Monash University () is a public research university based in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Named after World War I general Sir John Monash, it was founded in 1958. The university has a number of campuses, four of which are in Victoria (Clayton, Caulfield, Peninsula, and Parkville), one in Malaysia and another one in Indonesia. Monash has a research and teaching centre in Prato, Italy, a graduate research school in Mumbai, India, and graduate schools in Suzhou, China, and Tangerang, Indonesia.
Monash hosts a number of research facilities, including the Monash Law School, the Australian Synchrotron, the Monash Science Technology Research and Innovation Precinct (STRIP), the Australian Stem Cell Centre, Victorian College of Pharmacy, and 100 research centres and 17 co-operative research centres. In 2019, its revenue was over $2.72 billion (AUD), with external research income around $462 million. In 2019, Monash enrolled over 55,000 undergraduate and over 25,000 postgraduate students.
Monash is a member of Australia's Group of Eight research universities, a member of the ASAIHL, and is the only Australian member of the M8 Alliance of Academic Health Centers, Universities and National Academies. It is one of the Australian universities ranked in the École des Mines de Paris (Mines ParisTech) ranking on the basis of the number of alumni listed among CEOs in the 500 largest worldwide companies.
History
Early history: 1950s Established by the (No. 6184 (Vic)), the original campus was in the suburb of Clayton where the university was granted an expansive site of 100 hectares of open land. The 100 hectares of land consisted of farmland and included the former Talbot Epileptic Colony. The Tudor-style farmhouse built by the O'Shea family became the original Vice-Chancellor's House—now University House.
In 1961, the university enrolled 357 students at Clayton. By 1967, enrollment reached 21,000 students. In its early years, it offered undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in engineering, medicine, science, arts, economics, politics, education, and law. It was a major provider for international student places under the Colombo Plan, which saw the first Asian students enter the Australian education system.
The university was named after the prominent Australian general Sir John Monash. This was the first time in Australia that a university had been named after a person, rather than a city or state.
1970s onwards From the mid-1960s to the early 1970s, Monash became the centre of student radicalism in Australia. It was the site of many mass student demonstrations, particularly concerning Australia's role in the Vietnam War and conscription. By the late 1960s, several student organisations, some of which were influenced by or supporters of communism, turned their focus to Vietnam, with numerous blockades and sit-ins. In an event later known as the Monash Siege, students forced then Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser to hide in a basement at the Alexander Theatre, in a major protest over the Whitlam dismissal.
In the late 1970s and 1980s, some of Monash's most publicised research came through its pioneering of in-vitro fertilisation (IVF). Led by Carl Wood and Alan Trounson, the Monash IVF Program achieved the world's first clinical IVF pregnancy in 1973. In 1980, they delivered the first IVF baby in Australia.
In the late 1980s, the Dawkins Reforms changed the landscape of higher education in Australia. Under the leadership of Vice-Chancellor Mal Logan, Monash expanded further. In 1988, Monash University had only one campus in Clayton, with around 15,000 students. Around a decade later, it had 8 campuses (including 2 overseas), a European research and teaching centre, and more than 50,000 students, making it the largest and most internationalised Australian university.
Expansion in the 1990s In 1990, a series of mergers between Monash, the Chisholm Institute of Technology, and the Gippsland Institute of Advanced Education began. In 1991 a merger with the Victorian College of Pharmacy created a new faculty of the university. This continued in 1994, with the establishment of the Berwick campus.
In 1998, the university opened the Malaysia campus, its first overseas campus and the first foreign university in Malaysia. In 2001, Monash South Africa opened in Roodepoort, Johannesburg, the first foreign university in South Africa. The same year, the university secured an 18th-century Tuscan palace to open a research and teaching centre in Prato, Italy.
An increase in international students and the university's expansion contributed to increased income throughout the 1990s. It has since ranked as one of Australia's top 200 exporters.
2000 onwards
In recent years, the university has been prominent in medical research. In 2000, when Alan Trounson led the team of scientists which announced to the world that nerve stem cells could be derived from embryonic stem cells, a discovery which led to a dramatic increase in interest in the potential of stem cells. It has also led to Monash being ranked in the top 20 universities in the world for biomedicine.
On 21 October 2002, Huan Yun "Allen" Xiang, shot two people dead and injured five others on the Clayton campus.
Since December 2011, Monash has had a global alliance with the University of Warwick in the United Kingdom.
In 2014, the university ceded its Gippsland campus to Federation University. On 15 July 2016, Monash confirmed that Federation University Australia would take over the operations of the Berwick campus prior to the end of 2018.
In 2019, the university sold its Monash South Africa campus to Advtech. Students who were on schedule to complete their degree on time would still receive a degree from Monash University after the sale. The reason for the sale was reported to be low profitability and low enrolment numbers. Prior to the sale, Monash University had sidelined the South African campus on its official websites and did not refer to it as a 'campus' unlike Monash Malaysia.
Monash announced an Indonesian campus in December 2020. The university plans to open its campus doors in October 2021, located in BSD City, Tangerang, Banten. Unlike Monash Malaysia, Monash Indonesia will focus on graduate studies including hosting the Institute for Advanced Research, supported by the Indonesian Scholarship and Research Support Foundation.
Campuses and buildings Australia Clayton
The Clayton campus in covers approximately and is the largest of the Monash campuses. Clayton is the flagship campus for Monash, demanding higher ATAR scores than all of the other campuses, with the exception of Parkville. Clayton is home to the faculties of Arts, Business and Economics, Education, Engineering, Information Technology, Law, Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences, and Science. The Clayton campus has its own suburb and postcode.
Various major scientific research facilities are located on or adjacent to the campus. Chief among these are the Australian Synchrotron and CSIRO.
The campus is also home to numerous restaurants and retail outlets, as well as student bars: Sir John's (located in the Campus Centre) and the Notting Hill Hotel (located down the street, founded in 1891), both of which are hubs of social life on the campus.
The campus is also home to a number of halls of residence, colleges and other on-campus accommodations that house several thousand students. Six halls of residence are located at the Clayton campus. There is an additional private residential college affiliated with the university. The Clayton campus contains the Robert Blackwood Hall, named after the university's founding chancellor Sir Robert Blackwood and designed by Sir Roy Grounds.Monash University, Academy of Performing Arts . Retrieved 7 April 2013
Caulfield
The Caulfield campus in is Monash University's second-largest. Its multifaceted nature is reflected in the range of programs it offers through the faculties of Arts, Art Design & Architecture (MADA), Business & Economics, and Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences. A major building program has been announced to expand teaching facilities, provide student accommodation, and redevelop the shopping centre.
Alfred
The Alfred campus is located in The Alfred Hospital and campus houses the Central Clinical School and the School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, which contains the Department of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine and the Department of Forensic Medicine.
Parkville
The Parkville campus is located on Royal Parade in Parkville, approximately north of the Melbourne city centre. The campus is home to the Faculty of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences. The faculty specialises in pharmacy practice, pharmaceutical and formulation science, and medicinal chemistry. The campus also offers postgraduate degrees, including the Doctor of Philosophy and Master of Clinical Pharmacy.
Peninsula
The Peninsula campus is located in the bayside suburb of on the edge of Melbourne. The campus has a teaching and research focus on health and wellbeing, and is a hub of undergraduate and postgraduate studies in Nursing, Health Science, Physiotherapy, Occupational Therapy and Psychology - and particularly in Emergency Health (Paramedic) courses. The Peninsula campus also offers a range of courses including those from its historic roots with early childhood and primary education (during the 1960s and 1970s, the campus was the State Teachers' College), and Business and Economics (since the merger of the State Teachers' College with the Caulfield Institute of Technology to create the Chisholm Institute of Technology in 1982). The campus was also home to the Peninsula School of Information Technology, which in 2006 was wound back with Information Technology units previously offered being relocated to the Caulfield campus.
City The Monash Law city campus is located in the Melbourne city centre and houses the postgraduate Faculty of Law. It provides teaching for the Monash Law Masters and JD programmes. This campus is well placed within Melbourne's legal precinct, allowing students to have easy access to the surrounding courts.
Observatory Monash University operates the Hutton-Westfold Observatory near Clayton Campus. The observatory has been in operation since 2009 and was named for Don Hutton and Kevin Westfold, both astronomers who worked at the university. The observatory is home to a Schmidt–Cassegrain telescope.
Online Campus
Monash University offers fully online postgraduate courses through Monash Online. Courses offered are in a range of disciplines including psychology, business, education and information technology.
This remote mode of learning offers students in regional and rural communities an accessible postgraduate education.
International Malaysia
The Monash University Malaysia campus opened in 1998 in Bandar Sunway, Selangor, Malaysia. The Sunway campus offers various undergraduate degrees through its faculties of Arts and Social Sciences, Business, Engineering, Information Technology, Medicine and Health Sciences, Pharmacy and Science. It is currently home to over 8,489 students. A purpose-built campus opened in 2007. Its degrees in Medicine and Surgery are the first medical degrees outside Australia and New Zealand accredited by the Australian Medical Council.
Italy
The Monash University Prato Centre is located in the 18th-century palace, Palazzo Vaj, in the historic centre of Prato, a city near Florence in Italy. Primarily, it hosts staff and students from Monash's other campuses for semesters in Law, Art Design & Architecture, History, Music, and Criminology as well as various international conferences. It was officially opened on 17 September 2001 as part of the university's vigorous internationalisation policy.
India