University of Ballarat - History

History

The University of Ballarat has a long history that goes back to the gold rush era of the 1850s. Tertiary education at Ballarat began with the establishment of the School of Mines and Industries in 1870, making it Australia's third oldest tertiary institution. It is for this reason that the 1870 Founders Hall at the University of Ballarat was built.

People such as Redmond Barry who also founded the State Library of Victoria were involved in the original establishment to create an institution of equivalent standing to a university to offer degree level courses at Ballarat.

The School of Mines had two divisions - a tertiary division and a technical division. The tertiary division provided higher education courses such as mining engineering, geology, education and business studies, while the technical division provided such programs as wool classing, plumbing and bricklaying.

The organisation remained in that form until the 1960s when it was split into two institutions. The School of Mines remained intact offering technical and secondary level programs, while the tertiary division became Ballarat Institute of Advanced Education. In the 1970s it was renamed Ballarat College of Advanced Education.

In the late 1980s the Dawkins Revolution had arrived and Ballarat CAE was in danger of losing its long historical identity. In an era where larger metropolitan colleges were opting for mergers with existing universities, such as Chisholm Institute of Technology with Monash University, Melbourne College of Advanced Education with Melbourne University, Philip Institute of Technology with RMIT University, Lincoln Institute of Health Science and Bendigo College of Advanced Education with La Trobe University, and Victoria College and Warrnambool Institute of Advanced Education with Geelong's Deakin University, Ballarat was faced with the prospect of merging with Deakin University, an option the board of Ballarat CAE did not want to accept, arguing in the words of the then director Professor John Sharpham, that "Deakin is not strong" and who attempted to arrange a merger of "equal sides" where Ballarat CAE, Warrnambool IAE, and Deakin would merge to become the University of Western Victoria. Under this arrangement, Ballarat would get 50% of voting power, with Geelong and Warrnambool the other 50%.

The proposal was rejected by Deakin, which left Ballarat as the only college in Victoria not to become a university. The University of Melbourne then allowed Ballarat CAE to become an affiliated college of the University. The name of Ballarat CAE was changed to "Ballarat University College, an affiliated College of the University of Melbourne", which are the actual words put on graduates' testamurs. At this point it seemed that BUC would become the Ballarat campus of Melbourne University, which would have given it a sizable rural campus in Western Victoria. This, however, did not eventuate, with some critics suggesting that it was too prestigious.

Ballarat University College then sought to become a fully-fledged university in its own right. This began when Professor John Sharpham asked the board of BUC why, if Southern Cross University was allowed to separate from the University of New England by becoming a university in its own right, Ballarat should not be allowed to do the same. The Federal Government was lobbied and responded by sending three Vice-Chancellors (one of them, incidentally, being from the University of New England) to Ballarat to consider the matter. The result was favorable and the university college became a university in 1994. Its sole link to the University of Melbourne was that Melbourne would observe the academic standards at the new university for a five-year period.

Upon creation of the university, the announcement by the Foundation Chancellor Professor Geoffrey Blainey of the inaugural Vice-Chancellor of University of Ballarat proved controversial, with Professor Sharpham being overlooked in favour of Professor David James (Deakin University's Deputy Vice-Chancellor).