Monday, May 4, 2009

Macquarie University

Macquarie University is an Australian public research university located in Sydney. Its main campus is in Macquarie Park and also has overseas campuses in Hong Kong and Singapore. Founded in 1964 by the New South Wales Government, it was the third university to be established in the metropolitan area of Sydney. Macquarie’s 126 hectare park-like campus belies its setting within the high-technology corridor of Sydney’s north-west.

www.mq.edu.au


Macquarie has a strong reputation in the business and finance area, such as the actuarial studies programme. Macquarie is currently reviewing its academic structure, with its 32,000 students to be located within four faculties – Business and Commerce; Arts; Human Sciences, and Science.

Macquarie University's linguistics department developed the Macquarie Dictionary, the copyright on which it still owns.

History

The idea of founding a third university in Sydney was flagged in the early 1960s when the New South Wales Government formed a committee of enquiry into higher education to deal with a perceived emergency in university enrolments in New South Wales. During this enquiry the Senate of The University of Sydney put in a submission which highlighted ‘the immediate need to establish a third university in the metropolitan area’.

After much debate a future campus location was selected in what was then a semi-rural part of North Ryde, and it was decided that the future university be named after Lachlan Macquarie, an important early governor of the colony of New South Wales.

Macquarie University was formally established in 1964 with the passage of the Macquarie University Act 1964 by the New South Wales Government. The University first opened to students on 6 March, 1967 with more students than anticipated. The Australian Universities Commission had allowed for 510 effective full-time students (EFTS) but Macquarie had 956 enrolments and 622 EFTS.


Between 1968 and 1969 enrolment at Macquarie increased dramatically with an extra 1200 EFTS with 100 new academic staff employed. 1969 also saw the establishment of the Macquarie Graduate School of Management, MGSM.

Macquarie grew during the seventies and eighties with rapid expansion in courses offered, student numbers and development of the site. In 1990 the University absorbed the Institute of Early Childhood Studies of the Sydney College of Advanced Education, under the terms of the Higher Education (Amalgamation) Act 1989. In their book Liberality of Opportunity, Bruce Mansfield and Mark Hutchinson describe the founding of Macquarie University as ‘an act of faith and a great experiment’.


There have only been four Vice-Chancellors in the University’s forty-four year history. The first Vice-Chancellor of Macquarie University was Alexander George Mitchell who held the position until December 1975 when he was replaced by Edwin Webb who served until 1986. Di Yerbury was appointed to the position in 1986 and was the first female Vice-Chancellor in Australia.


Campus

Located about 16 km north-west of the Sydney CBD, the Macquarie University campus is set on 126 hectares of rolling lawns and natural bush and strategically located within the high-technology corridor of Sydney's north-west. It is served by the Macquarie University railway station as well as a bus interchange within the campus.

Macquarie University’s first architect-planner was Walter Abraham, one of the first six administrators appointed to Macquarie University.

When he took up his appointment in April 1965 there had been very little study of the challenges involved in the design and planning of universities in this country. So Abraham travelled to study the contemporary work of campus planners in the United States and Britain.


Abraham treasured Macquarie’s natural environment as one of the University’s invaluable assets. As the site adapted from its former rural use to a busy collegiate environment, he implemented carefully designed planting programs across the campus.

Apart from its centres of learning, the campus features the Macquarie University Research Park, Museums, Art Galleries and a Sculpture Park. A major medical precinct is also planned, combining the Australian School of Advanced Medicine and the Macquarie University Private Hospital.

Reputation

Macquarie University showed significant drop in THES - QS World University Rankings in 2007. After the university made 67th in 2005, they ranked equal 168th in the 2007 of the top 200 universities.

The Shanghai Jiao Tong University’s Academic Ranking of World Universities in 2008 placed Macquarie University ranked 7th in Australian Universities along with Monash University and Adelaide University.

According to the 'Good University Guide' of Australian University, starting salaries for Macquarie graduates have been ranked as the highest in Australia for ten consecutive years (1998-2007) and university made 5 star ratings in seven different performances categories. Macquarie University teachers also have received numerous awards and citations from the Carrick Institute for Learning and Teaching in Higher Education since it was established in 2004.

MGSM (Macquarie Graduate School of Management) is Macquarie's business school that offers postgraduate, MBA, DBA and Master Management programmes. MGSM is considered as one of the best business school in Asia/Oceania region along with AGSM of UNSW/University of Sydney and Melbourne Business School of University of Melbourne. MGSM made #1 in Australia (#36 worldwide) for open programmes, #2 in Australia (#43 worldwide) for Combined Executive Education, and #3 in Australia (#63 worldwide) for custom programs, according to the report from Financial Times.

The School is ranked 1st in Australia and Asia and 40th in the world for its full-time MBA program (Economist Intelligence Unit, Which MBA?, 2003 Global Full-Time MBA Rankings), in the top 2 business schools in Australia and New Zealand and among Asia's 15 best schools (Asia Inc, 2003). The MGSM MBA was also ranked equal 1st of Australian MBA programs (Australian Financial Review BOSS Magazine, 2003) and in the top 40 business schools worldwide for executive education (London Financial Times, 2003). MGSM ranked #1 in the world in the category of 'student quality' (The Economist, 2004).

Research

Its goal is for Macquarie to rank amongst the top 200 research intensive universities in the world by 2014.

Macquarie is home to some of the world's most pre-eminent researchers who attract significant research funding to the University. In 2007 Macquarie received research income totalling $33.7 million, ranking us fifth nationally when our size and success rate per application were taken into consideration. Australian Competitive Research Grants netted $14.3 million, other public sector grants earned us $9.3 million, industry and other income totalled $8.7 million, and Cooperative Research Centres garnered $1.4 million.

In 2007 the weighted figures regarding our research publications were 162.5 points for books, 154.54 for book chapters, 727.96 for journal articles and 327.27 for conference proceedings.

Faculties

Faculty of Arts
Department of Ancient History
Department of Anthropology
Department of English
Department of Indigenous Studies – Warawara
Department of International Studies
Department of Media, Music, and Cultural Studies
Department of Modern History, Politics, International Relations and Security
Department of Philosophy
Department of Sociology
Macquarie Law School

Faculty of Human Sciences
Australian School of Advanced Medicine
Department of Education
Department of Linguistics
Department of Psychology
Institute of Early Childhood
Institute of Human Cognition and Brain Science

Faculty of Business and Economics
Applied Finance Centre
Department of Accounting and Finance
Department of Actuarial Studies
Department of Business
Department of Business Law
Department of Economics
Macquarie Graduate School of Management

Faculty of Science
Department of Biological Sciences
Department of Brain Behaviour and Evolution
Department of Chemistry and Biomolecular Sciences
Department of Chiropractic
Department of Computing
Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences
Department of Environment and Geography
Department of Mathematics
Department of Physics and Engineering
Department of Statistics
Graduate School of the Environment


Macquarie University was ranked 182 in the 2008 THES-QS World University Ranking

0 comments: