University of Western Australia

The University of Western Australia (UWA) is the oldest university in the state of Western Australia. Established in February 1911, it is the only university in the state to be a member of the prestigious Group of Eight, as well as the Sandstone universities. The University was established under and is governed by the University of Western Australia Act 1911.^[2] The Act provides for the control and management of the University to be the responsibility of the Senate, and gives it the authority, amongst other things, to make statutes, regulations and by-laws, details of which are contained in the university Calendar.^[3]

History

Winthrop Hall

The original campus was located on Irwin Street in the centre of Perth, and consisted of several buildings situated between Hay Street and St George's Terrace. Irwin Street was also known as "Tin Pan Alley" as many buildings featured a corrugated iron roof. These buildings served as the university campus until 1932, when the campus relocated to its present-day site in Crawley ( 31°58′49″S, 115°49′7″E).

In the 1910s the founding Chancellor, Sir John Winthrop Hackett, bequeathed a sum of over £425,000 to the University which allowed the construction of its magnificent main buildings at the present-day campus. Many buildings and landmarks within the University bear his name, including Winthrop Hall and Hackett Hall.

A remnant of the original buildings survives to this day in the form of the "Irwin Street Building", so-called due to its former location. In the 1930s it was transported to the new campus and served a number of uses till its 1987 restoration, which saw the original architecture restored and the building moved across campus to James Oval. Recently, the building has served as the Senate meeting room and is currently in use as a cricket pavilion and storage space for the University Archives. The building has been heritage-listed by both the National Trust and the Australian Heritage Commission.

See also: Shenton House

Faculties

Irwin Street Building

The University consists of the nine Faculties of^[4]:

• Architecture, Landscape and Visual Arts
• Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences
  • School of Music
• Business (Business School)
• Education
• Engineering, Computing and Mathematics
• Law
• Life and Physical Sciences
• Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences
• Natural and Agricultural Sciences

Campus

UWA is one of the largest landowners in Perth as a result of government and private bequests, and is constantly expanding its infrastructure. Recent developments include the $22 million University Club, opened in June 2005, and the UWA Watersports Complex, opened in August 2005. In addition, in September 2005 UWA opened its $64 million Molecular and Chemical Sciences building as part of a commitment to nurturing and developing high quality research and development. A new Business School building is currently under construction, whilst the construction of a new $360 million medical research facility is due to begin in early 2009 and be completed by the end of 2011.

Attractions

Limestone arches are a prominent feature along the older undercover walkways

The 65-hectare Crawley campus is situated adjacent to the Swan River, and located 5km from the Perth central business district. Many of the buildings are constructed from limestone, including the enormous and iconic Winthrop Hall with its Romanesque architecture. These buildings are dotted amongst expansive lawns and thickets of trees such as the Sunken Garden and the Tropical Grove. The beauty of the grounds and rich history of the campus make it a popular spot for weddings.

The Arts Faculty building encompasses the New Fortune Theatre. The venue is a replica of the original Elizabethan Fortune Theatre and the only replica of its kind in the southern hemisphere. Since 1995 the open air venue has hosted regular performances of Shakespeare's plays co-produced by the Graduate Dramatic Society and the University Dramatic Society. The venue is also home to a family of peafowl donated to the University by the Perth Zoo.

Libraries

Main article: University of Western Australia Library

Reid Library balcony

The University of Western Australia features seven main subject libraries on campus, including the architecturally recognised Reid Library building, the largest library on campus with 4 publicly accessible levels. Five of the libraries are located on campus, with the other two being located within walking distance.

Residential colleges

Several residential colleges are located close to the campus, including Currie Hall, St George's College, St Catherine's College, Trinity and St Thomas More College.

Offsite locations

UWA Centre Albany.

The University established a UWA Albany Centre in 1999 to meet rural education needs. In 2005, Curtin University of Technology joined UWA in Albany to provide additional course offerings to the local rural community. UWA Albany offers postgraduate coursework and research programmes through the Institute for Regional Development and the Centre of Excellence in Natural Resource Management. The UWA Rural Clinical School provides year-long rural placements for fifth-year medical students in Albany, and also has facilities in Kalgoorlie, Western Australia. Additionally, the University is involved in the Combined Universities Centre for Rural Health in Geraldton.

The University has further facilities across Stirling Highway in Nedlands, linked by pedestrian underpasses beneath the highway, and paths in front of the residential colleges. Although not directly contiguous with the main Crawley site, the University does own almost every parcel of land between them and has long term plans to expand the two sites towards each other. The University also has facilities in Claremont, purchased in 2005 from Edith Cowan University. The University prefers to refer to these facilities as "UWA Claremont" and not as a campus. The University remains a single campus institution.^[5] UWA Claremont is approximately 5 km west of the main Crawley campus. Further west still, the University also has staff in central Claremont.

Overseas, the University has strategic partnerships with institutions in Malaysia and Singapore, where students study for University of Western Australia qualifications, but does not operate these foreign institutions directly.

Students

UWA's student body is generally dominated by school-leavers from within Western Australia, mostly from the Perth metropolitan area. There are comparatively smaller numbers of older students. In recent years, numbers of full-fee paying foreign students, predominantly from Southeast Asia, have grown as a proportion of the student population. In 2008, the University had 3,958 international students, part of a total student body of over 19,000.^[6]

Internationalisation

The foyer of the multi-million dollar Chemical and Molecular Sciences building, featuring the "double helix" staircase

The University of Western Australia is strongly committed to internationalisation of all aspects of its activities. UWA has formal agreements with 44 international institutions, promoting staff and student exchanges, collaborative research and exchange of teaching materials and methods. The University also teaches several of its programmes offshore, in Singapore, Indonesia and the Philippines. Trans-national programmes facilitate the development of UWA as a genuinely international university.

Research strength and Rankings

As a result of its strong research culture, the University recently attracted more competitive research funding - on a per capita basis of staff involved in research - than any other Australian university. Annually the University receives in excess of $71 million of external research income, expends over $117 million on research and graduates over 250 higher degree by research students, mostly doctorates.

The University has over 80 research centres, including the Crime Research Centre, the Centre for Forensic Science, the Centre for Water Research and the Centre for Oil and Gas Engineering.

A recently announced project is the Zadko Telescope. A local businessman, James Zadko, and his family contributed funds for the purchase of a robotically controlled 1-metre modified Ritchey-Chrétien telescope (F/4 equatorially mounted flat field). The telescope will be co-located with the UWA's Gravity Discovery Centre and Southern Cross Cosmos Centre 70km north of Perth on Wallingup Plain near the town of Gingin. Its operation will be harmonised with detection of major supernova events by some of the European Union's satellites.

Student Guild

Main article: University of Western Australia Student Guild

The Reflection Pool was largely built by the labour of student "volunteers"

The UWA Student Guild is the premier student representative body on campus and had a peak membership of more than 13,000 students, when membership was universal. It is affiliated with the National Union of Students. The vision of the UWA Student Guild is to be inclusive and representative of the student community and to provide relevant, high quality services to its members, whilst remaining environmentally and socially conscious.

The Guild provides a variety of services from catering to financial counselling. There are also over 80 clubs and societies funded by and affiliated with the Guild. The Guild publishes the student newspaper, Pelican, as well as several other publications.

University events

The highlight of the social year is widely considered to be Prosh, an April day on which students dress up in costume and parade through the streets of the city selling risqué satirical newspapers for various charities. Many social events have become infamous with venues outside of the campus grounds due to the hard partying students, exemplified by the lifetime bans enacted upon the students' science faculty society (Science Union) by both AQWA and Scitech.

Uni Camp for Kids Inc. is the oldest registered charity in WA. It began in 1936, and has over the past 70 odd years provided underprivileged West Australian children with University student carers during week long camps in January, and day picnics throughout the year. Former Australian of the year Fiona Stanley, was a member, and a patron, speaking at the Club's black tie 70th anniversary in 2006.

The biennial Indian Rim Asian University Games were held from 28 November to 4 December 2005 at Challenge Stadium and UWA Sports Park, with more than 100 teams representing 23 universities from eight countries. Nine sports were contested at the week-long competition: Badminton, Cricket, Field Hockey, Judo, Tae Kwon Do, Soccer, Volleyball, Tennis and Water Polo. More than 35 countries from the Indian Ocean Rim and Asia were invited to attend the 2005 Games. UWA Vice-Chancellor Professor Alan Robson committed funds to assist university teams from Tsunami affected areas, as well as to promote women’s sport in the region.^[7]

Sport

UWA Sports operates on campus with a Recreation Centre, a Fitness Centre, the Aquatic Centre (Human Movement) as well as a Watersports Complex (On the Swan River) alongside a Boat Shed, a Sports Shop and Physiotherapy. Off Campus they operate the UWA Sports Park (MacGillivray Oval) containing Athletics, Baseball, Cricket, Football, Hockey (Grass & Turf), Rugby, Soccer, Ultimate Frisbee fields. The UWA Tennis Centre is alongside Challenge Stadium & UWA Sports Park. UWA Shenton Recreation Park also contains a Gym, Indoor Sports Hall, Tennis Courts, and a Hockey Turf.

Intervarsity competition

UWA competes in three inter-university competitions each year.

Tertiary Sports Western Australia (TSWA) is the Western Australian Inter-University competition. Competing teams represent the five WA universities, Curtin University of Technology, Edith Cowan University, Murdoch University, The University of Notre Dame Australia and UWA. UWA has been the leader for the last 6 years, winning the event AUSwest title consecutively since 2000, and 11 times since the competition began in 1992.

UWA regularly competes in the annual Australian University Games. UWA finished 3rd (It's Highest placing) in 1999, and has had 3 consecutive top 10 finishes since finishing 4th in Perth 2004. With the Mens Hockey Team having won 4 Gold Medals & 2 Bronze Medals since 1993, including 3 Gold Medals in a row 2004-06.

UWA also competes in the Australian University Championships which includes stand alone events for those sports that are not included in the AUG. They take place at different venues all over the country throughout the academic year

Notable alumni

Main article: List of University of Western Australia people

UWA has a proud collection of notable alumni, particularly in the area of politics and government. The list includes, but is not limited to, many premiers of Western Australia including Geoff Gallop and Richard Court, former Deputy Prime Minister and former Whitlam Cabinet minister respectively Kim Beazley and his father Kim Edward Beazley, and 23rd Prime Minister of Australia Bob Hawke and former Western Australian Premier Alan Carpenter. The University also features many notable science and medicine alumni, including Nobel prize laureate Barry Marshall, the Australian of the Year for 2003 Fiona Stanley and the Australian of the Year for 2005 Fiona Wood.

Sports alumni include former Kookaburras Captain and Hockeyroos Coach Ric Charlesworth.

Press

Main article: University of Western Australia Press

UWA has had a publishing arm since 1935, when the University was the sole tertiary campus in Western Australia.

Gallery

See also

• List of The University of Western Australia people
• Group of Eight
• Prosh
• Rindos v Hardwick
• Official Openings by the Monarch in Australia

References

External links

• University of Western Australia
• UWA Student Guild
• Notable alumni of UWA
• Zadko Telescope project
• Brief history of the early campus
• University of Western Australia - UWA Motorsport

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