I recently attended a 21st birthday celebratory lunch at James Cook University that coincided with their Open Day. I was working at TAFE in 1987 when the first JCU students were enrolled. The facilities were somewhat basic: demountables out the back where the ground became muddy when it rained.

JCU has certainly come a long way since then with its campus at Smithfield, a new dental school being completed and plans for the Cairns Institute