College Background Ormond College occupies 10 acres of land on the northern end of the University of Melbourne’s Parkville campus. The College was established after the University of Melbourne allocated parcels of land to a range of Christian denominations; the Presbyterian section became Ormond College and opened in 1881. A generous benefactor The building of the College was enabled by generous donations from Francis Ormond, a Western District farmer and landowner. Francis Ormond believed in the transformative power of education and wanted the College founded in his name to be more than simply a place to live: it should equip its graduates with both the potential and the sense of responsibility to make the world a better place.
6 I ORMOND COLLEGE HAND BOOK 2O22
Largely self-educated, Francis Ormond was committed to helping people from all walks of life access education: he provided schools and literacy classes for his staff and their children and helped establish RMIT (originally the Working Men’s College) and the Gordon Institute.
A remarkable ethos The College was founded on the progressive ideas of the Scottish Enlightenment. Its founders believed that education made for better people: individuals who could make good moral decisions and citizens who would contribute productively to their community. Part of this ethos was opening the College to students of ‘all faiths and none’, which saw students of all creeds welcomed as part of the Ormond community. Also part of this ethos was the decision to almost immediately open the College to women students, who competed successfully for scholarships, attended tutorials and were involved in Ormond’s scholastic
