Monash University

Date founded: 1958

Colleges or faculties: Art, Design and Architecture; Arts; Business and Economics; Education; Engineering; Information Technology; Law; Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences; Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences; Science

Location: Melbourne, Victoria

Type: Public

Size: 73,807 students; 8,109 faculty

Monash University is a Melbourne-based centre of higher learning with faculties offering undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in more than 150 fields of research at eight campuses around the world. Students can take courses in Art, Design and Architecture; the Arts; Business and Economics; Education; Engineering; Information Technology; Law; Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences; Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences; and Science. In addition to traditional degree paths, the university offers a research-only postgraduate degree, at both master’s and doctoral levels.

The main campus is in Clayton, about twenty kilometres south-east of Melbourne. Two other campuses in Australia are in Caulfield, nine kilometres south-east of Melbourne, and (the Peninsula campus) in the Melbourne suburb of Frankston. A centre on Collins Street in the Melbourne central business district caters to students pursuing a Bachelor of International Business degree.

Monash University is home to more than 120 institutes and research centres and has partnerships with more than one hundred other universities around the world. Monash University itself has international campuses and centres. Monash University Malaysia is in Bandar Sunway, Kuala Lumpur, and is the university’s third-largest campus. Monash South Africa is in Ruimsig, twenty-five kilometres north of the city centre of Johannesburg, and is part of the well-known global group the Laureate Universities.

Southeast University-Monash University Joint Graduate School and Joint Research Institute are in Suzhou, China. This partnership made Monash the first Australian university to enter the burgeoning Chinese education market. The Joint Graduate School for Graduate Education offers master’s programs with an international focus, including business, information technology and industrial design. In addition to a focus on computation and manufacturing, the Joint Research Institute’s four centres of research focus on energy and the environment and the development of future cities.

In India is the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, a research academy in north-east Mumbai. Among the areas of focus for the studies at this research centre are biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, petrochemicals, computer engineering, and clean energy. An option for Monash students in Italy is the Prato Centre, in the picturesque Tuscan city of the same name, which offers various short courses and traditional length courses, all with a focus on European industry and culture.

The university motto is Ancora Imparo: “I am still learning”.

History

Monash University is named for Sir John Monash, a Melbourne native and one of the best-known figures in Australian history. After earning a Bachelor of Arts and a Master of Science, Monash earned four doctoral degrees — three in law and one in engineering — from universities in Australia and England (both Cambridge and Oxford). A successful civil engineer, he joined the armed services at age nineteen and survived the harrowing World War I trials of Gallipoli and Passchendaele. In 1918, he was commander of the Australian Corps. A brilliant strategist, he was the author of the plan for a battle in Belgium in August 1918 that resulted in an Allied victory and quickened the decline of the Central Powers. After the war, he oversaw the reintroduction into public life of his country’s returning soldiers and then himself returned to engineering. He also had a role in planning Melbourne’s war memorial, the Shrine of Remembrance, and the annual observance of ANZAC Day.

An Act of Parliament established Monash University in 1958. The first year of study was 1961, and 363 students were in that first class. During the turbulent late 1960s and early 1970s, Monash University students joined together to do what so many others of their age were doing at other universities around the world—protest. Of primary focus for these protests was Australia’s role in the Vietnam War.

The Caulfield campus began as the Caulfield Technical School in 1922 and has had five different names through the years. Caulfield played a role in educating returning veterans after World War II. The Peninsula campus began at Frankston as a teachers’ college and in 1973 became the State College at Frankston. This entity and the Caulfield Institute of Technology merged in 1982, creating the Chisholm Institute of Technology. A final merger with Monash University in 1990 brought the Caulfield and Peninsula campuses into the Monash fold. In 1991, the Parkville campus came onboard after a partnership between Monash University and the Victorian College of Pharmacy.

Monash expanded internationally in 1998 with the advent of Monash University Malaysia, in Kuala Lumpur. The university in 2001 expanded into the African continent with Monash South Africa, the first foreign university in that country. In 2012, Monash University became the first Australian university to be granted a licence to educate in China. The result was the Southeast University – Monash University Joint Graduate School and Joint Research Institute, both in Suzhou.

Impact

The Brain Research Institute Monash Sunway (BRIMS), at the Malaysia campus, is known for research on neurological diseases. Students at Monash South Africa have a strong ethic of volunteering, with one particular high-profile initiative pairing Monash South Africa students with disadvantaged children to help those students with their study.

The Australian Synchrotron, at the Clayton campus, runs particle accelerators to pursue cutting-edge research into the tiny world of electrons and atoms. The focus at the Parkville campus is on medicinal chemistry. The Peninsula campus programs focus on education, business, and health and well-being.

Monash faculty and alumni have made important contributions to medicine. Pioneering research into in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) resulted in the world’s first clinical IVF pregnancy, at Monash, in 1973. Scientists at Monash University helped develop the popular anti-influenza drug Zanamivir, which has the trade name Relenza. Monash Engineering research has resulted in what is believed to be the world’s first wearable electronic skin, for monitoring health and vital signs in real time.

Bibliography

Davis, Glyn. The Australian Idea of a University. University of Melbourne Press, 2017.

Forsyth, Hannah. A History of the Modern Australian University. NewSouth, 2014.

Hurst, Rachel. “Monash University Learning and Teaching Building.” Architecture Australia, vol. 107, no. 5, Sept. 2018, pp. 82–90. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=anh&AN=131385767&site=ehost-live. Accessed 5 February 2019.

“Our Locations.” Monash University. https://www.monash.edu/about/our-locations. Accessed 10 Oct. 2018.

Pearce, Rohan. “How Monash University’s Microgrid Will Help Build the ‘City of the Future.’” ComputerWorld, Dec. 2017, p. 1. EBSCOhost, http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=anh&AN=126911268&site=ehost-live. Accessed 5 February 2019.

Simon Johanson. “Monash University Takes Space on St Kilda Road.” Age, The (Melbourne), 13 July 2016, p. 25. EBSCOhost, http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=anh&AN=SYD-6QK2LGZ3S5K1609ZRN8F&site=ehost-live. Accessed 5 February 2019.