Sydney University Vice-Chancellor Michael Spence is a man with a plan. His mission is to do everything he can to ensure both his international and local students enjoy the very best campus experience possible.
“Education is Australia’s second largest export,” says Spence. “To remain internationally competitive we need to continue to invest in new buildings and facilities.”
For Sydney University this means an ambitious building program over the next 20 years to increase University floor space by 68 per cent within the current campus boundaries. It’s a plan which has the surrounding Darlington community on edge.
Spence explains that the University intends to expand student on-campus accommodation, and improve teaching and student facilities by constructing taller buildings within existing boundaries, and by moving campus car parking underground. He has a vision for the local community based on what he has seen at the University of Pennsylvania and its surrounding community of West Philadelphia.
It’s a surprising revelation from the head of a university which he readily admits has long turned its back on Darlington and neighbouring Redfern.
The gentrification of West Philadelphia into University City is seen by Vice-Chancellor Spence as an aspirational model for the University of Sydney and Darlington. Like Pennsylvania, Sydney University moved into whole streets many years ago to cater for the boom in university education. Spence now wants to assure local residents the University has no desires to expand further into Darlington, other than to express an interest in the former Eveleigh rail yards.
“We intend to work with the local community to enhance the local area, including the pedestrian corridor between our Darlington campus and Redfern Station.”
“We have always had a good relationship with the Indigenous community and with young people in the Darlington community,” says Spence. “There are no locked gates on the Darlington campus and we welcome the increasing number of local residents who use our sporting, cultural and park facilities seven days a week.”
He admits that in the past, however, the University has not always been a good neighbour, directing much of its effort towards the Glebe side. “We are now very keen to have a real connection with Darlington,” says Spence, “and to continue to support local community facilities such as the Darlington School.
“Over-shading of nearby homes will be avoided by locating any new buildings towards the centre of the existing campus.”
