Wednesday, 16 October 2024
UNSW, Kensington
Her Excellency the Honourable Margaret Beazley AC KC

I am honoured to be here tonight as the Official Visitor to the University to join in its 75^th anniversary – an anniversary symbolised by the diamond – which today is usually associated with a 60^th anniversary celebration. There is a back story as to why this is so – in what might be described as a royal hijack.  In 1897, as Queen Victoria was approaching her 60^th year as sovereign, the Royal household, perhaps assuming no Monarch would reign for 75 years, captioned her 60^th year as her diamond jubilee.  And so, it has remained ever since.

This University, having passed one diamond celebration has now reached another, providing an occasion to recognise the achievements of the University as a whole and most particularly the individuals who, collectively, are its institutional lifeblood. But let me commence with a little history.

In 1949, the year the University was established, the world was in the midst of its post-war recovery. An important by-product of the war effort had been the ‘the application of science to industry’.^[1]  The post-war challenge, as nations strove to regain their momentum and prosperity, was how to direct the productivity of war time industry into peacetime industrial development.   This challenge, as the Minister for Education said in his Second Reading Speech for the Bill establishing the University^[2], required “maximum technical education facilities of the highest possible standard”,^[3]  which could only be achieved by guaranteeing “a standard of technological training previously unattainable in this country”.^[4]  

The legislation^[5] was based on a clearsighted understanding that Australia’s future economic prosperity could not be reliant solely on our rich natural resources. Rather, it was imperative that we look to the application of science to industry.  The Minister for Education observed that leading technological institutions such as MIT^[6] in the United States had enabled scientific and developmental research to flourish.    By contrast, Great Britain’s position as a leading industrial nation was under threat.  The distinction between the success of the United States and the vulnerability of Great Britain was in higher technological education.  

For this University, this meant that the vision from the outset was to establish the necessary educational basis for original scientific discovery and research, its development and application,^[7] with the imperative for commercialisation well understood.^[8]

The Minister also appreciated that the University, as the ‘new kid’ on the block, would need to distinguish itself from the University of Sydney. He therefore outlined the “important feature” of the University’s Engineering courses which would provide students with three times the practical experience compared to those at Sydney.  But the aim was even higher:  students at this University were “not to suffer by comparison with not only Sydney University but also with the world’s best”. ^[9]

History has borne that out.

The success of any institution is what it does, how it does it, and the ethos, dedication, professionalism and expertise of its people.

Today, the University of New South Wales has more than 66,000 students, a research community which numbers nearly 8000 scholars, a top 20 world ranking^[10], and 7^th in the Times Higher Education Impact Rankings.^[11]

This year, the University ranked number one in Australia in 10 subjects, unsurprisingly including Civil and Structural Engineering, Electrical and Electronic Engineering and Mathematics. And whilst fulfilling its foundational aims as a world class technological institution, it is the complete university with 8 faculties, including Arts Design and Architecture, Engineering, Business, Law and Justice, Medicine and Health, and Science.

As one metric of student achievement, the NSW Rhodes Scholarship has been awarded to a University of NSW student in 2020, 2021, 2023 and 2024, as well as an Australia at Large scholar in 2021, with another shortlisted this year for the Australia at Large Rhodes award.

The University heads towards its centenary, 25 years hence, at a time when universities face increasing challenges and are themselves the subject of academic attention and contention, including a fundamental questioning of their role in society. Long gone is John Henry Newman’s “conception of a university as a place of liberal and holistic education”, a place where “the collision of mind with mind, and knowledge with knowledge creating a pure and clear atmosphere of thought, which the student also breathes”.^[12]

What a university should be is not for tonight, but it is a question which is never far from a Chancellor’s or Vice Chancellor’s mind. One thing is certain: “universities are not isolated ivory towers”.^[13] It is also certain that at a time when we are witnessing the greatest and fastest social, technological and digital revolution ever experienced on this planet, what a university is, is ever evolving.  

Once again, congratulations on the 75^th diamond anniversary of this world-renowned educational institution. To the next 75 years.

[1] New South Wales, Technical Education Bill, Second Reading Speech, Legislative Assembly, 30 March 1949, 1749 (Robert Heffron, Minister for Education).

[2] The Technical Education Bill 1949.

[3] Ibid at 1750.

[4] Ibid at 1750.

[5] Technical Education and New South Wales University of Technology Act 1949. See: https://www8.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/nsw/num_act/teanswuota1949n11670.pdf

[6] The Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

[7] Above n 1 at1755.

[8] Ibid at 1755.

[9] Ibid 1761.

[10] Number 19 per QS Rankings: https://www.topuniversities.com/universities/university-new-south-wales-unsw-sydney

[11] Which measures a university’s contribution to the UN sustainable development goals across research, stewardship, outreach and teaching excellence but also collaboration across disciplines. See: https://www.timeshighereducation.com/world-university-rankings/unsw-sydney

[12] Wendy Steele and Lauren Rickards, The Sustainable Development Goals in Higher Education, (Palgrave Macmillan, 2021) p 72.

[13] Ibid p 97-98.