Taking a look back to the photos that have been key moments in the history of UTS.
On 26 January 1988, Gus Guthrie sent a broadcast to all staff that read:
At midnight on 25 January 1988 the New South Wales Institute of Technology vanished and in its place, on 26 January 1988 rose the University of Technology Sydney.
Gus Guthrie
Vice-Chancellor of UTS (1988—1996)
As we celebrate 30 of years of UTS, let’s take a look at our history.
Everything starts somewhere, and it doesn’t always go smoothly. Before UTS and the Tower, we were just a flooded excavation site giving our neighbours water views.
At the other end of the campus, 60 years earlier, we see the industrial area of pre-war Sydney.
And we return to current-day UTS with buildings by world-renowned architects
When the Tower designs were first proposed, not only were there going to be seven of them, the student magazine at the time, Shoplift, believed that the architect’s brief was to create a space ‘in which students would not want to congregate’.
A model from the mid-1960s of the original UTS Broadway campus design (Courtesy department of Attorney General & Justice and the Government Architect's Office)
It turns out that the Tower Foyer is a popular meeting spot and breakfast spot (thanks, Bluebird Brekkie Bar!)
Bluebird Brekkie Bar in the Tower Foyer in 2011. (Courtesy Bluebird Brekkie Bar Facebook page
Back in 2009, about 30 members of our community marked the 30th birthday of the Tower by abseiling down the side. Here we see Tasman Munro (B Industrial Design) about to descend the Tower. Here’s the experience in his own words:
As I swung my shaky legs over the edge I decided to do the unthinkable. I looked down. It was such a rush, and I was suddenly inspired to convince the safety guy to check my equipment again, for the 28th time. Before I knew it, I was dangling on a thin rope 160 metres above the ground, my heart pounding, legs trembling and hands sweating. All I could do was laugh – hysterically – and then scream, and then laugh some more. After my initial outburst, I was overcome with a sudden sense of peace. It was truly magical up there. Apart from the gentle wind whistling around the Tower it was completely silent, and now I was between that sun sparkling off Blackwattle Bay and the illuminated buildings.
Tasman Munro
Abseiling student
Tasman Munro at the top of the Tower (Courtesy Peter Brady)
Tasman wasn’t the first student to descend the tower. In this photo, a student is abseiling down the Tower building as part of the protests against the abolition of mandatory student unionism in 2006.
A student abseiling down the tower (Courtesy Anton Bogdanovych)
Our community also protested a proposal under Education Minister John Dawkins for a Higher Education Contribution Scheme (HECS). Evidently, it failed, as HECS was introduced a year after this photo in 1989.
Students and staff protesting the proposal for a Higher Education Contribution Sceme (HECS) in 1988 (Courtesy Chris Hepperlin)
The original superlab.
An old science lab. (Courtesy David Vagg Photography)
Before the days of My Student Admin, this was a familiar image for our NSWIT students in the late 1970s when they wanted to enrol.
Enrolment in the late 1970s (Courtesy Sherran Evans)
Your first day of uni during orientation wouldn't be the same without our Peer Networkers! The first peer networkers were recruited on UTS’s 10th birthday, back in 1998.
Students in the UTS Peer Network program (Courtesy Sabrina Fuechsle)
Graduates of UTS are among notable alumni such as Hugh Jackman (BA Comms, 1991), Maile Carnegie (BBus Marketing, 1992) and Nelson Mandela who was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Laws by UTS in 2000.
Vice-Chancellor Tony Blake shakes hands with Dr Mandela. Chancellor Sir Gerard Brennan is in the background. (Photo by Sherran Evans)
Transitioning from a teaching institution to embrace research, like other universities, was met with some concern by NSWIT staff. But thanks to the likes of Pro Vice-Chancellor (Research) Lesley Johnson empowering our researchers with time and grants, UTS research radically improved.
Lesley Johnson and Justine Lloyd's book, Sentenced to Everyday Life: Feminism and the housewife
What’s a trip to UTS without a 300m walk through the Devonshire Tunnel? It opened up in 1906 and has been going strong ever since!
An initiation to UTS is often the walk through the Devonshire Tunnel from Central Station. (Courtesy Newtown Graffiti via Flickr)
Before it became a place for cheap wine and good music for the whole community, The Loft was a staff-only retreat.
The Loft building before the bar. (Courtesy David Vagg Photography)