The University of Adelaide and the University of South Australia are to be combined as one in 2026. 

So how do you start a new university? 

You could look at the most successful universities and see what makes them great. 

Stanford University, just south of San Francisco amid Silicon Valley in one of the great universities. 

Its graduates have created the high-tech companies which we all now rely on. 

But Stanford has a dark history with a veil of silence drawn over anyone speaking about the university’s past, or present operations. 

Sharon Carleton reports.