[2] The Gordon provides education to more than 13,500 students annually and, with more than 500 staff members, it is one of the largest employers in Geelong.

[1] Sixty percent (60%) of The Gordon students live in the wider Geelong region.

The college had its beginnings in 1885, when 500 people met at the Geelong City Hall to decide upon a memorial to General Charles George Gordon, who died at Khartoum in January 1885.

It was also at this time that the Lascelles chemistry laboratory opened on Gordon Avenue, followed by the Bostock lecture hall next door in 1928.

On 1 April 1976, Deakin University was established by merging the Gordon Institute of Technology's higher education courses and Waurn Ponds site with the State College of Victoria at Geelong, previously Geelong Teachers' College which had opened in 1950.