Griffith University

Griffith University is a public research university in the southeastern region of the Australian state of Queensland. The university has five satellite campuses located in the Gold Coast, Logan City and in the Brisbane suburbs of Mount Gravatt, Nathan and South Bank. Current total enrollment is approximately 43,000 with 4,000 full-time equivalent staff. Griffith University offers undergraduate and postgraduate degrees across ten discipline areas including Arts, Education, Business, Health, Law, Engineering, Information Technology, Environment, Music and Visual Arts. Establishment In 1965, 174 hectares (430 acres) of natural bushland at Nathan were set aside for a new campus. Initially the site was to be part of the University of Queensland which was experiencing strong demand in humanities and social sciences. By 1970, a new institution was being mooted. The university was formally founded in 1971 and opened its doors in 1975 to 451 students in four schools: Australian Environmental Studies, Humanities, Modern Asian Studies and Science. The University started with its Nathan campus, and several of its campuses are distinctive for their nature based settings within large urban agglomerations. Buildings were designed to fit into the environment by following the slope of the land and by using architectural means of cooling. The library building was designed by Robin Gibson and won the first national award for library design. The clusters of buildings, sports facilities, bushland reserves and recreational areas are connected by integrated networks of walking paths. The university was distinguished by its 'problem-based' rather than disciplinary approach to course design and research. The university now has a full suite of programs including arts, education, medicine, dentistry, engineering, business, science, and law. The University is named after the former Premier of Queensland, and High Court of Australia justice, Sir Samuel Walker Griffith, who was also the principal author of the Australian constitution. The QS World University Rankings places Griffith in 291st universities in the world. It was ranked 200th in Social Sciences, 268th in Arts and Humanities and ranked 256th in the world according to Global University Rankings 2009. Griffith ranked sixth in the world for Tourism Research contributions. Griffith is ranked 2nd by getCITED’s Top 10 Institutions by Publications in Sports Marketing Journals over the past 3 years (2005) and 1st by getCITED’s Top 10 Institutions by Publications in Sports Management Journals over the past 3 years(2005). The prestigious QS World University Rankings places Griffith in the top 300 universities in the world, which means the University is in the top 5% of universities in the world, as at 8 October 2009.

Griffith Business School is recognised by the Aspen Institute's ‘Top 100’ for its leadership in integrating social, environmental and ethical issues into its programs. It was the highest Australian ranking. Its Business program has been ranked 5th (out of 25 universities) in Australia and among top 100 in the world by Times Higher Education in 2009. Its Accounting research has been ranked 7th (out of 37 universities) in Australia and in the top 100 in the world. The ranking, published in the Accounting and Finance, was based on the top 24 accounting journals internationally and ranked Griffith 72nd out of more than 1,000 institutions in the world.

Griffith Law School has been ranked as No. 1 in the country by the respected publication, the "Good Universities Guide", both in 2005 and 2006. The Griffith MBA received a five star rating for the seventh consecutive year from the Graduate Management Association of Australia. Griffith is only one of two universities nationally to achieve this feat and the International MBA program also received five stars in only its second year.