Australian Catholic University

Lets be honest, there are two universities in Canberra and a couple of vocational tertiary education providers. Some of these entities belong to universities but they are not universities themselves and do not offer university level courses.

Interesting fact – according to BRW’s top private companies for 2009, ACU is no. 1 in it’s industry.

Third to sixth from the bottom in the various Australian rankings – not promising! ACU used to be the Signadou Teachers College – the tertiary institution you went to to do a teacher’s qualification if you couldn’t get in anywhere else …

anonymous gungahlian: Around 750 students currently.

Overheard: Yes indeed, and before that it was a monastery and a ‘woomon’astery?(Said in a Jamaican accent) Nunnery.
Interesting note* It comprises of two buildings, Blackfriars and Signadou. Blackfriars housed the priests, and that builidings has bigger rooms, and higher ceilings in comparison to the Nun’s accomodation.

audacity of hope and nanzan: I guess I could have done my homework before declaring uni numbers. Thanks for jolting me out of my complacency.

I’m getting a bit worried…no one has admitted ignorance of the place. Perhaps it is the company I keep after all…

nanzan said :

An interesting thing about ACU is that it is the largest university in Australia by student numbers (across all its campuses of course – Brisbane, North Sydney, Strathfield, Canberra, Melbourne and Ballarat). So ACU is small here in Canberra, but big in total.

Going by the DEEWR statistics, it has about the same number of students as the ANU across all campuses, which makes it less than a third of the size of Monash etc.

The CSU campus in Barton does indeed include the Australian Centre for Christianity and Culture, which has an interesting history.

The land was originally know as Rottenberry Hill, by European settlers, and it was a farm. The land was later given to the Anglican Church as the site to establish their National Cathedral – all other mainstream churches were given such land in Canberra too, for the same purpose.

The Anglican Cathedral was never constructed, and the Anglican diocese made the decision to devote the land to a place for inter-faith and ecumenical dialogue and cooperation instead. Saint Mark’s National Theological Centre, next to the ACC&C, remains as an Anglican theological college within Charles Sturt University’s School of Theology.

Some of the original plantings and foundations from the time the area was a farm are still to be found on the site, in that part of the property which has beeen set aside as a conservation area, overlooking Bowen Drive and Lake Burley Griffin.

Canberra by the way has 6 universities (or uni equivalents): ANU, UC, ACU, ADFA, CSU and AIHS – the Australian International Hotel School.

I think there was a post about this previously – I’ll see if I can find it.

Shame that UNSW@ADFA is branded only as creating customers for Mooseheads, as the vast majority of postgrads are international and local students with nothing at all to do with Defence. UNSW@ADFA is very strong in the sciences and history areas and offers excellent services and facilities to postgrad students (especially research students) – much better than many other universities. Further, the qualification comes from UNSW (not ‘ADFA’); one of Australia’s ‘Group of Eight’ universities.

An interesting thing about ACU is that it is the largest university in Australia by student numbers (across all its campuses of course – Brisbane, North Sydney, Strathfield, Canberra, Melbourne and Ballarat). So ACU is small here in Canberra, but big in total.

It offers an alternative to UC for those interested in nursing or early childhood education or primary education, which is valuable. It did offer a Grad Dip in Secondary Education for a while, but it seems to have stopped now.

I think it is also the only uni in Canberra with its own swimming pool – available to staff and students!!

I did a MA in Theology there…so I am biased, probably in more ways than one!!

I knew it was there, it’s pretty small though so I don’t blame anyone if they have never heard of it. I go to school at Daramalan which is probably one of the largest schools in Canberra, but I still come across people who are unfamiliar of it. Oh and Vic, would you know roughly how many people attend the ACU, just so we have an idea of it’s size/population.

i have heard its the soft option (i.e easy to get into) for those who didnt get into UC or ANU and their parents wont let them/cant afford for them go out of canberra but want to go to uni.

Too many universities in this country, too much replicated administration.

Hi Vic. It used to be called Signadou College and was pretty much (though not exclusively) a place where Catholics went to learn how to be teaches in Catholic schools.

Their charter has obviously changed over the years (was news to me — my vicarious association with the place goes back to 1985), but I believe they do some marketing, e.g. during the open day season in September (??).

But maybe for Old Canberrans like me (whose perceptions have not been updated in 24 years) they’re not aware of what they now offer and just remember it as…. I think it used to have a nickname.

During the ANU Bush Week in 1984, a scavenger hunt person nicked Signadou’s welcome mat. I was walking through the ANU forecourt with my sister (a Signadou student at the time) and she indignantly picked the mat up, tucked it under her arm, and returned it to its rightful place!

Vic said :

Australian Centre for Christianity and Culture

Ahh yes, the mob that (somewhere in ’01-02 IIRC) replaced one of the Edmund Barton Building’s larger carparks, replaced it with a bizarrely shaped building of their own + carpark, and then put a boomgate at the entry to said carpark to stop anyone else using the almost always empty spaces in there. What a great bunch of people. *ahem*

Sure am glad I don’t work in EBB anymore. I did try buses for a good while but they really didn’t work out too well and significantly lengthened my working days.

Someone told me once that said the approval to build said Centre for Christianity and Culture was the direct result of a mutual-backscratching deal with Brian Harridine. Can anyone back that up?

The only thing I know about ACU is that Greg Craven is vice chancellor, from this article:

http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/the-new-crybaby-theists-20091105-hyyc.html

I had never heard of it till I started showing some interest in Unis. Then it’s name pops up on all the openday type advertising. I would say that most Canberrans who have nothing to do with Unis would not know about it. They would only know of ANU & UC (and ADFA, but they would only associate that with providing customers for mooseheads, not being a uni).

I think it is simply a different type of uni. They only run a few “niche” courses, and attract enough people with targeted advertising to fill them. ANU & UC on the other hand work on the critical mass approach, get enough people knowing you exist and you’ll fill the places. Add to this the advertising of there bars, gigs, etc. I have never seen an ad for the ACU version of Stonefest.

Audacity: CSU Barton…Ah, you mean St Mark’s National Theological Centre and the Australian Centre for Christianity and Culture. Never thought of that as a University although it is a part of CSU. Fair enough.

ADFA…Yes you are right, funny, I have had no dealings with them at all.

Thanks for that, more learning for me.

Fiona: You got it mostly. They also provide courses in theology.

Surprised that you have worked at ACU for 4 years and think there is only three universities in Canberra. What about Australian Defence Force Academy (http://www.unsw.adfa.edu.au/) and Charles Sturt University at Barton (http://www.csu.edu.au/about/canberra.html). Like ACU these universities have campuses elsewhere. ACU and CSU actually cooperate in theology education.

Yes, I’ve heard of it, but as said above I understood it to have a “limited range of courses” with a “Catholic vibe”.
It gets mentioned in the ads for the tertiary open day, as does ADFA, so how many are we up to now?

I knew they existed, but offer a limited range of courses. I also think that most students would have no need for a catholic university.

It does education, nursing and social work as far as I was aware. With a bit of a catholic vibe. In that social workers have to either transfer in from another uni after starting arts or something, or do their first two years in theology if they want to start their training at ACU

What else do they offer?