Prime Minister Harold Holt disappears while swimming at Cheviot Beach in Victoria.

Postcodes are introduced throughout Australia.

The average weekly wage is approximately $57 ($740 in today’s dollars).

Everyone is singing Engelbert Humperdinck, The Seekers and The Monkees.

And on 6 March at 9am, Professor Peter Mason delivered the University’s very first lecture. Nearly 80 students attended the physics lecture, Structure and Properties of Matter.

Today, Professor John Croucher from the Macquarie Graduate School of Management (MGSM) has fond memories of being among the first cohort of students at Macquarie. He remembers some definite resourcing challenges in those early days – like trying to undertake Introduction to Computing… but without a computer.

“The lecturer, poor Harry Hancock, used to draw pictures on the blackboard of what a computer looked like if we had one,” he recalls.

John joined the University after reading about it in the newspaper.

“It was sort of a novelty thing. I was saving pennies working overtime… I thought ‘that sounds good.’ Every student there felt the pioneering spirit, that we were the first. We had no idea whether we would get a job [at the end of a degree] because employers didn’t know anything about the University. We were going up against established universities. It was a leap of faith.”

Like Macquarie, John has come a long way. Prior to becoming a MGSM Professor in 2004, he was a Professor of Statistics (1998-2003) and has four PhDs including an honorary doctorate from Papau New Guinea. He was made a Member of the Order of Australia in 2015 and has authored 30 books. In 2013, he received the Prime Minister’s award for the Australian University Teacher of the Year.

Looking ahead, John doesn’t try to guess what the future holds for the University.

“Who knows?” he says. “When we started (50 years ago), there were no calculators, no colour TV’s, no mobile phones, no internet and no one had computers. Everything has led to where we are now, and where we are going is sure to be very exciting.”

What memories do you have from the last 50 years at Macquarie? Share in the comments below.

International Business and Communications student Jackson Vanharte’s fridge is covered in drawings and letters from dozens of Cambodian orphans.

There’s seven-year old Srey*, who alongside her nine-year old brother Kolab, was abandoned by their mother and found going through garbage.

Devi*, an eight-year-old who was addicted to inhaling industrial solvent.

Chandra*, whose parents both died from HIV.

“Forty percent of the population of Cambodia is under the age of 20,” says Jackson. “If there aren’t initiatives to support younger demographics…” he trails off. “You get the picture.”

Jackson knew he had to do something and when he combined his passions for art and volunteering, an idea was born. Jackson set out to create a business that provides a sustainable income for artists in the developing world while simultaneously supporting humanitarian causes.

Through the university’s Global Leader Program (GLP) Jackson attended the ‘Be the change you want to see in the world: Social Entrepreneurship’ colloquia hosted by Associate Professor Debbie Haski-Leventhal. The GLP is an extracurricular program that enhances the study experience and develops leadership skills.

Debbie recalls meeting Jackson at the colloquium, “It’s so exciting and inspiring to see a student at Macquarie doing amazing things,” she enthuses.

The Masters of Social Entrepreneurship students at MGSM offered Jackson a free consultation and a business plan to help him grow Frontier Collection.

“Jackson is an inspiration,” says Jennifer Lee, one of Debbie’s students who helped Jackson. “He showed that regardless of our age, life experience and resources that we start with, we can make a positive difference.”

The assistance provided by Jennifer and others involved in the MGSM consulting project allowed Jackson to propel Frontier Collection into the next stage of development.

“It opened up the floodgates to all these ideas and different directions I can take Frontier,” he says.

Funds raised since have helped pay for food, drinking water, healthcare expenses and school supplies for Srey and the other orphans.

For Debbie, leading this program and teaching corporate social responsibility is so rewarding.

“I may never be the CEO of a big company as my passion lies in guiding the hearts and minds of future CEOs. Along with the coursework, I teach them values like empathy and integrity to ensure that when they are in a position to make a difference, they can do it in a way that contributes to a better society. Every day I come across amazing businesses that are making a real difference, not just making a profit,” she says.

“Whatever you do, you have the ability to use your role and your abilities to make a difference. To know that as a teacher and a researcher that you can make a difference is really rewarding. And I think the biggest impact is making a difference in someone else’s life. That’s what gives your life meaning,” Debbie adds.

Support Frontier Collection by purchasing artwork, becoming an Ambassador or signing up for updates.

Macquarie Graduate School of Management and Macquarie University are proud to be co-delivering Australia’s first Master of Social Entrepreneurship, designed to develop leaders who are able to use business strategies, knowledge, tools and entrepreneurial spirit to address complex societal and environmental needs.

*Names of all children changed.

Academic and non-academic staff, corporate leaders, industry partners, students, alumni, and external academic experts have all contributed to the process, which has helped inform a concurrent project looking at how to better align the Faculty and the School to provide improved student outcomes that meet industry and business expectations of graduates, and to develop more impactful research.

A representative group of staff from the Faculty and School formed an Alignment Working Party, with taskforces dedicated to learning and teaching and research convened to lead processes in those areas and provide input and feedback. This work has helped formulate the direction of the project internally, and allowed us to better examine matters pertaining to engagement of both MGSM and FBE outside the University at the same time.

The consultation and subsequent analysis indicated that, like similar entities across Australia, the Faculty and the School face pressures to respond to changes in the global business education market over the past decade. It also indicated that there are many areas of overlap where greater synergy and increased performance could be realised.

In response to these findings, the Vice-Chancellor has approved a proposal for MGSM to become a school within the Faculty of Business and Economics from January 2017.

The Dean of MGSM will remain as the head of the School and report to the Executive Dean of the Faculty. The name and brand of MGSM will be protected, preserved and enhanced within the overall context of the University.

Leaders from the Faculty and the School are working with Human Resources to implement the necessary changes for MGSM staff who will transition to the University over the coming months. The work of the taskforces will continue and expand, with a recently formed Engagement Taskforce, chaired by Professor David Wilkinson, exploring how best to work with corporate and external partners in the future.

Students of both MGSM and FBE will not experience any changes to their enrolments or study. Nonetheless, the Vice-Chancellor will write to affected staff, students and alumni shortly to advise them of the new structure.

There will be much work undertaken before the end of the year, and this will continue well into 2017 under the leadership of the incoming Executive Dean, Professor Stephen Brammer, in order to provide a refreshed, cohesive and world-leading approach to business and management education as a result.

After realising he wanted to redirect his career, Anhtai started his MBA at MGSM. When his partner found himself in a lot of pain due to a hernia in his neck from too much hunching over his laptop, Anhtai knew it was a problem they needed to solve and that he could put his skills to use.

“Everyone works from laptops in all sorts of locations these days, and what we discovered was that there was no solution that was both portable and height-adjustable in the market, and so The Tiny Tower was born,” Anhtai says.

MGSM lecturer Graham Millet stepped in to offer Anhtai some advice.

“When Anhtai came to me about this idea, I advised him to test market acceptance using a prototype and incorporate feedback into the final product design,” Graham says. “I then suggested he identify an appropriate manufacturer and ensure adequate funding.”

Anhtai knew he wanted to go down the Kickstarter path on the funding front: “It’s a great way to kill many birds with one stone: you can test desirability of the product very quickly, you can start marketing both your name and the product, and, of course, you can raise money very effectively.”

Anhtai credits MGSM, particularly the New Enterprise Management unit, for giving him the sense of how to run a business.

Graham says it’s hugely satisfying to see MGSM students walk away with the skills for success.

“We give budding entrepreneurs the practical skills, essential knowledge, and the confidence to deal with the uncertainties that they will face starting a new enterprise,” he says.

“I find it gratifying to see students succeed in a start-up and to watch their new enterprise grow. The ones who are the most successful have similar qualities, including persistence, resilience, self-belief and internal locus of control. They also have absolute focus on their goal.”

Professor Michael Aitken, Professor of Management – ICT strategy at the Macquarie Graduate School of Management, and Gary Tilley, practicum supervisor of Macquarie’s Opening Real Science program, have both been recognised with a prestigious Prime Minister’s Prize for Science.

Professor Aitken was awarded the 2016 Prime Minister’s Prize for Innovation for his work creating and commercialising tools that are making global markets fair and efficient. He discovered that governments internationally were making changes to their financial markets without any data or evidence, inspiring him to develop software to increase the transparency of the world’s financial market.

“To see the positive impact of the research on a global scale has been a wonderful thing,” Professor Aitken says. “I hope that by helping our financial markets the research has also contributed to the future funding of innovation worldwide.”

Gary Tilley saw an opportunity to help train science and maths student teachers at Macquarie through the Opening Real Science program and was recognised for this contribution with the  Prime Minister’s Prize for Excellence in Science Teaching in Primary Schools. Gary says he was honoured by this nod to his work and hopes it will inspire others.

“I hope other schools see what we’ve done and consider it as a road forward for them to make science front and centre, and get their students excited by science too,” he says.

Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Corporate Engagement and Advancement) Professor David Wilkinson, who was present at the awards ceremony in Canberra last week, says both men have made “incredible contributions” to the fields of science innovation and science teaching.

“Their achievements speak to the world-class research taking place at this University,” says David.

With Sydney University having dominated the competition for much of the last decade, and the hashtag #anyonebutuni doing the rounds on Twitter, the crowd was thrilled to see Norths break a 41-year premiership drought to claim the Shield.

Macquarie University web producer and rugby fan Margaret Chidgey watched the final with her family and says it was an ‘awesome’ game.

“It was the way that rugby should be. The captains on both sides were incredibly sportsmanlike. After the final siren, all the supporters flooded onto the field to celebrate — Norths couldn’t even take their conversion kick.”

Macquarie is also the sponsor of the National Rugby Championship team the Sydney Rays, who kick off their 2016 campaign against local rivals the Western Sydney Rams on 28 August at North Sydney Oval.