🐸 Mascot and colours
The mascot for Holman Hall is the frog and our colours are green and orange. As frogs we hop together and wear our colours on special occasions and to support our fellow frogs at sporting events.
✨ Additional Features
On the ground floor of Holman Hall, the Innovation Studio has been launched, providing a new purpose-built state-of-the-art collaborative space for a range of activities, including usability testing, video production and agile development. Currently this secured area is managed by eSolutions, with bookings being made by a variety of interested groups across all Faculties.
Also found in the space underneath Holman Hall is the PhD Hub, available for use by all research students. It has some relaxing areas, as well as meeting rooms and a kitchenette. Offering 31 desk spaces – 26 of which are available for longer term booking - there is significant demand and the area is primarily designed for students in the final stages of their thesis write up who cannot obtain office space in their own Faculty. The PhD Hub is open 24/7, with swipe access via registration only.
Monash Graduate Education (MGE) operates a seminar room here too. This space is used by MGE to run activities and events for graduate students. It is also available to be booked by other groups within the University where the primary audience is graduate students.
📜 Holman Hall's history
Emeritus Professor Mollie Holman AO
1930 - 2010
Holman Hall is named in honour and recognition of Emeritus Professor Mollie Holman AO.
Professor Mollie Holman, physiologist, achieved renown for her contribution to research and development in her field. Her remarkable international reputation as a researcher led to her appointment in 1970 to a Personal Chair in Physiology, a position she held until her retirement from Monash University in 1996.
Born in Launceston, Tasmania, Professor Holman was one of four sisters raised at a time when women were not always provided with educational opportunities. Her parents were very supportive of her intellectual development and encouraged her interest in physics.
She graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree from The University of Melbourne and completed her Master of Science there, before travelling to Oxford for doctoral studies.
After completing her DPhil degree at Oxford, Professor Holman returned to Australia and joined Monash as a senior lecturer in 1963. Her pioneering research focused on the complex network of nerve cells that regulate autonomic movements such as digestion and blood pressure, and how these interact with smooth muscle and nerves.
Professor Holman was elected a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science in 1970, at the time one of few women to have achieved that distinction. Her other honours included: Officer of the Order of Australia (1998); Honorary Doctor of Laws from Monash University (1999); and a David de Kretser Award for her outstanding contribution to Monash's Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences (2007).
A magnet for young researchers, Professor Holman was an outstanding research supervisor and mentor, especially to young women students. In recognition of this and her general research excellence, Monash University established the Mollie Holman Medal, awarded annually to up to 10 of the best doctoral candidates across the University.
References:
- Elspeth M. McLachlan and G. David S. Hirst, 'Mollie Elizabeth Holman 1930-2010', in Historical Records of Australian Science, CSIRO Publishing, 2013
- Graeme Davison and Kate Murphy, 'University Unlimited - The Monash Story', Allen Unwin, 2012
- Monash University Archives
Photograph: Monash University Archives, IN1312; photographer - Herve Alleaume
