When I got out of the shower this morning, Snookums excitedly asked if I’d seen the story on Page 2 of the Herald. “No, what is it?” Apparently Notre Dame has made an agreement with the Archbishop of Sydney to take over the disused St. Benedict’s school in Chippendale. I was pretty floored. The last I knew, Notre Dame’s Australian program was based in Fremantle (near Perth) and there weren’t any plans to relocate to Sydney. The weird thing is that the article never actually specifies which Notre Dame is involved. I mean, we both assumed my alma mater, but there are plenty of Catholic schools around the world called that, right? And the ND news site doesn’t have any mention of it. I wonder what’s up with that. Could ND really be opening a new foreign study center right around the corner from my apartment?
Niffler
August 2, 2004 — 3:09 pm
They’re not relocating the Fremantle campus – they’re just opening a new campus in Sydney. 🙂
Niffler
August 2, 2004 — 3:13 pm
*points up* If that’s what you meant, just ignore the first post. *ahem*
Nothing on the Aussie ND site, either:
http://web.nd.edu.au/index.html
Kris
August 2, 2004 — 6:02 pm
Hey, yes there is! It just appeared on the list of news items. Check it out. Looks like the federal government has thrown in its support. I don’t get exactly who the campus is for, though. I thought it was just going to be another program like London, but it sounds like it’s going to be a lot bigger. And what’s the bit about fee-paying and HECS? Does that mean Aussies are going to be attending? Wow, maybe I could be a Double Domer… without leaving Sydney!
Niffler
August 2, 2004 — 7:50 pm
Ah, yeah it’s just going to be another campus of NDA, not a special program like the London summer (or in our case, winter) one. The government is funding around 200 HECS places, and, I assume NDA will be offering non-HECS places.
In case you’re wondering, yes, I am an NDA student. In fact, that’s how I found your blog – by searching for other ND students! 😉
Kris
August 2, 2004 — 11:32 pm
Wait, Niffler’s an ND blogger too? No way! When I was compiling the list last week for some reason I *thought* you were, but then I couldn’t find any proof to back that up. Very cool.
Okay, so I must have a completely wrong idea about NDA. The London program was just for ND undergrad and law students, and it ran for the fall and spring semesters each year. (I did it in Spring ’98.) We had our own building off Piccadilly but they recently got a swanky new one down near Trafalgar Square. The classes were taught by Brits but counted towards our normal Notre Dame ungrad degrees. I knew that undergrads could go to Australia so I just assumed that it ran the same way. So it’s an actual university that accepts non-US students? That’s so cool!
Niffler
August 3, 2004 — 12:46 am
Yes, it’s an actual university, hehe!! We have the opportunity to do the London thing with the US ND students, too (in fact, I will be doing it next year – can’t wait!) and it also counts towards our degree. 😉
Trevor
August 3, 2004 — 8:49 pm
I wonder how positive a development this is for Sydney. Notre Dame has something of an image problem over here in Western Australia – every time it expands, it buys up some more of Fremantle’s Victorian-era heritage buildings, and moves into them. This would be neither here nor there if it were a public university, but a private university doing the same, and putting these buildings (and by association, more and more of the West End of Fremantle) somehow “off-limits” to locals, can rub egalitarian-minded Aussies up the wrong way. And it hardly helps the university’s cause that the building it most recently took over had been, up until that time, one of Freo’s more popular pubs.
M-H
August 4, 2004 — 4:39 pm
Kris, this development just stinks. Your loyalty aside, the govt closes undergrad nursing at Sydney, then two months later they give a private organisation $4M to open a new nursing course a few blocks away. There is already a Catholic Uni here ACU, which offers nursing and teaching. In fact, they got half of Sydney’s nursing places. UTS, a few hundred metres away from the site of the new Uni, got most of the rest. What is that abiout, when Brandan Abbot closed Sydney’s undergrad nursing ont he basis that there were two schools of nursing in the same suburb. It sucks bigtime.