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The University of New South Wales is a university in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. The main campus, housing eight of the ten faculties, is located in the suburb of Kensington, about 5 km south-east of the CBD. One faculty, the College of Fine Arts, is located on its own campus in the inner suburb of Paddington. The university also has additional campuses and field stations at Randwick, Coogee, Little Bay, Paddington, Dee Why, Cowan and Fowler's Gap in western New South Wales.

It is a member of Australia's "Group of Eight" lobby group and remains one of the country's largest and most prestigious educational institutions. It is also a member of Universitas 21, an international network of leading research-intensive universities.

In 2005, the Times Higher Education Supplement placed UNSW in the top 100 universities of the world, at rank 40. Given that there are over 20,000 Universities in the World, this represents the top 0.2% of Universities.

UNSW will set up its first overseas campus, UNSW Asia in Singapore. Construction of the campus is expected to be completed in 2007, and will be Singapore's first foreign university.

History

UNSW was founded in 1949 as the "New South Wales University of Technology". Initially concentrating on engineering and science, it expanded its academics and became the University of New South Wales in 1958.

UNSW's former Vice-Chancellor, Professor Rory Hume, was subject to controversy. A UNSW professor, Bruce Hall was claimed to have committed academic misconduct in medical research, first revealed on the ABC Radio National program The Science Show in April 2002As a result of Hume's handling of the affair, which drew criticism from outside UNSW*, Hume later resigned in June 2004 after a breakdown in his working relationship with the University's governing council.

Professor Mark Wainwright was appointed in July 2004, having been Acting Vice-Chancellor following Professor Hume's resignation. In October 2005, former John Fairfax CEO Fred Hilmer was selected to replace Professor Wainwright as Vice-Chancellor.

Students

UNSW currently has approximately 40,000 students studying in 600 undergraduate and postgraduate academic programs. Over 5,000 full-time staff work in its 76 schools, 69 research centres, 6 institutes, 4 teaching hospitals, 8 residential colleges and many administrative departments.

More than half of New South Wales' top HSC students consistently make UNSW their first preference, more than all other universities in the State combined. The University also enjoys the reputation of Australia's leading international university with the largest on-campus enrolment of international students and over 200 sister university partnerships around the world, amongst many other international activities.

UNSW is home to a number of student organisations, which provide and administer services, political representation, advocacy, activities and clubs and societies on campus. These include the Source (the university's primary service, entertainment and community organisation) the University of New South Wales Student Guild (the student representative body and student cultural centre), the Post Graduate Board (a member of the Council of Australian Postgraduate Associations), and the University of New South Wales Sports Association. Furthermore, College of Fine Arts students are represented by the College of Fine Arts Students' Association.

Faculties

The University has ten faculties: Arts and Social Sciences; Built Environment; the College of Fine Arts (COFA); Commerce and Economics; Engineering; Law; Medicine; Science; the tertiary education component of the Australian Defence Force Academy (ADFA) in Canberra (Australian Capital Territory); and the Australian Graduate School of Management (AGSM).

Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences

The Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences occupies the Morven Brown and Robert Webster buildings, as well as parts of the Mathews Building, at the university's Kensington campus. It comprises twelve schools.

University College/UNSW@ADFA

University College is a campus run by UNSW at the Australian Defence Force Academy (ADFA). ADFA is a tri-service military Academy that provides military and tertiary academic education for junior officers of the Australian Defence Force in the Royal Australian Navy (RAN), Australian Regular Army (ARA) and Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF). It also provides post-graduate study for civilians, more senior ADF personnel and public servants. It is associated with the University of New South Wales, and issues its awards.

The stated purpose of ADFA is "to serve Australia by providing the Australian Defence Force (ADF) with tertiary graduates who have the foundational attributes, intellect and skills required of an officer."

UNSW@ADFA is composed of five schools:

ADFA is sited in the suburb of Campbell in Canberra, the Capital city of Australia, and is adjacent to the Royal Military College, Duntroon.

Australian Graduate School of Management

The Australian Graduate School of Management (AGSM) is generally regarded as one of the leading business schools in Australia and Asia, with an international reputation for management research.

The AGSM was established in 1977 by the University of New South Wales as Australia's first national school of postgraduate management studies. In January 1999, it merged with the Graduate School of Business of the University of Sydney (USyd). It is currently a school of both UNSW and USyd, however in November 2005, a decision was taken to revert the school to being wholly owned by UNSW. Details of the dissolution of the joint venture have not yet been published.

Today, the AGSM offers a full-time MBA program in Sydney, a part-time MBA program throughout Australia and in Hong Kong, a Graduate Certificate in Change Management, a Masters of Law and Management, and a range of executive education programs.

Faculty of the Built Environment

The Faculty of the Built Environment runs undergraduate programmes in the areas of Architecture, Building Construction Management, Industrial Design, Interior Architecture, Landscape Architecture and Planning. The Faculty runs postgraduate programmes in the areas of Architecture, Construction Project Management, Real Estate/Property and Development, Sustainable Development, and Urban Development and Design.

The faculty is headquartered in the Red Centre, a futuristic building designed by MGT Architects.

College of Fine Arts

The College of Fine Arts (COFA) is the creative arts faculty of the University of New South Wales and is located on Oxford Street, Paddington, Sydney, Australia.

The College consists of the following five schools:

The College also runs courses via its online education program, COFA Online.

The above academic units are supported by various administration staff including a large technical support staff that helps maintain the various art, design and digital media disciplines undertaken at the College. The Paddington campus houses the Clement Semmler Library, which maintains a large collection of art and design literature, journals, periodicals and electronic resources. Also on site is The Ivan Dougherty Gallery, which has a regular schedule of exhibitions and seminars throughout the year, focusing on both student and professional work.

Students at the College are represented by the College of Fine Arts Students' Association.

Faculty of Commerce and Economics

The Faculty of Commerce and Economics is composed of:

The faculty hosts a number of research centres:

Faculty of Engineering

The Faculty of Engineering is the largest in Australia, offering the widest range of engineering programmes. It was recently voted the number one engineering faculty in Australia (16th in the world) by the 2005 Times Higher Education Supplement World University Ranking. The Faculty comprises ten schools:

Students of the faculty are involved in a number of high-profile projects: the Sunswift Solar Car (second place in the recent Sunrace from Adelaide to Sydney), the rUNSWift RoboCup team (World Champions), the Formula SAE-A Racing Car (National winners in 2000) and the BlueSat Satellite (2003).

UNSW Centre for Photovoltaic Engineering currently holds the world record for single-crystalline silicon solar cell efficiency (24.7%).

The Centre for Advanced Macromolecular Design is one of Australia's leading polymer institutes with research in all facets of macromolecular design and applications.

Faculty of Law

The Faculty of Law opened on 1 March 1971 with 345 undergraduate students. Prior to this, only the University of Sydney offered law degrees in New South Wales. The Faculty has always maintained a strong focus on social justice issues. The faculty hosts the Kingsford Legal Centre, the Australian Human Rights Centre, the Gilbert+Tobin Centre for Public Law, the Social Justice Project and the National Pro Bono Resource Centre.

Today, the Faculty is recognised as one of the top law schools in Australia. In the past six years, five UNSW law students have won prestigious Rhodes Scholarships. The Faculty is also home to Australia's largest tax school, Atax.

A new law building, located on lower compus, is slated to be opened in the 2nd half of 2006. As a result the Faculty of Law will move from the library tower on upper campus to this new state of the art building.

Faculty of Medicine

The Faculty of Medicine was established at the university in July 1960.

The Faculty has nine schools:

Faculty of Science

The Faculty of Science consists of:

The Centre for Quantum Computer Technology has a large-scale project to build a Kane quantum computer

Academic competitions

UNSW is well known for its engagement with primary and secondary education, administering several national and international academic competitions for school age children. These include, among others, the Australian Schools Science Competition, the End of Phase exam, the Australasian Schools Mathematics Assessment and the UNSW Programming Competition, in which many thousands of students in the Australasian area, the Pacific and South Africa participate each year. UNSW, through the Gifted Education Research Resource and Information Centre (GERRIC), also administers the Australian Primary Talent Search (APTS) and Australian Secondary Schools Educational Talent Search (ASSETS) tests to explore and assess the abilities of gifted children.

Group of Eight

UNSW is a member of the Group of Eight Australian universities. In terms of its academic work in teaching and research, UNSW is considered one of the best universities in Australia and in the Asia-Pacific region. The 2004 Times Higher Education Supplement World University Rankings placed UNSW in 26th place worldwide, and 8th among universities outside of Europe and North America *. Additionally, the Group of 8 (Go8) Australia universities were recently awarded the Zeyphyr consultancy prize in international research. The prize includes multiple funding opportunities and increased grant access.

Faculty

Notable current and former academics at UNSW include:

Alumni

Notable graduates and former students from UNSW include:

Residential colleges

Further reading

P. O'Farrell, UNSW, a portrait : the University of New South Wales, 1949-1999, UNSW Press, 1999 ISBN 0868404179

External links

Universities in Sydney | New South Wales Government statutory bodies | University of New South Wales | Educational institutions established in the 1940s

Université de Nouvelle-Galles du Sud | ニューサウスウェールズ大学 | Universiteit van Nieuw-Zuid-Wales | University of New South Wales | University of New South Wales | 新南威尔士大学

 

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the "University of New South Wales".

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