The University of Adelaide Open Day: Happy 125th!
with Keith Conlon

It is usually the domain of 14000 students and about 2500 staff, but on Sunday 1st August, 1999, the University of Adelaide invites everybody in for Open Day.

Walter Watson Hughes sits, cast in bronze, looking out from the city campus over North Terrace. They say he ran opium as a shipowner in the China trade before he became a Yorke Peninsula pastoralist and copper mogul (the Moonta mine was in his property). In the 1870's he offered £20,000 to a theological college - it was such a vast amount that Adelaide decided to begin a University instead.

It was a daring move for a city of only 200,000 or so. There were only three universities in the whole of England. But they pressed ahead and the University Act was passed in state parliament in 1874. Today a University is the heart of a civilised city; its reforms, ideas, scientific breakthroughs, new industries, culture and more will come from researchers and graduates who came through.

The University of Adelaide's Open Day will provide career and course information, exhibitions and entertaining displays for the next generation of students - and everybody in the community.

Visitors who pass the Barr Smith Library on the lower level of the campus as it reaches the Torrens river valley will notice major construction works towards Frome Road. The Engineering and Maths Building is due to open next month. The Postcards crew climbed onto a temporary scaffolding stairwell six stories up for a crane high view of the new science block under construction. It will cluster biochemistry, genetics and micro-biology teams to further unravel the mysteries of our biological software, leading to new vaccines, therapeutics and treatments.

The 1960's Fisher Building will be demolished soon, once more opening up the avenue view of the classical old formal entrance of the library from Frome Road. Inside, the original, cavernous reading room is a monumental classical distraction - or inspiration - for undergraduates studying within.

The Barr Smith Library is celebrating its 100th anniversary of that nomenclature. It recognises extraordinary beneficence by the pastoral family. Earlier in 1999, the library collected its two millionth item, and it is now engaged in a pilot digitising project to move more and more archive and rare material onto the Internet. For Postcards, we watched an illuminated address from 1874 scanned and manipulated. You'll find it on the library website, and the scanning unit will be on show during Open Day.

The Engineering Faculty certainly turns on a show for the event. With levitating balls demonstrating mechatronics for industrial robots, a see through brandy still, a giant coastal wave making model for testing seaside developments - they're a popular part of any Open Day.

This year, they will also feature the Olympic torch for Sydney 2000. More than 20 researchers refined the flame mechanism to withstand 65kph gales and torrential rain. You won't see it lit (it awaits the Olympic flame now), but you may see some video of the flame in wind tunnel testing as we showed on Postcards.

Over From Road, the University of Adelaide Medical School also turns it on for visitors. The Anatomical Sciences Resource Centre is usually only open by appointment, but Open Day, August 1, gives Adelaidians a chance to see Samorn the Elephant again. Donated to Adelaide Zoo (just a few hundred metres away) in 1956, the elephant was legendary till her death at Monarto in 1994.

Researchers spent six months assembling her huge skeleton for comparative anatomy. They discovered severe 'honeycomb' deterioration of one toe bone. Samorn had endured a very sore foot.

Back on North Terrace, the grand Gothic two storey Mitchell Building is the formal face of the University. It is open to the public every weekday, but on Open Day it will welcome visitors to contemplate past glories. In the gracious but somewhat stern foyer there is stone carving to marvel at - and the walk through to the central staircase has been called me of Adelaide's best architectural experiences.

The Hidden Treasures Exhibition now standing is an extra reason to call. We featured just one of many themes on the program. Orthodontist Dr Percy Begg taught in the Dental School and pioneered the use of steel wires to straighten mis-aligned teeth. His work evolved into the orthodontic 'bands' now used internationally. Plaster casts of before buck teeth and after perfect bites are from his own patients.

The Open Day will be true to name with almost all departments offering demonstrations, talks and entertaining displays for potential students and the community.

There is more about the University of Adelaide and Open Day, August 1, 10am to 4pm on its website, www.adelaide.edu.au, or you can call on 8303 5174.