University of Sydney

The University of Sydney (commonly referred to as Sydney University, Sydney Uni, USYD, or Sydney) is an Australian public university in Sydney. Founded in 1850, it is Australia's first university and is regarded as one of its most prestigious, ranked as the world's 27th most reputable university. In 2013, it was ranked 37th and in the top 0.3% in the QS World University Rankings. Seven Nobel or Crafoord laureates have been affiliated with the university as graduates and faculty. Its campus is ranked in the top 10 of the world's most beautiful universities by the British Daily Telegraph and The Huffington Post, spreading across the inner-city suburbs of Camperdown and Darlington.

The University comprises 16 faculties and schools, through which it offers bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees. In 2011 it had 32,393 undergraduate and 16,627 graduate students.

Sydney University is a member of the prestigious Group of Eight, Academic Consortium 21, the Association of Pacific Rim Universities (APRU), the Association of Southeast Asian Institutions of Higher Learning, the Australia-Africa Universities Network (AAUN), the Association of Commonwealth Universities and the Worldwide Universities Network. The University is also colloquially known as one of Australia's sandstone universities.

History

In 1848, in the New South Wales Legislative Council, William Wentworth, a graduate of the University of Cambridge and Charles Nicholson, a medical graduate from the University of Edinburgh Medical School, proposed a plan to expand the existing Sydney College into a larger university. Wentworth argued that a state university was imperative for the growth of a society aspiring towards self-government, and that it would provide the opportunity for "the child of every class, to become great and useful in the destinies of his country". It would take two attempts on Wentworth's behalf, however, before the plan was finally adopted.

The university was established via the passage of the University of Sydney Act, on 24 September 1850 and was assented on 1 October 1850 by Sir Charles Fitzroy. 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. On 27 February 1858 the university received its Royal Charter from Queen Victoria, giving degrees conferred by the university rank and recognition equal to those given by universities in the United Kingdom. By 1859, the university had moved to its current site in the Sydney suburb of Camperdown.

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 Parliament of New South Wales was first filled in 1876, but was abolished in 1880 one year after its second member, Edmund Barton, who later became the first Prime Minister of Australia, was elected to the Legislative Assembly.

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 William Montagu Manning (Chancellor 1878â€"95) who argued against the claims by British Tax Commissioners. The following year seven professorships were created: anatomy; zoology; engineering; history; law; logic and mental philosophy; and modern literature.

1950â€"2000

The New England University College was founded as part of the University of Sydney in 1938 and later separated in 1954 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 Professor David Armstrong, a respected 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 to become 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.

Under the terms of the Higher Education (Amalgamation) Act 1989 (NSW) the following bodies were incorporated into the University in 1990:

• the Sydney Branch of the Sydney Conservatorium of Music
• the Cumberland College of Health Sciences
• the Sydney College of the Arts of the Institute of the Arts
• the Sydney Institute of Education of the Sydney College of Advanced Education
• the Institute of Nursing Studies of the Sydney College of Advanced Education
• the Guild Centre of the Sydney College of Advanced Education.

Prior to 1981, the Sydney Institute of Education was the Sydney Teachers College.

The Orange Agricultural College (OAC) 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.

2000â€"present

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 (Australia). 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 (and the Cumberland campus).

In February 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. As a Roman Catholic institution, in handing over the land St John's placed limitations on the type of medical research which could be conducted on the premises, seeking to preserve the essence of the college's mission. This caused concern among some groups, who argued that it would interfere with scientific medical research. However, this was rejected by the university's administration because the building was not intended for this purpose and there were many other facilities in close proximity where such research could take place.

At the start of 2010, the university controversially adopted a new logo. It retains the same university arms, however it takes 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 (shield), 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.

Coat of arms

The Grant of Arms was made by the College of Arms in 1857. The grant reads:

Argent on a Cross Azure and open book proper, clasps Gold, between four Stars of eight points Or, on a chief Gules a Lion passant Guardant also Or, together with this motto "Sidere mens eadem mutato" to be borne and used forever herafter by the said University of Sydney on their Common Seal, Shields or otherwise according to the Law of Arms.

The use of eight-pointed stars was unusual for arms at the time, although they had been used unofficially as emblems for New South Wales since the 1820s and on the arms of the Church of England Diocese of Australia in 1836.

According to the university, the Latin motto Sidere mens eadem mutato can be translated as "Though the constellations change, the mind is universal", thereby, conveying the aspiration that "the traditions of the older universities of the Northern Hemisphere are continued here in the Southern." Author and university alumnus Clive James quipped in his 1981 autobiography that the motto loosely translates as "Sydney University is really Oxford or Cambridge laterally displaced approximately 12,000 miles."

Rankings

The 2014-2015 QS World University Rankings placed the University of Sydney 37th and in the top 0.3% overall in the world. Additionally, it ranked Sydney as the 27th most reputable university in the world. Sydney is one of only 12 universities in the world to receive a "5 Star Plus" rating by QS based on criteria including "research, employability, teaching, facilities, internationalisation, innovation, specialist criteria and inclusiveness".

The 2013 QS World University Rankings by Subject placed Sydney in the top 20 in the world in 11 subjects; more than a third of the 30 measured. The University of Sydney was ranked 8th in the world for Education, 9th in Accounting and Finance and 10th in Law. Additionally, Sydney was placed 12th in English Language and Literature, History and Archaeology, Linguistics and Civil Engineering and Structural Engineering, the highest in Australia of those subjects. Psychology at Sydney was ranked 14th, Pharmacy and Pharmacology, and Communication and Media were ranked 16th, and the Sydney Medical School was ranked 17th.

The Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2011â€"12 placed the University of Sydney 58th, 9th in the Asia Pacific and in the top 0.6% in the world. The Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2013 placed Sydney 21st in Arts and Humanities, 25th in Clinical, Pre-clinical and Health, 36th in Social Sciences and 46th in Engineering and Technology. The Times Higher Education World Reputation Rankings 2013, placed Sydney as the 49th most reputable in the world.

In the 2014 Shanghai Ranking published by Shanghai Ranking Consultancy, the University of Sydney was ranked in the 101-150th bracket, 7th in the Asia Pacific and in the top 1% in the world.

In the Performance Ranking of Scientific Papers for World Universities 2014 by National Taiwan University, Sydney is ranked 37th in the world, 3rd in the Asia Pacific and 2nd in Australia.

In the 2013-2014 "University Ranking for Academic Performance", the University of Sydney is ranked 39th in the world and 2nd in Australia.

The 2014 U.S. News & World Report's Best Global Universities ranking placed Sydney 45th in the world, 5th in the Asia Pacific and 2nd in Australasia.

In 2014, the Centre for World University Rankings ranked Sydney 95th, in the top 1% in the world and 1st in Australia.

The number of rich Sydney alumni was ranked fifth outside the United States, behind Cambridge and LSE according to the ABC NEWS.

Business magazine Spear's placed the University of Sydney 44th in the world in its table of "World’s top 100 universities for producing millionaires".

In 2012, the New York Times placed the University of Sydney's graduates at 49th in the world for employability, determined by surveys of thousands of top company recruiters.

In 2014, The Financial Times ranked the Sydney Business School's Master of Management program 47th in the world, 4th in the Asia Pacific and 1st in Australia. Additionally, The Australian Financial Review ranked Sydney's Executive Master of Business Administration (EMBA) 1st in Australia.

Notable alumni

Throughout its history, University of Sydney alumni have made significant contributions to both Australia and the world. Australian leaders who have graduated from the University include two governors-general, six Australian prime ministers, the most of any university, including Australia's first, Sir Edmund Barton, four chief justices of the High Court of Australia, and twenty other justices of the High Court, as well as the third president of the United Nations General Assembly and seven Nobel laureates or Crafoord laureates. According to ABC NEWS, the university produced more ultra high-net-worth alumni than any other Australian university and the number of rich Sydney alumni was ranked fifth outside the United States, behind Cambridge and LSE.

Organisation

The university comprises 16 faculties and schools:

• Faculty of Agriculture and Environment
• Faculty of Architecture, Design and Planning
• Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences
• University of Sydney Business School
• Faculty of Dentistry
• Faculty of Education and Social Work
• Faculty of Engineering and Information Technologies
• Faculty of Health Sciences
• Sydney Law School
• Sydney Medical School
• Sydney Nursing School
• Faculty of Pharmacy
• Faculty of Science
• Sydney College of the Arts
• Sydney Conservatorium of Music
• Faculty of Veterinary Science

The five largest faculties and schools by 2011 student enrollments were (in descending order): Arts and Social Sciences; Business; Science; Engineering and Information Technologies; Health Sciences. Together they constituted 64.4% of the university's students and each had a student enrolment over 4,500 (at least 9% of students).

Endowments and research grants

The University of Sydney currently has financial endowments totalling $829 million. A drop due to recent downturn of the global economic situation. The university's turnover, in turn, was A$1.3 billion in 2008.

Latest figures show that the University of Sydney has received the highest amount of research grants, which may demonstrate its research competitiveness and the size of its students and staff body. The University of Sydney also has the second largest (behind Monash University) body of students and researchers among Australian universities.

The University of Sydney secured more than $46 million in funding in the 2007 round of National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Project Grant, Capacity Building and Fellowship awards, the largest allocation to any university in the state. The James Jones foundation has announced the 2007 recipient of the bicentennial award in university research linked to applied agricultural economics. The award includes various grant and research opportunities that may be taken up by both staff members and senior students. Five of the university's affiliated medical research facilities secured $38 million in the Australian government's 2006 budget, part of $163 million made available for a variety of development and expansion projects.

Bequests and legacies

• Douglas Burrows Chair of Paediatrics and Child Health
• John Challis Bequest for chairs in Law, International Law, Jurisprudence, Anatomy, Biology, Civil Engineering, English Literature, History and Philosophy
• Carlyle Greenwell Research Fund in Anthropology and Archaeology
• Edwin Cuthbert Hall Chair of Middle Eastern Archaeology
• Mitchell Notaras Fellowship in Colorectal Surgery
• Robert W Storr Chair for Hepatic Medicine

Campus

Main campus

The main campus has been ranked in the top 10 of the world's most beautiful universities by the British Daily Telegraph, The Huffington Post and Disney Pixar, among others such as Oxford and Cambridge and is spread across the inner-city suburbs of Camperdown and Darlington.

Originally housed in what is now Sydney Grammar School, in 1855 the government granted land in Grose Farm to the university, three kilometres from the city, which is now the main Camperdown campus. The architect Edmund Blacket designed the original Neo-Gothic sandstone Quadrangle and Great Tower buildings, which were completed in 1862. The rapid expansion of the university in the mid-20th century resulted in the acquisition of land in Darlington across City Road. The Camperdown/Darlington campus houses the university's administrative headquarters, and the Faculties of Arts, Science, Education and Social Work, Pharmacy, Veterinary Science, Economics and Business, Architecture, and Engineering. It is also the home base of the large Faculty of Medicine, which has numerous affiliated teaching hospitals across the state.

The main campus is also the focus of the university's student life, with the student-run University of Sydney Union (known as 'the Union') in possession of three buildings â€" Wentworth, Manning and Holme Buildings. These buildings house a large proportion of the university's catering outlets, and provide space for recreational rooms, bars and function centres. One of the largest activities organised by the Union is the Orientation Week (or 'O-week'), centring on stalls set up by clubs and societies on the Front Lawns.

The university is currently undertaking a large capital works program with the aim of revitalising the campus and providing more office, teaching and student space. The program will see the amalgamation of the smaller science and technical libraries into a larger library, and the construction of a central administration and student services building along City Road. A new building for the School of Information Technologies opened in late 2006 and has been located on a site adjacent to the Seymour Centre. The busy Eastern Avenue thoroughfare has been transformed into a pedestrian plaza and a new footbridge has been built over City Road. The new home for the Sydney Law School, located alongside Fisher Library on the site of the old Edgeworth David and Stephen Roberts buildings, has been completed.

The campus is well served by public transport, being a short walk from Redfern railway station and served by buses on the neighbouring Parramatta Road and City Road.

From 2007, the university has used space in the former Eveleigh railway yards, just to the south of Darlington, for examination purposes.

Satellite campuses

• Mallett Street campus: The Mallett Street campus is home of the Faculty of Nursing.

• Cumberland campus: Formerly an independent institution (the Cumberland College of Health Sciences), the Cumberland campus in the Sydney suburb of Lidcombe was incorporated into the University as part of the higher education reforms of the late 1980s. It is home to the Faculty of Health Sciences, which covers various allied health disciplines, including physiotherapy, speech pathology, radiation therapy, occupational therapy, as well as exercise science and health information management.

• The Sydney Dental Hospital located in Surry Hills and the Westmead Centre for Oral Health which is attached to Westmead Hospital.

• St James campus: This building in Phillip Street is near the Supreme Court and was the location of the Sydney Law School until 2009. The law school is now primarily located on the Camperdown campus in a purpose-built facility, with postgraduate programs still run from the St James campus.

• Rozelle Campus: The Sydney College of the Arts (SCA) is based in a former sanitorium in the Sydney suburb of Rozelle, overlooking Port Jackson. The college specialises in the fine (visual) arts.

• Sydney Conservatorium of Music: Formerly the NSW State Conservatorium of Music, the Sydney Conservatorium of Music (SCM) is located in the Sydney CBD on the edge of Sydney's Royal Botanic Gardens, a short distance from the Sydney Opera House. It became a faculty of the University in the 1990s and incorporates the main campus Department of Music, which was the subject of the documentary Facing the Music.

• Orange Agricultural College: Located at Orange in rural NSW, the Orange Agricultural College joined in 1994. Orange campus was principally the domain of the former Faculty of Rural Management; however other undergraduate courses from the Faculties of Arts, Science, Nursing and Pharmacy were also taught at Orange. The Orange Campus and the Faculty of Rural Management were transferred to Charles Sturt University in 2005.

• Camden campus: Located on Sydney's southwest rural fringe, the Camden campus houses research farms for agriculture and veterinary science.

• One Tree Island: Situated within the World Heritage Site Great Barrier Reef Marine Park about 20 km east-southeast of Heron Island and about 90 km east-northeast of Gladstone on the Queensland coast, One Tree Island hosts a tropical marine research station of the School of Geosciences.

• IA Watson Grains Research Centre: Located at Narrabri in north-central New South Wales, a research station of the Faculty of Agriculture and Environment.

• Taylors College: Located at Waterloo, New South Wales, NSW, this college is operated by the University for its Foundation Program, catering to international students wishing to enter the University.

Facilities and services

University of Sydney Library

The University of Sydney Library consists of eleven individual libraries located across the University's various campuses. According to the library's publications, it is the largest academic library in the southern hemisphere; university statistics show that in 2007 the collection consisted of just under 5 million physical volumes and a further 300,000 e-books, for a total of approximately 5.3 million items. The Rare Books Library possesses several extremely rare items, including one of the two extant copies of the Gospel of Barnabas and a first edition of Isaac Newton's Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica.

Museums and galleries

• The Nicholson Museum of Antiquities contains the largest and most prestigious collection of antiquities in Australia. It is also the country's oldest university museum, and features ancient artefacts from Egypt, the Middle East, Greece, Rome, Cyprus and Mesopotamia, collected by the University over many years and added to by recent archaeological expeditions.
• The Macleay Museum is named after Alexander Macleay, whose collection of insects begun in the late eighteenth century was the basis upon which the museum was founded. It has developed into an extraordinary collection of natural history specimens, ethnographic artefacts, scientific instruments and historic photographs.
• The University Art Collection was founded in the 1860s and contains more than 7,000 pieces, constantly growing through donation, bequests, and acquisition. It is housed in several different places, including the Sir Hermann Black Gallery and the War Memorial Art Gallery.
• The University Art Gallery opened in 1959. The Gallery hosted numerous exhibitions until 1972, when it was taken over for office space. It reopened in 1995 and continues to present a regularly changing program.
• The Rare Books Library is a part of the Fisher Library and holds 185,000 books and manuscripts which are rare, valuable or fragile, including eighty medieval manuscripts, works by Galileo, Halley and Copernicus and an extensive collection of Australiana. The copy of the Gospel of Barnabas, and a first edition of Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica by Sir Isaac Newton are held here. Regular exhibitions of rare books are held in the exhibition room.

Residential colleges

The University has a number of residential college and halls of residence, based on the college system of Cambridge and Oxford universities, each with its own distinctive style and facilities. All offer tutorial support and a wide range of social and sporting activities in a supportive communal environment. Five colleges are affiliated with religious denominations and while this gives each of these colleges a special character, students of any denomination or religion are eligible for admission. Unlike some residential colleges in British or American universities, the colleges are not affiliated with any specific discipline of study. "Intercol" refers to the six colleges which exist on campus. They are modelled on the British system of colleges and competition for entry is high each year. The Colleges compete in the Rawson Cup (sport for men) the Rosebowl cup (sport for women) and the Palladian Cup (drama, debating and music for both men and women).

• St John's College
• St Andrew's College
• St Paul's College
• Sancta Sophia College
• Wesley College
• The Women's College

The University also has three other residential systems, which are different from the colleges, and are not part of the intercol system. For a variety of reasons, the intercol network has chosen to have no affiliation with these "houses".

• Mandelbaum House
• International House
• Sydney University Village

There is a university-affiliated housing cooperative, Stucco.

The college also publishes a peer-reviewed online journal, Philament, that focuses on work by postgraduate students including creative stories. the journal is supported by an advisory board of faculty members, and is registered by the Australian Commonwealth Department of Education Science and Training (DEST).

Student organisations

• Student Representatives: Politically and academically, undergraduate students are represented by the Students' Representative Council (SRC) and postgraduate students by the Sydney University Postgraduate Representative Association (SUPRA).

• University of Sydney Union: The University of Sydney Union (USU) is the oldest and largest university union in Australia. USU provides a range of activities, programs, services and facilities geared at giving students the university experience. This involves delivering a huge Clubs and Societies program, a varied entertainment program, student opportunities, a range of catering and retail services plus buildings and recreational spaces for students, staff and visitors.

• Sydney Uni Sport and Fitness: Formerly known as the Sydney University Sports Union and Sydney University Women's Sports Association, Sydney University Sport is one of Australia's largest tertiary sporting bodies. It currently manages and administers 42 sport and recreation clubs, organises sporting and recreation events, and offers student and non-student members a comprehensive range of sporting facilities.

The SRC and Union are both governed by student representatives, who are elected by students each year. Elections for the USU board of directors occur in first semester; elections for the SRC President, and for members of the Students' Representative Council itself, occur in second semester, along with a separate election for the editorial board of the student newspaper Honi Soit, which is published by the SRC. The elections are usually closely contested, and result in much of the main campus being covered with chalk messages from the various candidates. However, some complaints have been made in the pages of Honi Soit and other publications about the organisations' claims to represent the student body, citing perennially low voter turnouts and the general apathy of much of the university population to student politics.

The future of these organisations was believed to be under a shadow with the passage of legislation implementing voluntary student unionism in late 2005. The legislation prohibited the compulsory collection of fees from students, which had been the customary means of funding student organisations, after the beginning of Semester 2 of 2006. Although the organisations continue to be concerned about their long-term financial viability, they have secured significant funding from the University to partially make up for lost revenue.

Miscellaneous

Statistics

See also

• List of universities in Australia
• Great Hall of the University of Sydney
• Honi Soit
• List of University of Sydney staff and alumni
• Frontiers of Science (1962â€"87)
• Power Institute of Fine Arts
• NICTA â€" National Information and Communication Technology Research Centre, co-supported by University of Sydney
• National Computer Science School

References

• Williams, Bruce. Liberal education and useful knowledge: a brief history of the University of Sydney, 1850â€"2000, Chancellor's Committee, University of Sydney, 2002. ISBN 1-86487-439-2

External links

• University of Sydney website
• Satellite image of the Main Campus, on Google Maps
• University of Sydney Union
• University of Sydney Act
• World Debate Website Team Ranking by total Points won at Worlds (Unofficial)