In the News
Torrens registers university title
Plans are on track for the establishment of Australia’s first private university since 1989 with the granting of permission by the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations for the use of the word “university” in the institution’s company name. The permission follows last month’s approval by the South Australian government of the proposed Adelaide campus, which has the working title of Torrens University.
Please login below to view content or subscribe now.
I am contacting you in relation to an article Torrens registers university title by Annabel McGilvray.
It states: “Today’s Table B providers, Bond University and Notre Dame, can access grants for research, research training students and capital development projects as well as Common wealth scholarships for postgraduate research.”
A careful reading of the relevant sections of the Higher Education Support Act 2003, referred to in the article as HESA specified Tables – A, B or C, indicates that not two, but three institutions listed under Table B i.e., Bond University, Notre Dame University and Melbourne College of Divinity.
Melbourne College of Divinity is in fact in its 10th year of receiving Commonwealth research funding, as described in the quotation above, initially as a Schedule 1 self-accrediting institution with the nation’s public and private universities, and since 2003 under HESA as a private, self-accrediting institution. The quality of MCD’s research was recognized by the Australian Research Council as being ‘of world standard’ in its Excellence for Research in Australia exercise undertaken in 2010.
It is disappointing when MCD drops off the radar in this way, particularly when it occurs in such an excellent publication as Campus Review. One hopes that these vexing omissions will cease when MCD University of Divinity comes into existence on 1 January, 2012, as the nation’s first Specialised University.
Best wishes
Paul
Professor Paul Beirne
Dean & CEO Melbourne College of Divinity