Talk:University of Melbourne

The Globe is the University's student newspaper? From what I recall Farrago was the student newspaper. --Robert Merkel 23:55, 15 Nov 2003 (UTC) The Universities Newspaper is Uni News, it comes out fortnightly on a Friday and contains a wealth of information about the University, highlighting, council and research activities

Lots of work required here

(1) The discussion of recent events in student politics is quite out of place. That text should be moved to a Melbourne University student unions page.

(2) In the years of Alan Gilbert's recent leadership, key features include the establishment of Melbourne University Private, the University's inaugural leadership of Universitas21, and a strong public advocacy for greater private funding of higher education in Australia.

(3) A significant aspect of David Penington's leadership was the fight the university had with the state government of John Cain over the form of assessment for high school students, the Victorian Certificate of Education. - VC 2004 - Kwong Lee Dow was intergral in forming the VCE

(4) Arising out of the 60's, before its demise in the late 80's, was a remarkable experiment in university governance, the Melbourne University Assembly. There is a good book around about that somewhere, edited by Chris Francis.

(5) Yes, Farrago is the student newspaper. Not sure if there were others tho.

(6) membership of the Australian Vice Chancellor's Committee and, more recently, the Group of Eight.

(7) University of Melbourne (Florida) was a small school from 1953 to 1961 and was later absorbed by Florida Institute of Technology. Perhaps there needs to be a split.

Well fix it, dear anonymous user.

With respect to point (1), some mention of MUSU and its controversies is relevant. The student union is a reasonably major part of the undergrad experience. The others sound reasonable. --Robert Merkel 08:34, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)

It certainly isn't for me, and it might not be for a lot of students next year, with the new government legislation. Jonmmorgan 02:33, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

(8) random associated notes, that I will assist in looking at - The student union issue needs to remain central to the affairs of the university, as this has resulted in an interem council being appointed (by the student body - without the bribing vouchers of the previous administration

(9) I do not believe that the University of Melbourne in Florida become a disambiguation, as the University has an international represntation, and the title should be changed to The University of Melbourne as appears on all offical documents.

(10) that the faculties are listed, and there is a discussion about Melbourne's responce to the Nelson reforms, the University is the only one in Australia to offer dual fee courses - that is Australian Fee and CSP for double degreees... however, I am new to this game and think that is am important area

Removing the factual innacuracies tag

I'm removing the tag asking for factual claims to be verified. It's not really clear what section is being referred to, but if anyone knows of any errors, than they can simply be corrected. As it stands, most of the article's claims are straightforward, and I can't see much discussion here about what's actually innacurate (apart from the Farrago mistake, pointed out more than a year ago), the tag seems unnecesary. --Brendanfox 12:47, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Fair enough. I added the tag when I added the list of colleges; its purpose was that I couldn't find information on all of their founding dates via their web sites. --De Guerre 04:03, 2 May 2005 (UTC)

compulsory collection of fee

This is the actual text of the bill. It prohibits "compulsory collection" not "collection":

(1) A higher education provider must not: (a) require a person to be or to become a member of an organisation of students, or of students and other persons; or (b) require a person enrolled with, or seeking to enrol with, the provider to pay to the provider or any other entity an amount in respect of an organisation of students, or of students and other persons; unless the person has chosen to be or to become a member of the organisation. (2) A higher education provider must not require a person enrolled with, or seeking to enrol with, the provider to pay to the provider or any other entity an amount for the provision to students of an amenity, facility or service that is not of an academic nature, unless the person has chosen to use the amenity, facility or service.

So don't try to make it seem anything different. Xtra 12:37, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Australia's Most prestigious University

I notice the people removing it are from WA and SA. Is it a coincidence? Xtra 09:52, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

I notice people adding the claim are from Melbourne. Is it a coincidence? Seriously though, the claim was conjecture and not supported by any valid reference. --Cyberjunkie | Talk 09:57, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

First off, Xtra, what sort of assertions are you making? Because I am from Western Australia I am anti-Melbourne or something? Moving beyond the ridiculous, the Melbourne newspaper article which was cited did not even support the claim that the university was Australia's most prestigious. It said "...has changed the culture of our most prestigious place of learning". Since it is from a Melbourne newspaper, for all we know they mean Victoria's most prestigious place of learning. True, it does go on to say "most prestigious academic job in Australia", but that does not mean "job at most prestigious university in Australia". A quick Google search brings up very mixed results, which seem to favour the University of Sydney being the most prestigious in website comments (though probably largely due to identical text put out by the university itself). So you could say "Melbourne University is arguably the most prestigious university in Australia", but you could equally say "Melbourne University is arguably not the most prestigious university in Australia". This sort of conjecture should be avoided unless we refer to a reputable source one way or the other, such as the Good Universities Guide or whichever organisations perform rankings of universities by prestige. - Mark 03:47, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

Come on... my comment about you was tongue in cheek. P.S. the only way to validly identify prestige is by asking every employer and consumer "given two people with absolutely identical degrees, but one says X uni and one says Y uni, which would you choose?" Xtra 05:36, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

There is little doubt that Melbourne University is overall one of the top two or three most prestigious Australian universities. But to separate it out and say that it is arguably the top university is like saying "Oxford is the most prestigious university in the UK", which the University of Oxford article does not do because of the difficulty separating it from Cambridge. I think we should follow their example here. - Mark 14:22, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

According to The Age, The Times higher education supplement ranked Melbourne as #19 in the world, ahead of ANU at #23 and Monash at #33. I've cited this in the article. --bainer (talk) 07:51, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

That's a much better source to cite. :) - Mark 08:27, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

Not that its ranking proves prestige, of course :P.--Cyberjunkie | Talk 09:00, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

I was just reading about that in "Uni News" today. Xtra 09:18, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

It only proves anything to the extent that one trusts the Times. But at least it's an NPOV way of sticking it to USyd etc. --bainer (talk) 00:07, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

The latest THES ranking, and more specifically the peer-review component, does however support the view that Melbourne is the most prestigious university in the country. The THES panel included some 2500 academics from around the world.

My response to that is: Bah!

Firstly, "prestige" isn't determined by a panel, it's an intangible quality.

Secondly, had anyone on this panel heard the names Oxford, Harvard or MIT??? The obsession with Melbourne's prestige now starts to look pretty silly. . . Slac speak up! 19:03, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

the most prestigious university in the country. Not the world. I don't see what's wrong with stating that UM is prestigious. It has a hell of a lot to do with why it attracts students, IMO. Few if any people would disagree that the Go8 unis are more prestigious than the NGU unis (see [1]). Quibbling about ANU vs Sydney vs Melbourne, silly, yeah. But prestige is a big part of why UM is important. pfctdayelise 01:16, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

Stating that it is prestigious is enough without saying it is the most. It's definitely up there with USyd and ANU, but I don't really see the need to get into a pissing contest among the three. Ambi 01:44, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

Melbourne Uni has the highest (HECS - or HELP, whatever it is these days) entry score requirements of any University in Australia. Entry scores (ie ENTER/UAI etc) measure the demand for a particular course. If Melbourne has the highest ones, then it has the highest demand for its courses, and thus could be seen as the most prestigious uni in Australia. Of course this should be used in conjunction with its world ranking etc.Suicup 07:39, 9 July 2006 (UTC)

I am a student at MU and have a pretentious disregard for all things Sydney/NSW, however, it seems like this whole rankings thing has gone a little too far. Cornell University (featured) only includes the sentence "Cornell ranks among the world's top universities" with a nice reference in its introduction, and in my opinion not much more than that is really justified here. Any objections/thoughts? • Leon 08:48, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree. Right now there are two paragraphs worth of ranking information. Surely that is excessive? IMO, the name of the indice/source/whatever doesn't need to be mentioned in the article. Simply footnote the relevant statement, and include it there. How about:

"Melbourne University is one of the most prestigious universities in Australia,[1] and ranks among the world's top universities.[2] Melbourne is particularly strong in the fields of the arts, humanities and biomedicine.[3]"Suicup 10:15, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Good one. Although "world's top universities" does sound a little rich to me, I think it's probably the most succinctly accurate summary User:Leon...

I took the plunge and condensed it even further. It doesn't actually offer much information about the university, and I think those folks from Cornell are rather on the ball.• Leon 05:29, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

I tweaked your version slightly as IMO my one sounds better. However feel free to change it back. Cheers on bringing this issue to light! Suicup 12:51, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Just condensed to one sentence, added another reference, and clarified areas of note according to 2005 THES rankings. Thanks for the support! • Leon 01:06, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Most grants from the ARC?

Please have a look that this site from the Australian Research Council. It clearly shows that Melbourne University did not get the most new funding in 2005. It ranked fifth, behind USyd, ANU, UNSW and UQld: www.arc.gov.au/info_users/factsheet_statsoverview.htm

That page doesn't say if it's NEW funding or total funding. If it's the latter, UM might have been 5th overall but had the great %age or flat increase in funding. ('Flat' is not the right word, but I can't remember it right now, damn.) Also, please sign your comments on Talk pages by typing 4 tildes like this: ~~~~. pfctdayelise 14:44, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

It doesn't explicitly state that it is new or existing, but if you go to the Media Release section of the ARC site, it is apparent that the reference is to NEW funding. I can't find the exact source for it, but I'm pretty sure that in 2004, UM was either second or third overall (correct me if I am wrong). And thansk for the advice re the tildes Cleric71 07:43, 14 November 2005 (UTC) Cleric71

Largest Faculty?

If find it a little inconsistent that Arts is listed as the largest faculty with 6,400 students, while I have written on the Faculty of Science page that Science has over 6,500. I'm pretty sure that Arts still is the largest faculty, but I think that Science is probably second (which the article says is Medicine). Incidentally is the 6,400 undergraduate or overall students? My figure is from the Faculty of Sciences' Webpage, and includes both. [2] seems to be a good reference for enrolment numbers, but won't give the most recent data to non-staff. If you follow that link and select Historical & Summary Stats, then Load & Enrolments by Faculty, there is a document that puts Arts at 7,222 and Science at 6,328 (for 2004). I feel that this shows an inaccuracy with this article, and needs to be fixed. Matt73 01:47, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

OK, I'm changing it because noone else has. Incidentally, how could such inaccurate stats get put there? And left for at least 6 months? cf [3] Medicine only has 4,921 (not 5,800) and thats Gross Students, even students who only did 1 subject. Matt73 05:33, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Famous alumni?

A section for famous alumni?

Good ideaLeon... 00:42, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the debate was don't move. —Nightstallion (?) 08:56, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Requested move

University of Melbourne → The University of Melbourne – {The is in the official name - see [4] also naming policy on the use of "The"} copied from the entry on the WP:RM page

Voting

Add *Support or *Oppose followed by an optional one-sentence explanation, then sign your vote with ~~~~

• Support as above. Xtra 08:54, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Oppose OK. I should have gone down one more line. Xtra 10:36, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

• Strong Oppose - the page you cite directly contradicts your argument.--cj | talk 09:05, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose, policy says NO. - Randwicked Alex B 09:55, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose as above. E Pluribus Anthony | talk | 23:49, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Discussion

Add any additional comments

• Actually the Wikipedia:Naming conventions (definite and indefinite articles at beginning of name) expressly advises against including "The", even if it is the official name.--cj | talk 09:08, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

University of Melbourne Colleges Template

I have created a template for the Colleges and added it to the bottom of the page. If you like it, it should be added to each of the College pages. Add {{University of Melbourne Colleges}} to the bottom of the College page. To look at it see Template:University of Melbourne Colleges. I would do this myself, but I am off soon to Sydney for a Workshop. --Bduke 22:40, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

I see they have already been added to the College articles, so at least one person likes them. --Bduke 05:51, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

Nice work. Should encourage the rest to be created. pfctdayelise 05:11, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

Should Ridley come off the template? There is now a page for Ridley that says it is no longer a Melbourne Uni College. --Bduke 03:04, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Hm, I didn't know that. I edited the template to show Ridley is a former college. I think it should stay, but with some kind of notice. If people don't like the way I put it I guess they will change it. pfctdayelise (translate?) 03:45, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

That seems a good solution. --Bduke 04:08, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Labor Club and ALP Club

Someone flagged these for merging in with the University of Melbourne article, but on one of the talk pages, when they should go on the receiving and giving article main pages. I have fixed that up. However, now to comment. This makes no sense. There are other Melbourne University Student Clubs with their own articles - Football, Maountaineering and Basketball. There is also a Student Union article. So the choices are:-

1. No merge - leave as is.
2. Merge into Student Union page.
3. Combine into a single articles - "Left Clubs at the University of Melbourne".

There could be contention that the Labor Club could be considered a "left club" NcLean 10:05, 15 Feb 2006

1. Combine into a single articles - adding the Liberals etc into "University of Melbourne Student Political Clubs".

If you have thoughts add them below. --Bduke 05:53, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

A better solution would be a Uni Melb student clubs or Uni Melb student politics. Merging with the Uni article makes little sense as these clubs don't have any formal affiliation with the Uni, only the Student Union. Theusualsuspect 00:22, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

A Melb Uni Clubs page is a good idea, but there could be too much info for just one article. Xtra 00:24, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Don't merge. The main university article shouldn't be cluttered with such information. How about an article on Melbourne Uni student politics? Matt73 12:11, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Although the political wranglings of the (former) student union are notable, these should be considered separately from the academic body of the University. The political clubs have had less direct interaction with and influence upon academic activity than faculty societies or even More Beer NcLean 10:05, 15 Feb 2006

That's not true. A lot of University programs were proposed and (until the liquidation of MUSU) co-run and funded by a student union administration dominated by one or another political (usually Labor or ALP) club.Theusualsuspect 21:03, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Putting those arguments aside for now, the question is what, if any, is an appropriate merge target. I think NcLean's point was that they shouldn't be merged to University of Melbourne because they're really more relevant to Melbourne University student unions, which is a valid point. The other options would be something like student politics at the University of Melbourne (to tie in with student politics in Australia), or perhaps student societies at the University of Melbourne. I think the former (student politics...) is my preferred option, since it could discuss all of the clubs and factions in the one place. --bainer (talk) 05:31, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

MERGE from University of Melbourne student services

• Merge: I am not alumnus but I think the student services page should be on this page too. AChan 12:05, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

• Oppose The University of Melbourne student services article is rather too long to merge into this one, particularly since UMSU has not yet been merged into it. There seem to be plenty of parties wishing to see detail on student unions which would need to be truncated to avoid making this article excessively long. Garglebutt / (talk) 12:08, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

I disagree. Shall we toss a coin?. AChan 12:11, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

No, given your disruptive edits during your first couple of hours on wikipedia, I assume it will be a two headed coin. ;) Garglebutt / (talk) 12:32, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

• Oppose merger as per the reasons given by User:Garglebutt--A Y Arktos 22:15, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
• NO request by disruptive editor. OPPOSE. Xtra 23:16, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
• Oppose: As student services are soon to become optional as a part of "The Melbourne Experience" a merge would be unwise. Jonmmorgan 02:30, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

I've removed the merge tag. There is obviously no support for this merger. Garglebutt / (talk) 21:27, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Founding

Is it really accurate to say that the university was "founded by Hugh Chilvers" or was he merely the first vice-chancellor? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Fat Red (talk • contribs)

Anti-VSU

When did the idea come about that VSU will 'severely' diminish services? I could possibly understand the use of something like 'VSU is likely to diminish some services', but considering that the legislation hasn't even come into effect yet, I think that stating that services will be 'severely' diminished is premature. MickBarnes 02:31, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

I think it is fair to say that services will be diminished given that they will be getting about half their normal funding. But i see your point. How about: "However, given the introduction of Voluntary Student Unionism from the 1st July, 2006, it is likely the services and activities offered by this new Union will be diminished."Suicup 04:22, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

I reckon that's a better description, and better avoids the alarmist predictions that CSU advocates are making. MickBarnes 05:01, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, but have you read any of the minutes or reports of UMSU? They are clearly not in a position that any other student union is. Where is the evidence that services at Melbourne Uni will be diminished? The Age reported that UniMelb was putting aside $6 million this year. Reports from the President indicate that the University will continue this funding for several years.Theusualsuspect 23:11, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Diminished does not mean abolished. Total ASF revenue is around $13mill. Assuming 30% membership next year, this will mean a drop of $9million dollars in ASF revenue. The $6 million from the University doesn't replace all of that. Thus, amenities and services will be diminished because the total funding will decrease. I agree with you that Melb is in the best position of any University, however this doesn't mean that the activities and services will remain the same.Suicup 03:59, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Origins of the word Prosh

An anonymous contributor has claimed that the 'chief' theory for the origin of the word was due to a charity procession. I'm happy for it to stay in the article, however i'm curious as to how he knows/found out, simply because as a student at the uni, and having participated in Prosh week many times i have never heard of that definition.Suicup 09:42, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Sounds a bit elaborate. I'd be looking for connections with French prochain (last) myself. But w/out cites this is all just folk etymology. Slac speak up! 02:15, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Architecture

It seems to me like the Architecture section contains far too many external links. If it doesn't bother anyone, I'd like to remove them all and place links at the bottom of the page. 128.250.6.243 03:14, 2 August 2006 (UTC) (who was actually • Leon 03:15, 2 August 2006 (UTC))

Oops, I realised that this applies to the Student Services section as well. Any objections to a rewrite? • Leon 03:17, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Be BOLD! pfctdayelise (translate?) 10:37, 2 August 2006 (UTC)