“It was just cleared scrub, scorched earth, at the time,” says Jill Curtin of the Macquarie University campus she attended in the early 1970s. With its now signature bush setting, it’s hard to believe the lush green environs were ever any different.

“The area had been farmland, with market gardens, and cattle and poultry,” adds her husband John, “with just a few old farmer’s cottages on the cleared land,” he remembers. “It was very sparse.”

But for Jill, who recently visited the university grounds with John and some of the Alumni Relations team, the changes since she was a student – the established trees, the expanse of grass and the fountain that rises from the lake that so many alumni remember fondly – signifies something much more personal.

“My father was a scientist with the Forestry Commission of New South Wales, and he and his colleagues advised the government on the planting of trees throughout the university,” she remembers. “It’s extraordinary how well those trees have flourished, completely transforming the barren space it was when I was there!

It brings to mind the maxim about those who have the vision to plant trees knowing they’ll never sit in their shade, but it also highlights the early pioneering spirit of the university and the way time marches on.” As Jill notes, “our visit to Macquarie really put the time that has passed since I was a student into perspective.

“It has gone quickly,” she muses. “When you’re getting on with life, pursuing your career and having children, every day just meanders along and then suddenly it’s been 50 years, though it doesn’t seem that long because you have nothing to measure it against.

“But, when we went to Macquarie,” she explains, “you could actually see the incredible growth of the university since the two main buildings, E7 and W6, defined the grounds, with the newly built library about halfway in between. I suddenly thought, 50 years is an enormous period of time!”

Indeed, looking back to the early to mid-1970s, when Jill and John first started studying at Macquarie University, life was very different. The Sydney Opera House was still being built, the toll to cross the Harbour Bridge was just 20 cents, which you tossed into a metal basket, and flares were definitely in. And, as Jill recalls, “the three career options open to women were to become a teacher, a nurse or a secretary.”

But, some things were still the same, of course, such as the hopes and dreams of a young couple just starting out, like twenty-somethings Jill and John, who had met at a friend’s 21st and were keen to advance their careers through higher education and build a life together.

John had started at the University of Sydney, studying medicine like his father and grandfather before him, but a chance opportunity in finance meant he was looking for an accountancy degree he could complete while working. Meanwhile, having started a secretarial course and similarly working, Jill, who had always wanted to go to university, was keen to pursue the behavioural sciences.

And so, Macquarie – founded only a few years earlier in 1964 and the only university north of the harbour – beckoned. As well as its accessible location, Macquarie was offering part-time courses in the evening, something the other unis in Sydney were scaling back, and it made attaining a degree both attractive and achievable for the pair.

Jill started in 1969, thanks to a Commonwealth scholarship, which she says made a world of difference. “Combined with being able to enrol as a part-time student, it opened up a lot of opportunities. Some of my female friends were at Macquarie too, and we would never have been able to go to university otherwise.

“Many of us, even those already with careers, were able to study something we were interested in, which we’d never thought we’d be able to do. And I remember enjoying the lectures – with a young family at home, it was an outlet for me. It was nice to have something that was my interest, and Macquarie provided that for me.”

John started at Macquarie not long after in 1973 and remembers, “Macquarie was happy to credit me for all the subjects I’d already undertaken, and I was able to finish my degree in three years of part-time evening study.

“I’m very grateful to Macquarie as my degree formed the foundation of my career. Jill and I were married by then, we already had a couple of kids, and for me, the most important thing was to progress my career and get my studies out of the way.”

“The flexibility was everything,” adds Jill, who moved to the competitive School of Economic and Financial Studies, as it was known at the time. One of the few women in the faculty, she says “as long as you completed the minimum number of units, you could continue without any pressure.

“I remember Professor Basil Stein was the lecturer for the law components. Attending his lectures was a joy for me – he was witty and smart and liked to engage his students with his many questions, and I ended up working in the legal side of accounting thanks to his influence.”

Both Jill and John note that being evening students was pretty different to being a student on campus in the daytime. “It required a lot of determination, and you didn’t have a lot of time to socialise,” remembers John, though the pair were involved in the Macquarie Music Makers, who sang at their wedding. “You just got to your lectures, got them done and got home late, often staying up til midnight to finish studying.”

Having children didn’t slow the pair down, with Jill emphasising the flexibility the university offered allowed her to continue her studies after the birth of their first two children. “Aware of how sleep deprived I’d be after the birth of my second child, I was very grateful to the university for providing me with an invigilator so I could complete my company law exam while sitting up in bed in the maternity hospital!”

The university’s support for the young parents didn’t end there, either. “I believe Macquarie was the first university in Australia to have a creche available to students,” says Jill, remembering the humble three-bedroom apricot brick-veneer cottage off Epping Road that was transformed into a daycare centre with a slippery dip and a swing in the small garden.

“It was in one of those old farmer’s cottages,” adds John. Jill reminisces fondly, “there were about 20 children at any one time, including about five in the baby section – they made studying so much easier for mothers like me, and I immediately felt comfortable leaving our children there. The women who ran the centre were competent, warm and friendly.

“All those kiddies – like ours – would be in their fifties now!” she says with just a tinge of disbelief, and indeed, life did move on for Jill and John after Macquarie. Jill obtained a position as assistant company secretary for a large company, and John’s career took off too. “Being qualified gave me a big leg up in my career,” he says. “I got managerial jobs, and became a company secretary and then chief accountant.”

It was around this time that the pair accepted positions with Touche Ross, now Deloitte. “We took a two-year contract with them and went up to Mount Hagen in the highlands of New Guinea so John could fulfil the requirements to become a chartered accountant, which was probably fairly brave of us!” says Jill.

John explains that Australians had been heading to Papua New Guinea for some time, and although they were on the tail end of these opportunities, there was still a need for accountants, and it was an interesting experience. On his return, however, he was headhunted and returned to finance. “I was offered a job that was too good to refuse at Barclays Bank in Sydney.

“There used to be only four banks in Australia but Paul Keating changed that – he gave out 16 new banking licences, so I became the chief accountant for Barclays Bank in Australia – that was the high point of my career,” he says. “They transferred us to the UK for a while, which was lots of fun,” adds Jill, and both she and John have enjoyed working in various fields and industries throughout their careers.

Jill taught accounting at TAFE and then worked in superannuation, “mainly on the legal side, administering trust accounts. I’ve also worked for a political party, and for a merchant bank,” she says. “My last job was in a barrister’s chambers, so I’ve done lots of different things.”

John spent time in education as a financial controller and then went into import-export as a general manager before taking an early retirement. “I wanted to do something in the health sector,” he explains. “Having started out thinking I was going to be a doctor, I did a master of nursing at Sydney University at the age of 60 and spent the next 12 years around various hospitals on the North Shore as a nurse. In fact, I even worked at Macquarie Hospital for a short while.

“My career is over now, but it’s been an interesting one, as has Jill’s. It has helped us put our kids through school and university, and own our own home, and we’ve been travelling a bit in recent years. It’s all worked out well in the end,” he reflects, and there’s no doubt the pair has also enjoyed being able to come full circle and reconnect with their alma mater in its 60th year.

“It’s pleasing to hear what a fine reputation Macquarie enjoys,” says Jill. “The growth of the university has been extraordinary, as has its expansion into many areas of learning – the visionaries who put in place the plans to establish Macquarie should be commended for their foresight. John and I feel proud to be its early alumni.”

Jill and John Curtin’s bio

Jill and John Curtin both attained a Bachelor of Arts (Economic and Financial Studies) from Macquarie University. Among our earliest alumni, John graduated in 1975, and Jill graduated in 1976.

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