Stories

Find out more about our past with this flashback to 1975

We are celebrating Pride Month with records of the LGBTQIA+ community on campus from our early days. Queer people and their stories have traditionally been silenced in written history and archives, so there is additional significance when it comes to the preservation of records created by and for queer people.

Curtin University’s logo still carries with it a connection to our days as the Western Australian institute of Technology (WAIT) and the symbol we used then.

WAIT’s first intake of students was in 1967, with an official enrolment of 2,891 students. Of the health sciences, the associate qualification of pharmacy transferred from Perth Technical College is one of the first disciplines taught in our inaugural year.

On 14 June 1968, our first graduation ceremony was held in Hayman Hall in building 102 (now Curtin Connect) on the Perth campus.

Have a browse through a selection of images on the Perth campus from the 1990s and early 2000s and compare what’s different and what’s exactly the same.

In our collections is a well-preserved batch of posters from our time as WAIT (Western Australian Institute of Technology) in the 1970s-1980s. These posters from the Student Guild and associated student organisations give an insight into student activism and social activities during this time on campus.

If you have ever been to our Bentley campus during semester, you would be familiar with the sight of our surveying students out and about on the campus grounds learning how to use surveying equipment.

The newly refurbished TL Robertson Library re-opens officially on 27 February 2023. A centrepiece of the Perth campus and a major player in every student’s academic career, we are looking back at the iconic building and how it has developed over time.

The first graduation ceremony at Curtin occurred on 14 June 1968, as the Western Australian Institute of Technology (WAIT). The Institute council passed a motion in November 1973 to introduce academic regalia.

Our Sarawak campus buildings officially opened in 2002. Established in 1999 at a temporary location at Riam Road Middle School with an initial enrolment of 220 students and 23 academic staff, Curtin swiftly commenced planning and work for a permanent campus in Sendadin that same year.

On 8 April 1979 the Perth Hockey Stadium was officially opened, the first of its type in the Southern Hemisphere.