, the first president of the School of Mines, a colonial judge in
Victoria, and the inaugural
Chancellor of the
University of Melbourne School of Mines Tertiary education at Ballarat began with the establishment of the Ballarat School of Mines in 1870, and he was involved in the creation of university degree level courses for the school. The School of Mines had two divisions - a tertiary division and a technical division. The tertiary division provided higher education courses such as mining engineering, geology, education and business studies, while the technical division provided such programs as wool classing, plumbing and bricklaying. The organisation remained in that form until 1967 when it was split into three institutions, Ballarat School of Industries, Ballarat Technical School, and Ballarat Institute of Advanced Education. They remained three entities until 1976. Ballarat Institute of Advanced Education merged into Ballarat College of Advanced Education. The Ballarat School of Industries and Ballarat Technical School merged into the School of Mines and Industries, Ballarat (SMB) in 1976. Ballarat University College then sought to become a fully-fledged university in its own right when Professor John Sharpham asked the board of BUC why, if
Southern Cross University was allowed to separate from the
University of New England by becoming a university in its own right, Ballarat should not be allowed to do the same. The Federal Government was lobbied and responded by sending three Vice-Chancellors (one of them, incidentally, being from the University of New England) to Ballarat to consider the matter. The result was favorable and the university college became a university in 1994. Its sole link to the University of Melbourne was that Melbourne would observe the academic standards at the new university for a five-year period.
University of Ballarat The University of Ballarat was organised in 1994, after being sponsored by the University of Melbourne for five years, In 1998, the Ballarat School of Mines and Industries (1870) and the Horsham-based Wimmera Institute of TAFE merged into the university, expanding its curriculum. The university's English and Academic Preparation (EAP) prepared international students for a university education in Australia and improved student's ability to read, write, speak, and listen to the English language. and the merged schools are now the
Federation University Australia. The name change was made as the result of the passage of the amended University of Ballarat Act 2010 bill through the
state's parliament. The name change went into effect on 1 January 2014. == Notable alumni ==