Faculty History
Foundation
The Faculty of Arts was one of the foundation faculties of Monash University. Initial planning of the new University had envisaged a strong science and technology emphasis, with Science, Engineering and Medicine as the first faculties, but the Australian Universities Commission insisted that Arts be included from the beginning and, as it turned out, student demand proved that to be the correct decision. In 1961 Arts enrolled about 150 students out of a University total of about 360.
The Faculty opened with four departments: English, History, Philosophy and Modern Languages (French and German in the first instance). It occupied space, first of all, in the Mathematics building. The University had decided that there would be no permanent buildings since these always tend to become permanent. Rather there would be temporary accommodation in permanent buildings and Faculties and Departments played a kind of musical chairs over the first few years as new buildings gradually became available for their designated inhabitants. In 1962 Arts moved to rooms in the Physics building and only in 1963 was the western end of the Menzies Building ready for occupation.
Initial policy debates within the Faculty concerned, amongst other things, whether to opt for a traditional discipline-based organisation or to go for a Schools of Study approach as others of the new universities chose to do, and whether to place a special emphasis on language study within the Arts degree. The University of Melbourne at that time required either a language other than English or a branch of Mathematics at matriculation level as a pre-requisite for entry to Arts. The Monash interim Council had already attempted to resolve that question by deciding that there would be no Faculty pre-requisites at Monash, but the Faculty nevertheless re-opened the matter in its first year.
The first of these questions was quickly resolved. Arts Faculty staff did not begin to take up their position until late in 1960 and there was simply no time to experiment with new "maps of learning" to borrow the term used by the University of Sussex in developing its Schools of Study organisation. Monash, perforce, followed the Scottish-Australian system of discipline-based departments with which its members were familiar. In fact this proved to be a flexible framework for innovation in a variety of directions. which marked the new Faculty off from its neighbour in Parkville. On the question of language, since the Faculty was prevented, at least for the moment, from imposing re-requisites, it chose to require students to include either a language or a branch of mathematics within the degree itself. This meant offering beginners courses in language as well as post-matriculation courses. It was not a satisfactory compromise and within a few years the Faculty persuaded the University to revise the earlier decision and allow the imposition of a language or maths pre-requisite.
Next: Expansion