Western Sydney University
Western Sydney University, formerly the University of Western Sydney, is an Australian multi-campus public research university in the Greater Western region of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
The university in its current form was founded in 1989 as a federated network university with an amalgamation between the Nepean College of Advanced Education and the Hawkesbury Agricultural College. The Macarthur Institute of Higher Education was incorporated in the university in 1989. In 2001, the University of Western Sydney was restructured as a single multi-campus university rather than as a federation. In 2015, the university underwent a rebranding which resulted in a change in name from the University of Western Sydney to Western Sydney University. It is a provider of undergraduate, postgraduate, and higher research degrees with campuses in Bankstown, Blacktown, Campbelltown, Hawkesbury, Liverpool, Parramatta, Penrith, and Surabaya.
History
Foundation and early years (1988–1990s)
The university consists of an amalgamation of campuses, each with their own unique and individual history. In 1891, the Hawkesbury campus was established as an agricultural college by the NSW Agricultural Society. At Parramatta, Western Sydney University owns and has renovated the Female Orphan School building, the foundation stone of which was laid by Governor Lachlan Macquarie in 1813.In 1987, the New South Wales Labor government planned to name the university Chifley University, after the former Labor prime minister, Ben Chifley. However, in 1989, a new Liberal government reversed this decision and controversially named it the University of Western Sydney.
In 1989, teachers' colleges and Colleges of Advanced Education in Sydney's western suburbs were given university status under the University of Western Sydney Act 1988. The 1990s saw the federation of three education providers: UWS Nepean, UWS Hawkesbury, and UWS Macarthur. The university has a legislative basis in NSW state legislation with the passing of the University of Western Sydney Act 1997, which also empowers the university to make by-laws affecting the operation of the university.
A performing arts school had been established at UWS's predecessor, the Nepean College of Advanced Education, in 1980. There was a School of Visual and Performing Arts in the 1990s at UWS Nepean at Kingswood. The early incarnation of the school comprised three specialisations, acting, dance, and theatremaking. The drama school at UWS became known as Theatre Nepean. In 1997, a student-led organisation, CentreStage, was created by second-year performance students as a fund-raising body to cover the costs of staging and promoting Theatre Nepean's graduation productions not only at the Playhouse at the Kingswood campus and the Centre for Contemporary Performance at the Werrington South campus. Ruth Cracknell was its founding patron, with John Bell patron, and 1987 graduate of Theatre Nepean, David Wenham, its ambassador in 2002. At some point, due to lack of funding, the school amalgamated its three-discipline program into a single course.
Restructuring (2000s)
funding of Australia's universities as a percentage of Australia's GDP was in decline during the years of the Howard government. Federal funding policy was very influential at UWS. In 2000, after internal restructuring and cost-cutting, UWS Hawkesbury, UWS Macarthur, and UWS Nepean ceased to exist as autonomous components of the now defunct University of Western Sydney federation and became the new multi-campus University of Western Sydney.In the 2000s, UWS consolidated its schools of fine art, social science, humanities, and psychology. In this decade the university introduced its first nanotechnology and biotechnology undergraduate degrees.
In 2003, UWS sponsored a Samuel Beckett symposium as part of the Sydney Festival. In 2004, UWS joined with Metro Screen and SLICE TV to successfully bid for Sydney's first permanent community television licence. Television Sydney, broadcasting as TVS, launched in February 2006 from a broadcast operations centre located on the Werrington South Campus. In 2006, the UWS news site reported: "Demand to study at the University of Western Sydney is on the rise, with UWS receiving the third-biggest jump in first preferences among NSW and ACT universities for 2007".
In 2007, Theatre Nepean was suspended indefinitely, and the Australian Academy of Dramatic Art began a similar training program the following year, aiming at producing graduates who are all-round theatre-makers. Also in 2007, UWS had its first intake for Bachelor of Medicine / Bachelor of Surgery degree courses. In the same year, UWS was part of a consortium with Griffith University and the University of Melbourne to win funding for a National Centre of Excellence for Islamic Studies.
In 2008, UWS announced new water and energy saving strategies, its Indigenous Advisory Board and endorsed prime minister Kevin Rudd's Apology to Australia's Indigenous peoples.
In 2011 and 2012, Professors Roy Tasker and James Arvanitakis respectively, were announced as the Prime Minister's Australian University Teacher of the Year.
Renaming (2015)
On 30 August 2015, the University of Western Sydney underwent a rebranding which resulted in a change in name to Western Sydney University. Many students criticised the re-branding, calling it a waste of money that stripped the university community of its established identity.Campuses and buildings
Western Sydney University is a multi-campus institution. Each campus hosts an array of courses and different units can be completed across multiple campuses.Parramatta
The Parramatta Campus was first established on the site of the Female Orphan School, which was founded in 1813. The site was formerly home to Rydalmere Psychiatric hospital and is located at the eastern end of Parramatta, near the border with the suburb of Rydalmere. It now houses the Whitlam Institute.The Rydalmere campus was established as a campus of UWS in 1998. It is the nearest campus to the Sydney CBD.
Parramatta campus courses include occupation fields like Science, Business, and Law. It also hosts their Science courses in modern buildings near to the Rydalmere campus at a site formerly used by quarantine authorities, CSIRO, Amdel Sugar, and the Biological and Chemical Research Institute laboratories.
The university announced the establishment of a new campus in the Parramatta CBD as an extension of its existing Parramatta Campus in 2014.
Bankstown
The Bankstown Campus which opened in 1989, was located at Milperra, about from the Bankstown CBD. Specialising in the social sciences, most of the students on campus are psychology, sociology, arts, linguistics, and education students. The campus also hosts the Bachelor of Policing degree and much of The MARCS Institute. The campus also included a modern cafeteria/eatery area as well as Oliver Brown.Students on campus specialise in the social sciences. Most are psychology, sociology, nursing, arts and linguistic students. The campus is also home to the Bachelor of Policing program. The campus includes a modern cafeteria area, a new library, a full-size football oval, and the MARCS Institute.
UWS's most well-known interpreting and translation course is taught at Bankstown campus. UWS trains and produces many NAATI accredited interpreters and translators.
It was the original campus of the Macarthur Institute of Higher Education, which merged into the then-new university in 1989; however, as a result of widespread rebuilding by WSU, the oldest building on campus was opened in 1989. The building contains a plaque indicating that it was opened by the then treasurer and later Prime Minister Paul Keating.
Western Sydney University has built a new vertical campus in the Bankstown CBD which opened in March 2023. The campus caters to 10,000 students and 700 staff with courses in education, psychology, business and IT. In December 2019, Western Sydney University announced a partnership with the University of Technology Sydney which will see the two universities collaborate on postgraduate teaching and research. The two universities will also co-locate their business incubator programs at the new Bankstown City Campus. The new Bankstown City campus was officially opened in December 2022, and commenced teaching in early 2023.
Blacktown
In 2009, Western Sydney University opened The College at the old Blacktown campus of the university after protest about the divesting of property and resources from the site.The university's Nirimba campus is built on the site of HMAS Nirimba, a former naval aviation base, and is also known as the Nirimba Education Precinct, located in Nirimba Fields, about a 10-minute drive from Blacktown. The nearest railway station is Quakers Hill station in the neighbouring suburb of Quakers Hill. The campus has many historical buildings and two crossed air runways that ceased operation 1994. The Nirimba campus has student accommodation, air-conditioned lecture theatres and rooms built in the 1990s. The campus has views of the now closed Schofields Aerodrome. Campus numbers have dwindled since the university reduced the range of courses available. The campus is primarily a single-discipline campus, offering business courses which are also taught at other Western Sydney University campuses. Nirimba campus is not far from Norwest Business Park.
Located in the Nirimba Education Precinct in Nirimba Fields, the campus is the home of the Western Sydney University-owned UWSCollege. Western Sydney University shares the precinct with TAFE NSW-Western Sydney Institute, Nirimba College, St John Paul II Catholic College and Wyndham College.
In recent times there has been much controversy over the status of this campus, at one point Western Sydney University was depicted in the media as abandoning the campus and the local area it served. There was even a council run protest at the closure called Save UWS Nirimba, where politicians and the university were petitioned to save the campus from closure, later it was decided rather than divesting they would set up The College. Western Sydney University has recently announced for its Blacktown campus a brand new Medical facility called the Blacktown-Mount Druitt Clinical school which would be based at Blacktown Hospital, making it the second clinical school associated with the School of Medicine; the first school being the Macarthur Clinical School at Campbelltown Hospital which opened in March 2007. In 2017 the university announced plans to sell off land held on the Nirimba site, previously set aside for student accommodation.
The library located in C21 was originally a dual purpose library, though run and staffed by Western Sydney University it was also used as the TAFE library. In 2023, TAFE NSW established its own separate library service in a nearby building, serving TAFE students, TAFE alumni and community borrowers.
The University library also caters to the students of The College.