Acclaimed novelists Robert Drewe and Elizabeth Jolley, Oscar-winning actor Geoffrey Rush and Westpac Banking Corporation chair John Uhrig AO will each receive an honorary degree at the University of Queensland's December graduation ceremonies.
- Winner of the 1997 New South Wales Premier's Book of the Year award Robert Drewe will receive an honorary Doctor of Letters at a ceremony on December 8 at 6.15pm.
Mr Drewe's novel The Drowners also won the Christina Stead Prize for Fiction at the NSW Premier's Literary Award dinner in October.
Born in Melbourne, Mr Drewe was educated in Western Australia and became a journalist on The West Australian and later with The Age. From 1971 until 1974, he was literary editor of The Australian. He won Walkley Awards for Journalism in 1976 and 1981, the NBC Banjo Award in 1987 and the Commonwealth Writers Prize for South East Asia and the Pacific in 1990.
An acclaimed novelist, short-story writer, television, radio and film scriptwriter, his short story The Bodysurfers was filmed and adapted for radio, stage and television.
The 1983 collection The Bodysurfers is credited with attracting a new mainstream audience to Australian writing.
- One of Australia's leading fiction writers, Elizabeth Jolley, will receive an honorary Doctor of Letters at a ceremony on December 19 at 4pm.
Ms Jolley's stories began appearing in Australian journals and anthologies in the mid-1960s. She has had stories, plays and poems published in Australian literary journals and anthologies and eight plays performed on British and Australian radio, and her work has been translated into many languages including Spanish, German, Dutch, French and Greek.
She wrote for 20 years before her first novel, Five Acre Virgin and other stories, was published in 1976. A trained nurse, she moved to Western Australia from England in 1959 with her husband Leonard - a university librarian - and their three children. She worked in a variety of jobs and in 1982 was appointed writer-in-residence at the Western Australia Institute of Technology (now Curtin University). With the assistance of a major grant from the Literature Board of the Australian Council, she was able to write full-time.
She won The Age Book of the Year Award in 1989 for My Father's Moon and in 1993 for The Georges' Wife, and the Miles Franklin Award in 1987 for The Well. In 1988, she was made an Officer in the General Division of the Order of Australia. She was awarded the France-Australia Award for French Translation of The Sugar Mother in 1993.
- Winner of the 1996 Golden Globe Award, 1997 Academy Award and 1997 British Association of Film and Television Award for his portrayal of pianist David Helfgott in Shine, Geoffrey Rush will receive an honorary Doctor of Letters at a ceremony on December 19 at 6.15pm.
Born in Toowoomba in 1951, Mr Rush moved to Brisbane in 1968 and performed with the College Players, a theatrical group formed by Bryan Nason at the University of Queensland. While studying at the University between 1969 and 1971, Mr Rush was also active in the drama society he and Bille Brown, later also an internationally renowned actor, renamed 'Unique'. Mr Rush graduated a bachelor of arts from the University in 1972.
During his undergraduate stage career, Mr Rush was invited to join the Queensland Theatre Company (QTC) by its director Alan Edwards. He accepted the offer at the end of 1971 and became one of the Company's most talented, dedicated and imaginative performers.
His career has included leading roles in works by Chekhov to Oscar Wilde, directing the Magpie youth theatre company in Adelaide in 1984 and 1985 and an association with the production of classic plays performed at Sydney's Belvoir Theatre.
- John Uhrig AO, Westpac Banking Corporation chair since October 1992, will receive an honorary Doctor of Economics at a ceremony on December 10 at 6.15pm for his contribution to Australian business.
Mr Uhrig has been chair of Rio Tinto Limited from 1987 and deputy chair of Rio Tinto PLC from January 1996. He also chairs Santos Limited and the Australian Minerals and Energy Environment Foundation. He is a foundation member of the National Companies and Securities Commission and chaired the recent Inquiry into the Industries Assistance Commission.
Mr Uhrig began his career as a trainee metallurgist with BHP Co Ltd in 1945 then worked for a number of other firms before joining Simpson Holdings in 1974. He retired from the company as managing director in 1985.
He was awarded the Order of Australia in 1980 for services to industry.
For more information, contact Protocol Officer Karen Welsh (telephone 07 3365 2737).
