Partnerships for the future

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Tags: centenary, summer-2010

Vice-Chancellor Professor Paul Greenfield

By Vice-Chancellor Professor Paul Greenfield AO

The embarrassment of riches from UQ’s first 100 years was always going to present challenges when it came time to mark the Centenary.

How to appropriately celebrate the contributions of some 180,000 graduates and innumerable staff, partners and friends in the community? How to give people scattered through 150 countries opportunities to connect or reconnect with their alma mater? Perhaps most importantly: how to honour the legacy of the “builders” of the first 100 years by joining with 21st century alumni to cement future success?

The first major celebrations pivoted around the official birthday of the University Senate, in April. Some 15,000 people converged on the St Lucia campus one Sunday to sample a UQ smorgasbord that included conversations with acclaimed literary alumni, guided tours of the Great Court, entertainment by UQ musicians, and UQ museum tours.

1994 Alumnus of the Year, Queensland Governor Dr Penelope Wensley, began an oration series that comprised a string of eminent speakers, including a Nobel laureate and the Director-General of UNESCO, and 2005 Alumnus of the Year, Dow Chemical CEO Dr Andrew Liveris.

Alumni also commanded centre stage during and around the first weekend in July. The biggest-ever Courting the Greats audience witnessed the crowning of Sir Llew Edwards, Dr Nat Yuen and Robert Dann as Centenary Alumnus of the Year, International Alumnus of the Year and Young Alumnus of the Year respectively. That same day, Governor-General Dr Quentin Bryce, 2008 Alumnus of the Year, unveiled two Great Court carvings by alumna Dr Rhyl Hinwood: badges of the Queensland University Regiment and Squadron.

Throughout 2010 I have had the good fortune to catch up with UQ people based far and wide. At last count, the University has hosted reunions of graduates in 12 countries and 22 cities, while colleges, faculties and schools organised smaller events for their alumni.

Not all reunions can be joyous, as was shown when many people were drawn together by the death of former Chancellor Sir James Foots.

Regardless of the occasion’s cause, I encountered high-performing alumni. The more of them I meet, the prouder I feel to be part of this University, and the more clearly I understand why UQ is widely regarded as being in the top one percent of the world’s universities.

The University has charted its own aspirations, and they centre on continuing to foster leaders for an increasingly complex and interconnected world, while never ceasing to lift researchers’ capacity to confront global challenges. For instance, we want to:

• Expand the value and range of scholarships, including for research higher degree candidates and students from Indigenous and disadvantaged backgrounds;
• Improve access to options such as overseas study exchanges, internships in Australia and internationally, and mentoring by alumni;
• Lift the proportion of students who are postgraduates (without substantially growing the total student population); and
• Offer research higher degree students more advantages that are distinctive to UQ.

International experience shows universities only soar when alumni and partners are part of the propulsion.

My senior colleagues and I are talking to graduates and partners as well as students about UQ’s direction and inviting consideration of ways to help elevate the University’s reputation.

It goes without saying that we do not expect loyalty and service without a quid pro quo, so we ask what sort of returns alumni and others expect from the relationship.

Some contributions are so lofty that they defy commensurate recognition. It will be a challenge to properly acknowledge alumni such as Graeme Wood, Andrew and Jennifer Brice and Dr Ron Thomson, or The Atlantic Philanthropies and its founding chair, Chuck Feeney. Adequate acclaim is even more elusive when people give anonymously, shun publicity, contribute in non-financial ways, or die before their vision is realised.

The gold standard philanthropist of UQ’s early decades, Dr James Mayne, must have had uncanny insight. He knew his support would be essential to the consolidation of a university offering the standard and breadth of education needed in the young state of Queensland.

Could he have known that his example would be as important in UQ’s second century as it was in the first? His bronze likeness, sculpted this year by Dr Hinwood, is installed in the main entrance to the Forgan Smith Building. It carries meaning on many levels, not least as a reminder of the heights that can be reached when people of goodwill imagine a bold future for the University.

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