Murdoch
Murdoch University photo
The planned redevelopment of Murdoch University's veterinary school will include an upgrade of its teaching hospital.
When Murdoch University in Perth, Australia, celebrated its 50th birthday last year, festivities were tinged by an awareness that its aging facilities could do with an upgrade.
Work on its veterinary school would be an integral part of any redevelopment, management had deduced, since veterinary medicine has been a pillar of the Western Australian university's offering since its founding in 1974. But funding would have to be secured at a financially challenging time for all seven of Australia's veterinary schools, which, unlike their counterparts in the United States, are heavily reliant on government subsidies and income from international students.
Now, the veterinary school has received a large, unexpected shot in the arm that will help it increase by around 50% the number of openings each year for domestic and international students combined. Ted Powell, a businessman who made his fortune creating and selling ready-made "shelf companies" in offshore tax havens, has donated AU$100 million (US$65 million) to the school in what is one of the largest ever charitable donations to an Australian university.
The money will underpin an entire redevelopment of the veterinary school, including its teaching hospital, upping its annual student intake from 104 to at least 150 by its planned completion in 2030.
"I had to pick my jaw off the floor," the university's vice chancellor, Andrew Deeks, told a press conference about his reaction to the donation. Powell informed attending journalists his gift was partly inspired by the recent death of his wife, a cat lover, and the fact that the couple had no children. "You can't spend $100 million when you're 74 years old," he said.
Still, the donation didn't come completely out of the blue: Powell has been a supporter of Murdoch University for years, having funded scholarships for around 140 students across various disciplines.
Weighty donations to educational institutions aren't uncommon. The largest in history is thought to be billionaire businessman Michael Bloomberg's $1.8 billion donation in 2018 to Johns Hopkins University to fund scholarships and grants for undergraduate students from lower-income families. In the veterinary realm, large donations include $50 million to Oregon State University's veterinary school in 2018 from alumnus Dr. Gary R. Carlson; $35 million to Cornell University's Wildlife Health Center in 2024 from former investment banker K. Lisa Yang; and $30 million to New Jersey's new veterinary school at Rowan University in 2023 from businessman Gerald B. Shreiber.
Donation comes at challenging time for Australian veterinary schools
Signs of strain in Australia's veterinary education sector became starkly apparent in late 2022 when another of its schools, at the University of Melbourne, decided to close its teaching hospital. The facility has since been leased to the corporate consolidator Greencross, which is offering students clinical training as part of a distributed model of education that entails schools partnering with privately run hospitals. The move made the University of Melbourne's the only Australian veterinary school without a teaching hospital and marked the the first time in the world that a veterinary school stopped operating a teaching hospital and switched to the distributed model.
International student income has recently rebounded in Australia after taking a hit from a nearly two-year border closure during the pandemic, government figures show. The country's universities say they remain under pressure because tuition paid by domestic students is capped by subsidies, leaving them exposed to government funding cuts. According to a report in 2023 based on interviews with school leaders and other stakeholders, the veterinary education sector in Australia and New Zealand was near a "crisis" point, with at least one school facing "the real prospect" of closure. The relatively high cost of training veterinary students means schools rely on cross-subsidization from other disciplines at their respective universities, fueling "on-campus resentment" of veterinary programs, the report said.
Murdoch University hasn't been immune to the challenges facing the sector. In 2022, it was instructed by the Western Australian government to improve health and safety protocols following allegations of unsafe working conditions at its veterinary teaching hospital. Soon after, in 2023, the accreditation body for schools in the U.S. and Canada, the American Veterinary Medical Association Council on Education, identified a "minor deficiency" regarding physical facilities that the school has since rectified.
Murdoch University is one of four Australian veterinary schools holding U.S. accreditation, alongside those at the University of Melbourne, University of Queensland and University of Sydney. New Zealand's only veterinary school, at Massey University, is also U.S.-accredited.
School
Murdoch University image
This rendering shows what the redevelopment of Murdoch University's veterinary school might look like.
Construction projected to begin next year
The dean of Murdoch University's veterinary school, Dr. Henry Annandale, told the VIN News Service that Powell's donation will not only underpin its teaching hospital's future but help realize plans to work with other departments on a One Health approach to clinical training.
"We are very fortunate in that we have a really vibrant teaching hospital that has specialist services across multiple disciplines," Annandale said. "That's something we want to maintain and, in fact, expand on. We have a One Health vision, and can see many benefits of medical professionals, veterinary professionals and environmental professionals doing research and training together."
Annandale said the university will soon tender for an architect and developer to undertake the school's expansion and anticipates construction, forecast to take four years, will begin next year.
"We had been working on a campus-wide development plan that the new vice chancellor had started when he took office in 2022," Annandale explained. "As part of the plan, the unique position of the veterinary school meant if we upgraded those facilities, it would start a domino effect that would allow us to free up space and improve facilities in other areas."
Although Powell's donation will cover most of the cost, Annandale said, extra funding will be needed to complete the planned overhaul. "The redevelopment is in different phases, and the donation will just about cover the phase that's related directly to the vet school," he said. "But then we want to improve laboratories that can be used by the vet school and the other schools in the College of Environmental and Life Sciences, and we'll probably need some matching funding for that."
The university hopes the large donation will draw more gifts. "Ted stated that education is a gift that lasts a lifetime," Annandale said. "That's just so powerful, and we're hoping that message will inspire other people to say, 'Hey, this is a really good cause to get behind.' "
The redevelopment, he said, will be structured to ensure it doesn't disrupt students' learning experience. Some functions at the existing teaching hospital, for example, will be moved into a new building to allow for the redevelopment of the existing building. When that's done, some functions will be moved back to the refurbished teaching hospital, while others will stay in the first floor of the new building.
Annandale said the redevelopment will provide expanded placement opportunities for domestic and international students alike, the latter comprising about 35% of the veterinary school's student body. Of those, about 70% come from Singapore and Malaysia, owing in part to relationships between Murdoch University and some Singaporean polytechnics. The school's remaining international students typically are from the U.S., Canada and Hong Kong, he said. It also has an arrangement with St. George's University in Grenada and Ross University in St. Kitts, whereby veterinary students at those Caribbean schools — typically between five and 10 combined at present — can spend their final year at Murdoch University.