Department of Dietetics (1960 - 1969)

The Dietetics course at the University of Melbourne was moved into the Faculty of Applied Science when it was founded in 1960, and disappeared from the university altogether when this Faculty was abolished in 1969. The first students for the Bachelor of Applied Science (Dietetics) enrolled in 1961. Previously dietetics was available only as a Diploma.

Broadly speaking, the first Victorian Dietetics course was started at St. Vincent's in around 1933. Ethel Osborne was one of the main agitors for this, and helped develop the course. Her husband William also pushed for the introduction of nutrition and dietetics as a subject at the Uni.

Their daughter, Audrey Cahn, was one of the first to take the Diploma in Dietetics, and became the lecturer in the University of Melbourne's nutrition course in around 1948 (previously taught by Jean Millis). The university course was not popular however, mostly because it was possible to become a dietitian in Victoria simply by completing a 2 year course at the Emily Mac (and later the Gordon Institute in Geelong). In NSW, you had to do a science degree first, and the Dip. Diet. up there was quite popular in the post-war years.

Audrey Cahn contended that Trikojus was forced to set up the nutrition course because the University of Melbourne had received a grant to do so, but that it was always regarded simply as 'cookery', and Trikojus did all he could to try to get rid of it.

Faculty

• Faculty of Applied Science, University of Melbourne (1960 - 1969)

  [1960 - 1969]