt Pleasant radio telescope night.jpg|thumb|right|The Greenhill Observatory joined the universities other radio astronomy antennas including the Mount Pleasant Radio Observatory in Cambridge, Tasmania
The Australian Maritime College merged with the university in 2008. The merger helped streamline degree programs and improved provision of basic services at the combined Newnham campus.
The university formed the Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies in 2010 to help integrate the Institute of Antarctic and Southern Ocean Studied and the Tasmanian Aquaculture and Fisheries Institute, as well as the universities existing marine and Antarctic facility.
The Greenhill Observatory which houses a 1.27 metre optical telescope was opened in 2013 to replace the previous observatory at Canopus Hill, near Hobart. The observatory joined the universities two other observatories including the Mount Pleasant Radio Observatory and Ceduna Radio Observatory in Ceduna, South Australia.
Move to the city
In 2019, the University of Tasmania announced its intention to move from its Sandy Bay campus and into the Hobart central business district. As part of the plan, on 8 April 2019, UTAS acquired the K&D Warehouse along Melville Street, adding to the number of university buildings within the city centre. The warehouse was initially intended for accommodation, but following the release of the Draft Masterplan in May 2021, would be proposed as the new site for Engineering and Technology.In 2018 the University bought the Forestry Building, a heritage-listed complex situated at 79–93 Melville Street, Hobart. The university reported in January 2023 that the Forestry building would be restored and given new life as an inner-city hub for the learning, research and collaboration. The project restored the living forest to the dome.
The masterplan includes targets for increased sustainability, community involvement, and better methods of transport into the CBD. The new city university precincts consist of West End, Midtown, Domain, Medical Precinct, and Wapping, with the old Sandy Bay campus to be transformed into a "world-leading example of a sustainable urban community". The transition is expected to take place over the next 10 years, with a priority placed on student and community satisfaction. The move to the city has attracted significant community opposition which has culminated in an elector poll being held on the issue in October 2022 at the same time as the Tasmanian local government elections. 74.38% of polled electors in the Hobart City Council area voted against the University's proposal to relocate. It is not known if the same concerns are held by the wider Tasmanian community.
In August 2024, another education entity, National Institute of Education and Technology moved in Old Hytten Building at the University of Tasmania Sandy Bay campus, which is partly repurpose for the University of Tasmania old campus.