Today's Griffith University is represented by six campuses that stretch from Brisbane City to the Gold Coast in Queensland's south-east corner. Our story is remarkable - yet our beginnings were humble. After several years of government discussion in the late 1960's - Theodor Bray (later Sir Theodor) was appointed the challenging task of establishing Brisbane's second university. Griffith University was to be the name of this new institution and Toohey Forest at Nathan - on Brisbane's southside - was to be the building site. As planning progressed, it was announced that Griffith University would begin teaching on the 5th March, 1975. The opening ceremony to commence teaching at our foundation campus of Nathan was attended by the Prime Minister of the time, Gough Whitlam, the then Premier of Queensland, Johannes (Joh) Bjelke-Petersen (later Sir Joh), and the Governor of Queensland, Sir Colin Hannah, who also conducted the official opening.

By the late 1980's, the Australian Government had decided that there were too many individual tertiary institutions across the country and set about an agenda of forced amalgamations. This meant that by the beginning of 1992 (only some seventeen years), our organisation had grown from a compact one campus institution in a quiet bush setting - to a major Australian university boasting four campuses and four additional institutions (Mount Gravatt Teacher's College - Mount Gravatt campus, Gold Coast College of Advanced Education - Gold Coast campus, Queensland College of Art and Queensland Conservatorium - South Bank campus) coming under the Griffith University banner. Our fifth campus (Logan) opened in 1998 and was established to specifically address the interests and needs of potential students in the Logan City Area. After an original one campus student enrollment of 451 in 1975, today nearly 50 000 students from around the world study across our five campuses via on-campus, external and digital study modes.