Page 10 - Pharmacy History 37 Nov 2009

VCP and Monash merger – a little known sidelight
David Newgreen
Janette Bomford, in her history of the Victorian College of Pharmacy (VCP), describes in detail the amalgamation of the College with Monash University in 1991-92 following the unsuccessful two-year negotiations with the University
of Melbourne, the details of which were compiled by the College registrar Robert Burnet.1,2 As is well known, both the Victorian and Commonwealth governments had agreed that the College should be amalgamated with the University of Melbourne, even though many previous attempts had failed.
Monash University had had discussions with a number of
tertiary institutions for the purpose of amalgamations arising from the Dawkins reforms.3 Some of Monash’s attempted amalgamations failed
and some were complicated. In the case of VCP, Marginson describes
the amalgamation as ‘a steal’.4
He reveals a little known fact not mentioned elsewhere.5 Quoting the then Comptroller of Monash, Peter Wade, the University of Melbourne correctly assumed that that it was unlikely the Victorian Government would pass legislation merging VCP with Monash when the University
of Melbourne was ‘over the road’. Wade believed that Melbourne’s inflexibility did not take into account that legislation might not be needed.
Wade observed that for a tertiary institution, VCP was a very unusual place because it was a company,
not a statutory body. The Monash University Act gave the university company powers and this allowed a company merger to take place.
Once the company merger was decided on by the two institutions,
it was politically difficult for it to be undone. If the government legislated to undo a medium-sized company merger with no obvious question of company practice at stake, it would have sent shock-waves through the commercial world. After that, both the Victorian and Commonwealth governments supported the merger following vigorous representations from the profession and students.
The end result was the Monash University (Pharmacy College) Act 1992.
The merger benefited both parties. VCP was now part of one of
the larger and more prestigious universities and its degree would be awarded by a university rather than a College of Advanced Education; more resources would flow and there were more opportunities for collaborative research. For its part, Monash acquired a location in the ‘Parkville strip’ (ironically, close to
the University of Melbourne) and
a course that led to professional registration – Monash having had only two, being law and medicine. Although the College had only 2%
of Monash’s students, it earned 22% of total research funds from industry in the period 1992-93.6 Its higher- degree research load was well above the Monash average. The quality of entrants to the pharmacy course was another advantage. In 1993, the order of school leavers entering Victoria’s larger universities who were in the top 20% was:7
University of Melbourne .......... 47%
Monash University ..................35%
La Trobe University .................... 6%
RMIT University ....................... 6%
Deakin University ...................... 2%
Within Monash itself, the corresponding data from its several campuses were:
Parkville (Pharmacy) ..................91% Clayton ...................................... 51% Caulfield ....................................31% Berwick ...................................... 24% Peninsula .................................... 8% Gippsland .................................. 4%
References
1. Bomford J. Victorian College of Pharmacy: 125 years of history. Parkville: JanetteBomford & Monash University; 2006. pp 219-231.
2. Burnet R. The search for a partner: a history of the amalgamation of the Victorian College of Pharmacy and Monash University. Parkville: Victorian College of Pharmacy Ltd, Parkville; 1993.
3. Dawkins JS. Higher education: a policy statement (The White Paper), Australian Government Publishing Service (AGPS), Canberra; 1988.
4. Marginson S. Monash: Remaking the University. St Leonards: Allen & Unwin, 2000. p.115.
5. ibid. p.117.
6. ibid. p.224.
7. ibid. pp. 207-208.
Victorian College of Pharmacy
10 Pharmacy History Australia
volume 5 no 37 NOVEMBER 2009