When this university first opened its doors in 1855 it only had three professors and sixteen students. It now has 6,000 staff and 35,000 students but some things remain the same - several of the original on-campus buildings featuring beautiful period architecture are still there. These include the Raymond Priestley building, nicknamed the Wind Tunnel due to the channelling of wind through its ground level arches.
Melbourne is highly regarded in the fields of the arts, humanities and biomedicine. Of the eleven faculties, Arts (with 7,222 students in 2004), followed by Science (6,328) are the biggest. Other faculties specialise in subjects including architecture, law, engineering, music and medicine. In 2005, the university developed a new strategy called 'Growing Esteem' for some subjects. This introduced generalist degrees intended to lead to second tier courses which would be graduate entry. Famous alumni who have studied at Melbourne include actress Cate Blanchett and comedian Barry Humphries.
