50 Years of Pathways - University of Newcastle

50 Years of Pathways - University of Newcastle

The University celebrates 50 years of pathways in 2024 and University of Newcastle's Pathways and Academic Learning Support Centre (PALS) and the Library's Special Collections have created this collection page to celebrate the transformative power of our enabling programs.

50 YEARS FIFTY STORIES    Exhibition at the University Gallery!

50 YEARS FIFTY STORIES marks this milestone through an exhibition of 50 photographs and stories of both current and former students who are representative of the profound impact Open Foundation has had on individuals and the wider community.

This exhibition is showing from 10 July – 28 September. Further details HERE

SHARE YOUR STORY!

50 years ago, the University of Newcastle embarked upon a bold educational experiment to facilitate access for local adults who wanted to go to university but did not have an entry qualification.  In 1974, the Open Foundation was offered at the Callaghan campus as a pilot face to face enabling program, and 80 students were accepted for enrolment.  Since then, the program has been offered every year, and this year, just over 2,220 students enrolled in a program. Although the original form and structure of the program has remained, the Open Foundation has not only grown in numbers, but it has also changed in line with a consistent concern for the mature-age student experience, especially around breadth and relevance of course offerings and flexibility of mode and location. The Open Foundation is now available in a variety of modes - part time, intensive and part time online - and is offered on-campus at Callaghan and the Central Coast, and on-line with on-campus support at Port Macquarie.

The Open Foundation was developed by Dr Brian Smith, then Head of the Department of Community Programmes.  Since its inception the program has been a significant part of the University’s relationship with its regions.  Dr Smith believed the program to be particularly relevant in a community with extremely low participation rates in higher education.

“For the individual students it is an opportunity to re-direct their lives; for society it is the regaining of a considerable pool of talent that had been lost by the system; for those who conduct it, it is almost certainly the most rewarding teaching experience they could have.” (Smith 1987,p. 39)

Dr Smith’s vision has resulted in a major resource to the communities of the Hunter and Central Coast – and more recently a wider community through the online mode of delivery – and approximately 36,000 students have studied in the program.  Most of the students who successfully complete the program go on to undergraduate study at the University of Newcastle.  Students have been awarded bachelor, honours, master’s and doctoral degrees and graduates of the program can be found in all the professions.

In the early years the program offered a limited number of courses, and prepared students for entry to the Bachelor of Arts degree.  Over time courses in Geography, Chemistry, Physics, Mathematics, Visual Art, Aboriginal Studies, Sociology and Environmental Studies were offered, and students have been accepted into all Faculties of the University. 

Other Resources 

Bunn, R. J. (2020). We need to help students discover themselves and see into the life of things: Advice from Open Foundation lecturers. In Transitioning Students into Higher Education (1st ed., pp. 151–160). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429279355-19

Bunn, R. (2018). The history and impacts of the University of Newcastle’s Open Foundation Program.

Bunn, R. J. (2001). Measuring up norms of power and the power of norms in a secondary school site: a theoretical and empirical study. Thesis (M. Ed.)  University of Newcastle, 2001.

May, J., & Bunn, R. J. (2015). 1974-1976 : The seeds of longevity in a pathway to tertiary participation at University of Newcastle, NSW. Australian Journal of Adult Learning, 55(1), 135–152.

Newcastle Herald article, Friday 24 July 2024 50 Years of Pathways to Brighter Futures Celebrating five decades of Open Foundation