Grand Opening of Swinburne’s Extended Campus
I have been wanting to put up a post regarding the Grand Opening of Swinburne’ s extend campus that took place last week on August 23rd 2008. But due to the fact that there were too many back to back activities (rehearsal & graduation ceremony), I just couldn’t make the time.
First of all I’d like to congratulate the organizing committee of the Grand opening ceremony for doing such a wonderful job. Everything on that day was ‘just perfect’, starting from the actual ceremony at the newly built MPH (Multi Purpose Hall), followed by Campus Tour, Refreshment & Student Performances (at Block C).
The only possible drawback of the day was, it rained badly however it did not really affect the flow of the whole program.
The program kicked off by the speech of Mr. Bill Scales (AO) who is the chancellor of Swinburne University of Technology. He talked about a bit of Swinburne Sarawak’s history and how it all started. It was the Sarawak government who invited Swinburne University of Technology, Australia about 8 years ago to come into a partnership in order to strengthen the social, industrial, commercial & political structure of the nation.
Mr. Scales strongly believes that Australia and Malaysia are excellent educational partners because of their shared view of higher education and Swinburne is very proud to be involved in this partnership. (Just for your Information: There are two more aussie campuses in Malaysia – Monash & Curtin). But unlike other universities, Swinburne will only have ONE international campus and that is – Swinburne Sarawak.
Our Chief Minster’s speech was a bit long but I was able to pick some figures and facts which I’d like to share now:
- In 2001, Swinburne Institute of Technology was only occupying 2 Floors of the 9 storied government building and Now Swinburne has 8 new buildings of its own.
- Sarawak Government owns 75% share of Swinburne, and the remaining 25% belongs to Swinburne.
- Swinburne Sarawak has been formed in partnership of Sarawak Gov and Swinburne Australia, where Sarawak Government has provided the investment needed for the Physical infrastructure (e.g. Buildings, IT, computers, Labs etc) and Swinburne has provided the intellectual property (e.g. the internationally recognized academic programs)
- Swinburne Institute of Technology had 130 students when they first started in year 2000, but now Swinburne Sarawak has over 2600+ students.
- Within the next few years Swinburne aims for 5000 Students.
- Over 450+ students have graduated in the 5th Graduation Ceremony (held on 25th of August).
Review of the Library Facilities
Me and Ember managed to get Adeline (Library Staff) present in the library on the day of the opening ceremony and she was kind enough to talk to us regarding the improved library facilities. I wish I could put up the whole transcript, but I think I’ll just highlight the key points here:
- The new library is pretty big in terms of size, if compared with the previous one
- It has 12 discussion rooms and each can accommodate 10 students each.
- The library also has a dedicated AV room with TV, DVD Player etc.
- There is a dedicated room for training
- There are currently over 70,000 books in the library
- A new self checkout system is also in Place (not active yet)
- There will be 4 OPEC systems in the library which will allow the students to search for books.
- The PC area has 30 PCs currently. (I wonder why this number is still 30…the old library also had 30 pcs if I’m not mistaken)
- The Reading Area is pretty big compared to the old library
- The Individual Study blocks are more and have dedicated power sockets (So you may power your laptop and connect to Swinwifi).
- The whole library is covered by SwinWifi
Some Pictures:
Library Study Area
Automated Checkout Counter
Individual Study Area
Books & Shelves
I think they still need a lot of books to fill the empty space…..
PC Area
The library is big no doubt, but I think 30 pcs aren’t enough for 2500+ students.
Someone asked me a week back – whether Swinburne is going to use a false ceiling to cover the pipes on the roof of all rooms. Well I got confirmation that they don’t have any plans to cover it up…Many modern buildings of today keeps it that way..
Read other posts related to Swinburne Grand Opening Ceremony:
Swinburne Sarawak Grand Opening Ceremony (FEATURED)
Swinburne Grand Opening Coverage (Partial)
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they shud have remain the old libraries. such as waste of fund for renovating for library annex 2. turn them into study area also not bad wat XD
Well, the old libraries were too small for 2500+ students. The new library just needs some more pcs and books.
….we’ll be having quite a few new open labs. I wish they would just hurry it up.