Macquarie UniversityNew South Wales, Australia

Macquarie University was founded in 1964 to be a radical and unconventional addition to the New South Wales tertiary education market. Fifty years on, Macquarie University is still different. Macquarie is proudly a university of service and engagement - engaging students and staff through transformative learning and life experiences, and serving the world through discovery, dissemination of knowledge and ideas, innovation and deep partnerships. Our unique location, in the heart of Australia's largest high-technology precinct, provides benefits for staff and students through an environment of outstanding research and innovation, and through learning and teaching opportunities with world-leading organisations.

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 enrollments 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 parliament. The initial concept of the campus was to create a new high technology corridor, similar to the area surrounding Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, the goal being to provide for interaction between industry and the new university. The academic core was designed in the Brutalist style and developed by the renowned town planner Walter Abraham who also oversaw the next 20 years of planning and development for the university. A committee appointed to advise the state government on the establishment of the new university at North Ryde nominated Abraham as the architect-planner. The fledgling Macquarie University Council decided that planning for the campus would be done within the university, rather than by consultants, and this led to the establishment of the architect-planners office. The first Vice-Chancellor of Macquarie University, Alexander George Mitchell, was selected by the University Council which met for the first time on 17 June 1964. Members of the first university council included: Colonel Sir Edward Ford OBE, David Paver Mellor, Rae Else-Mitchell QC and Sir Walter Scott.