Monish University

Monish University

                      

           Monish was established by an Act of the State Parliament of Victoria in 1958 as a result of the Murray Report, which stayed custom-built in 1957 by the Prime Minister Robert Menses to establish the second university in the national of Victoria. The university remained called after the protuberant Australian general Sir John Monish. This was the first university in Australia to be named after a person, rather than a city, region or state. The original campus was in the south-eastern Melbourne suburb of Clayton (in what is now the City of Monish). The first University Council, led by Monas’s first Chancellor Sir Robert Blackwood, selected Sir Louis Matheson, to be the first Vice-Chancellor of Monish University, a position he held till 1976. The University was decided an extensive site of 100 hectares of open land in Clayton.^[14] The 100 hectares of land consists of the former Talbot Epileptic Colony.^[15]

             From its first intake of 357 students at Clayton on 13 March 1961, the university raised quickly in extent and student numbers so by 1967, it took registered more than 21,000 scholars since its establishment.^[16] In its early years, it offered undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in engineering, medicine, science, arts, economics, politics, education and law. It remained a chief provider for international student places under the Colombo Plan, which was seen the chief Asian scholars arrive the Australian education system.

            In its early years of teaching, research and administration, monish was not disadvantaged by entrenched traditional practices. Monish was able to adopt modern approaches without resistance from those who preferred the status quo. A modern administrative structure was set up; Australia's first research centers and scholarships devoted to Indigenous Australians were established.