History of Monash University

The University was granted an expansive site of 115 hectares of land at Clayton, after it had argued that, in the distant future, it was possible that Monash would have up to 12,000 students.

In its early years, it offered undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in engineering, medicine, science, arts, economics and politics, education and law.

[4] A modern administrative structure was set up, Australia's first research centres and scholarships devoted to Indigenous Australians were established, and, thanks to Monash's entirely new facilities, students in wheelchairs were able to enroll.

By contrast, Melbourne University struggled to enter the modern educational era, to the point that there was talk of a Royal Commission to overcome its antiquated style.

While Louis Matheson had good relations with government, Monash in the 1960s existed in a city where almost all professionals had attended Melbourne University.

[2] For example, it was many years before the Faculty of Medicine received funding for Monash Medical Centres to complement its teaching and research.

[7] The origins of mass student demonstrations in Melbourne were those against capital punishment, and some of the largest protests occurred at Monash in the final years before it was abolished in Victoria.

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.

[10] The most famous student radical was Albert Langer, who regularly made newspaper headlines and caused major disruptions at the Clayton Campus.

[11] In one extraordinary event that came to be 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.

[13] In 1980, the first IVF baby in Australia was born at the Royal Women's Hospital in Melbourne as a result of the work of Alex Lopata and Ian Johnston.

[15] Just over 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.

The increase in international students, combined with its expansion, meant that Monash's income skyrocketed throughout the 1990s, and it is now one of Australia's top 200 exporters.

In 2006, the University began developing the $138 million Australian Regenerative Medicine Institute, which will be one of the largest stem cell research centres in the world when it opens in 2008.