Seventy years ago today, the University of New England (UNE) became Australia’s first independent regional university.
Today, the institution – with its original, main campus in Armidale, in northern central New South Wales – is the higher education home to more than 22,000 students.
Throughout 2024, a spokesperson for UNE says it will celebrate its 70th anniversary year by reflecting on the contributions of the staff, students and community members who built – and continue to build – the university.
Community spirit created fresh educational opportunities for regional students
It’s an institution that has a proud heritage of being created by the determination of the local New England community who fought for decades to enable students who lived far from major city centres to access quality higher education.
UNE broke away from the University of Sydney on 1 February 1954 under the leadership of first Vice-Chancellor Robert Madgwick, who drove UNE’s pioneering development of distance education as part of a broader agenda to support regional Australia.
“For anyone who was prepared to work for it, the University of New England was there as an unconventional alternative to the established metropolitan institutions,” Professor Moran says. “We are still here today, providing those same opportunities,” says UNE’s Vice-Chancellor, Professor Chris Moran.
“Our seventieth year is an opportunity to reflect on the work that has made UNE what it is today, but even more importantly, it is a time to think about how the university will evolve over coming decades. What will it mean to be a regional university in the mid-21st Century? We need to start charting that course now, with the same boldness and disregard for convention that distinguished UNE in its start-up days.”
Plans to extend distance education access
“We already have plans to more closely engage with our students to help them succeed. Some of that intent will be achieved through technology, as an extension of UNE’s work in distance education that has changed the lives of tens of thousands of people,” Professor Moran says.
There are also plans to revitalise the campus.
“UNE was built around an exceptional residential experience for students,” Professor Moran says.
“As communities and interpersonal relationships are changed by digital technologies, not always for the better, UNE is exploring how to re-establish the physical experience of university that is so fondly remembered by thousands of alumni who spent their formative years in the UNE colleges or in Armidale.”
