Gold Coast history: Bond University celebrates 30 years since 1989 opening.

The Gold Coast’s Bond University this week celebrates 30 years since welcoming its first students. This is the inside story of how Alan Bond’s dream became a reality.

AUSTRALIA’S first private, not-for-profit university marks 30 years since its doors opened next week.

It was a sunny day on May 13, 1989, when Bond University welcomed its first 322 students.

They were there to do undergraduate and postgraduate studies in areas ranging from business, humanities and social sciences to technology and law.

While significantly smaller than today’s campus overlooking Lake Orr, the university was already taking shape with its student centre and main library.

But the story of Bond University does not begin there.

Colourful West Australian businessman Alan Bond announced on July 3, 1986, he planned to redevelop an area known as Burleigh Forest to become an independent university.

It was put forward by the Bond Corporation and Japanese company EIE and was initially known as the Bond University for Applied Technology. The development gained the support of the ruling National Party government which moved to make the project a reality by the end of the 1980s.

Sir Sydney Schubert, Co-ordinator General of Queensland, was appointed chancellor while Professor Don Watts was named the inaugural Vice-Chancellor three months later.

Bond University’s campus around the time it opened in 1989.

On April 23, 1987, the Bjelke-Petersen government passed the Bond University Act in parliament, establishing it as a independent tertiary institution.

Construction began in September that year but proved to be a major struggle, with 1987 and 1988 among two of the wettest years on record for the region. This heavy downpour led to the early staff hired by the university referring to themselves as the “Gumboot Brigade’’.

The rain took a tragic turn when founding dean of business Steve Johnson drowned in flash flooding in Mudgeeraba Creek just days before the first students arrived.

The first years of Bond University proved successful and by 1991 the first 75 students graduated with a range of bachelor’s degrees while the student body had grown to more than 1000.

But there was trouble brewing among its founders.

The struggling Bond Corporation collapsed in 1990 and went into receivership over losses of $2.2 billion.

Bond himself was declared bankrupt two years later with personal debts of $1.8 billion and was later jailed for corporate fraud.

A Group photo of staff and students at Bond University in 1991.

Alan Bond at the university while it was under construction in 1988.

With the fall of Bond, fellow co-founder EIE was left to keep the university going, spending around half a million dollars a week.

EIE bought up the remaining Bond stocks but ended up going into receivership as well.

As a result of this financial turmoil the university was forced to undergo a major restructure, with the closure of the science and technology school and the 75 of its general staff axed.

This turmoil continued, with EIE putting the campus and its holdings up for sale.

Bond University under construction.

The University of Queensland won the tender against furious objections by Bond students. Ultimately Bond University Limited bought the campus on August 13, 1999, for $65 million, giving certainty to the student body.

Despite this, Bond’s educational offerings were gaining plaudits, with the law and accounting program ranked No. 1 in Australia in the mid-1990s.

More than 5000 students had graduated from Bond University by the year 2000 and with the site’s future secured, plans were unveiled for a major expansion, including a new Institute of Health Sciences and undergraduate medical degree.

Bond University at night.

The $20 million Bond University Medical School building was opened in 2006 by then-prime minister John Howard, with a school of sustainable development also opened.

The first medical students graduated in 2009.

In 2007 Bond was ranked the best university in Australia by the publishers of Good Universities Guide.

It has now been rated No. 1 in the field of student experiences for 13 years, after receiving the same ranking again earlier this year.

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One of Bond’s famous toga speeches.

In the Federal Government’s employer satisfaction survey, Bond ranked No. 1 out of 42 universities Australia-wide.

In the lead-up to this year’s 30th anniversary celebrations the university also began a major refurbishment to its campus, including its legal skills centre, health sciences and medicine building, business school and multimedia learning centre.

Bond himself lived to see the university celebrate its 25th anniversary before he died in June 2015.