When Geoffrey Sherington and I set out on our project on the Australian Public University, which culminated in "Sydney: The Making of a Public University" (2012), we wanted to move away from the emphasis of conventional institutional history on chancellors, vice-chancellors and governing councils in order to explore the university as a social institution. Using the theoretical and methodological approach of social history, we studied how students, academics, researchers, philanthropists along with the university's governing body were all important characters in the creation and development of Australia's first university. This essay explores some of the influences in this approach, especially the relationship between oral history and women's history and the history of administration in the story of educational institutions such as universities, and examines the methodological challenges for historical analysis of bringing together these approaches.