KCHM wrote:
For the record, there was a course in category theory for undergraduates at Monash University (Melbourne) in the early 1970s.
The (a?) counterpart of this at Berkeley at the start of the 1970s was Ed Spanier's algebraic topology course, whose first lecture would begin by exhibiting a functor between two categories, I forget which (I was not then at all into categories) but perhaps Top and Grp, and giving a two-line proof (of a representation?) to make the point that category theory could be a powerful tool when expertly deployed. I mention this because the experience at the UACT conference in 1993 at MSRI on the hill overlooking Berkeley rather created the impression that Berkeley would be the last place to welcome category theory, particularly when then-director of MSRI Bill Thurston welcomed us all at the opening of the meeting with his announcement that the very thought of the opposite of a category made him ill. Such an opening remark would be more appropriately made about CO2 at the currently running conference in Copenhagen. Vaughan [For admin and other information see: http://www.mta.ca/~cat-dist/ ]