After 50 years of growth the National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA) has come to be recognised as the pre-eminent theatre training school in Australia and one of the finest theatre schools in the world. Its graduates have been the mainstay of our stage, film and TV industries, and in many ways constitute Australia's most visible export. But in 2007 a new force with a different mission took command, determined to address perceived new challenges for the new century. Emotion has been high as petitions have been ignored and mentors marched away 'in an overt policy of removing all former practices and corporate memory from the building'.