Page "Elder Conservatorium" Paragraph 10

The Elder Conservatorium of Music has been awarding degrees and diplomas in music-equally, to both men and women-since the end of the nineteenth century.

It is sometimes erroneously said that the early degree programs were modelled on those at the University of Cambridge.

It is true that Professor Ives had graduated ( albeit as an external candidate ) with the MusB degree from Cambridge, and the academic robes are based on those from Cambridge, but the degree programs of the University of Adelaide were-and to a large extent still are-based on the Scottish rather than English model.

This reflects the fact that most of the founding fathers of the university were Scots.

Furthermore, the Cambridge MusB degree was taken as a second, postgraduate degree, whereas the Elder Conservatorium's BMus degree is a first degree award.

The differences are most striking when viewed from the perspective of educational opportunities for women.

Whereas women were not able to graduate from the University of Cambridge until shortly after the Second World War, they were graduating from the Elder Conservatorium of Music ( and the University of Adelaide as a whole ) fifty years earlier.