Congratulations to UNE's (and Kempsey's) Phil Schubert

I see from the Macleay Argus (11 December) that Phil Schubert has graduated from UNE with a combined bachelor's degree in arts and law.

Phil studied at the now defunct Collombatti Rail Primary school and then Kempsey High. He gained early admission to UNE through the Principal's admission scheme.

I mention Phil because he combined study with extra-curricula life, something that I as a UNE alumnus value highly. Phil was President of the Students' Association in 2004, a member of the University Council 2004-2206, and recipient of the New England Award for services to the university community.

My congratulation to Phil and his family including dad Graeme and grand mum Nettie.

From the vaults - the first UNE Bulletin

Browsing around, I found the first ever University of New England Bulletin issued in March 1957.

In that year, the University expected to have 400 internal students with over 300 students in residence, still mainly in town houses. The College building program was just getting underway. In addition, external enrollments were 750, bringing the total number of undergraduate students to 1,150.

Those who know the University will recognise many names from the past.

University of New England's new academic structure

As part of its strategic planning process, UNE outlined a vision to achieve regional and global impact. This was followed by an academic restructuring and now UNE has advertised for no less than ten professorial heads of schools.

I will comment on the new structure in a moment. But first, a plea to the University. Please don't do what Sydney University did.

A year or so ago when Sydney moved to a new structure, the effect was to reduce student choice because it became harder for students to mix and match courses to do what they really wanted to do. Students were locked in to much more narrowly defined paths.

Sydney can get away with this. UNE cannot. Students have always had a centrality at UNE that has not existed in many other places. Academic structures exist to enhance student experience and choice, not to limit it.

So what does the new structure look like? To begin with, we now have two faculties, Arts and Science and the Faculty of the Professions.

The Faculty of the Professions is a fascinating concept. In writings on one of my professional blogs discussing the idea of a discipline of practice, I argued in part that the professions could learn from each other. The UNE structure might in fact facilitate this.

The new faculty has five schools: Education; Business, Economics and Public Policy; Law, Health; and Rural Medicine.

Education covers early childhood, primary, secondary and adult education. These are all areas where UNE has a long tradition and great strength. The inclusion of education as one of the professions is a great move.

The next school, business, economics and public policy, covers business, economics and administrative leadership. This one strikes me as a lot messier simply because I do not know at this point how things fit in. This is also an area where students need access to subjects in the other faculty, Arts and Sciences. A case in point.

Eldest was doing business studies at UTS. At the end of first year that the course was too narrow, so she decided to look elsewhere focused on Arts/Economics combinations.

She went first to Sydney because she was attracted by the extra curricular aspect of the place including SUDS, the drama society. She quickly backed off because the rigid academic structures precluded her doing the subject combinations she wanted. So now she is enrolled at UNSW in Arts/Economics.

The third school in the Faculty of the Professions is law, covering law and agricultural law. This one is pretty clear cut.

Then we have two health school, health itself (nursing, counselling, health management) and rural medicine, a course offered in conjunction with the University of Newcastle. Always good to see New England's universities cooperating. This is a potentially powerful combination of areas with significant international outreach potential.

The new Faculty of Arts and Sciences is somewhat messier. Again, the capacity for students to study across schools will be important in attracting them.

The school of arts includes english, communication studies, theatre, languages and music. Then we have behavioural, cognitive and social studies - geography, planning, linguistics, psychology and sociology. And humanities - archaeology and paleoanthropology, classics and ancient history, history, philosophy, politics and international studies, indigenous studies, peace studies.

To my mind, the interlinks between these schools will be critical to the effectiveness of the new system in practice. Students have to be allowed to mix and match across schools.

Then we have two science schools.

The first is environment and rural science - agronomy and soil science, animal science, genetics, earth science, environmental engineering, botany, ecosystems management, marine science, zoology. Not a bad combination that combines UNE's traditional interests with the new.

The second is science and technology - human biology, molecular and cellular biology, chemistry, physics and electronics, maths, stats and compute science.

This one strikes me as being rather more mixed. But I am not a scientist.

In all, I will be interested to see how it works out over time.

Ned Sherrin, the University of New England and That Was the Week that Was

I see that Ned Sherrin (1931-2015) has died.

Ned Sherrin rose to fame as the creator of That Was the Week that Was, the British TV program that launched the satire boom of the 1960s.

I wonder how many University of New England students from the 1960s remember the UNE equivalent?

The UNE Union decided to launch a local version. Each Friday three speakers would be selected, wined and dined, then escorted to the Belshaw Room to entertain the assembled throng of staff and students. The event was hugely popular.

For my part, while I could not tell a joke to save my life, I could get people to laugh through irony and understatement. So I quickly discovered that this was a great way to have a good lunch at Union expense, while also having some fun.

University of New England's Mary White College celebrates 50 years

Hard to believe, but in October, the University of New England’s Mary White College will celebrate its 50th anniversary.

The College has already heard from about 250 of its alumni from Australia and overseas who are interested in attending the celebration.

The College extended its search for ‘lost’ alumni during reunion events in Canberra and Sydney at the end of May.

“At those functions, we appealed for people to help us find our lost alumni,” said the College Principal, Mrs Barb Shaw. “It’s amazing how many people are starting to contact us as a result. We’ve not only received e-mails about lost alumni, but bookings for the anniversary celebration, and offers of photographs and yearbooks for display over the celebration weekend, 4-6 October.”

About 40 alumni attended the reunion event in Canberra, held at the Australian Institute of Sport, and about 50 attended the Sydney event at Macquarie University’s Dunmore Lang College. “They represented every decade since the College was established,” Mrs Shaw said, “from the ’50s right through to the current decade.”

Each of the events took the form of a cocktail party followed by an illustrated talk on the history of Mary White College comparing photographs from the ’70s and the present day. Jill Spilsbury (who was Principal of Mary White College from 1985 to 1998), accompanied Mrs Shaw on both evenings, along with College staff member Carolyn Coman-Jeffries and UNE’s Alumni Relations Officer, Jennifer Miller.

The program for the 50th Anniversary Celebration will begin on the evening of Saturday 4 October with a cocktail party at Saumarez Homestead, the birthplace of Frances Mary Fletcher White (Mary White). The White family was instrumental in the establishment of the New England University College (NEUC), the fledgling institution that developed into the University of New England, and Mary White was a member of the NEUC Advisory Council.

On Sunday 5 October there will be tours of Armidale, the University, and Mary White College itself, followed by afternoon tea in the gardens of “Trevenna”, the Vice-Chancellor’s residence, and a formal dinner in the evening.

“Mary White is the first of UNE’s current residential colleges to celebrate the 50-year milestone,” Mrs Shaw said. “Listening to the alumni at the recent events in Canberra and Sydney, it was obvious that they still feel a connection to the College after all those years. They made lifelong friendships here and, as it was the first experience of living away from home for many of them, they speak fondly of the College as the place where they learnt to be independent.

“The 50th anniversary will be an opportunity to celebrate the many Mary White College traditions that continue today, such as the formal dinners and the Saumarez Gardening Day.”

For more information on the Mary White College 50th Anniversary Celebration and a list of ‘lost’ alumni go to: http://alumni.une.edu.au/events/event_details.asp?id=9056.

Joint University of Newcastle, University of New England medical program starts

Photo: the first intake of medical students at UNE in the joint program with the University of Newcastle.

The first students ever to embark on a medical degree program at the University of New England have begun their studies, Monday 18 February 2015.

The 62 students, including three from New Zealand, nine from inter-State, and many from rural areas, comprise the "pioneer" cohort in UNE's School of Rural Medicine. The new School is the UNE component of the Joint Medical Program, run in collaboration with the University of Newcastle (UN) and Hunter New England Health (HNEH). This is the program's first year of teaching, with 100 students enrolled at Newcastle as well as the 62 at UNE.

Early on the first day before teaching began, the students were welcomed to the program by Professor John Fraser (Head of the School of Rural Medicine at UNE), Professor Alan Pettigrew (Vice-Chancellor of UNE), Professor Victor Minichiello (Pro Vice-Chancellor and Dean of the Faculty of the Professions at UNE), Professor Michael Hensley from the University of Newcastle (Dean of Medicine – Joint Medical Program), and Dr Nigel Lyons (Chief Executive of HNEH).

All the speakers emphasised the importance of the Joint Medical Program for the future recruitment and retention of medical practitioners in northern NSW (as well as other non-metropolitan regions), and its significance as the first collaborative venture of its kind in Australia.

"It's been very much a team effort," Professor Fraser said.

They also emphasised the scale of the achievement in turning what was a mere concept only two years ago into a reality, and thanked everyone involved. Professor Pettigrew remarked on the prevailing "sense of achievement" among the staff and "sense of excitement" among the students.

Professor Hensley thanked the students for "embarking on this career from which the community expects such a lot", and encouraged them to go on and "graduate at the end of 2015 as outstanding doctors".

He pointed out that, under the system of "problem-based learning" that UN had developed for its medical degree course more than three decades ago and now shared with UNE, students were required "to be doctors from day one". This teaching method requires students, working in teams of eight, to analyse and solve problems presented to them by a tutor. Dr Lyons, who was among the fourth intake of medical students at UN, told the students that "problem-based learning" would give them "skills that will last for life".

The students themselves were unanimous in their enthusiasm for the program. Daniel Tilley from Foster in Victoria and Emily Lewis from Adelaide were typical of many in welcoming this opportunity to train for medical practice in a rural area. They were also excited about what lay before them over the next five years. "We've got this brand new, amazing anatomy lab," Emily said, "and I'm excited about going there later today."

Sources:

• From Newcastle University
• From UNE

Storms gather over UNE colleges

Photo: Lightning above Drummond Smith College

Sometimes I despair about my old University, I really do!

I heard from ABC news that proposals by the University of New England to lease its residential college system to private enterprise were to be discussed at a public meeting in Armidale.

The university stated that it would take about $22 million to fix longstanding maintenance problems, something it could not afford to undertake itself.

Then on 7 February ABC news reported that the university had promised widespread consultation over several months before making a decision following a public meeting attended by more than 300 people to hear details of the proposal.

Before going on, oh ABC, since when was Armidale in north western NSW? As a colleague commented, he has heard Tamworth referred to as far north west!

The university repeated that it could not afford the $22 million it would take to refurbish its colleges at a time when occupancy rates are declining.

Vice-chancellor Professor Allan Pettigrew defended what critics say is the failure of the UNE to consult more widely with the college community.

"We're in a position where we're preparing draft documents at the present time. They have to be considered by the appropriate committees and the university council itself. We haven't reached that stage yet," he said.

The meeting organiser, Rosemary Leitch, who is a senior common room member of Earle Page College, was critical of the university.

She believes (correctly) that it had not consulted the wider community before beginning the development of plans.

What those at the meeting were probably not aware of is that UNE's move comes at a time when both the Universities of Sydney and NSW are in the process of finalising plans for major expansions in college facilities to enhance the on-campus experience.

Now it may be that UNE has let cyclical maintenance slip to the point that it is now between a rock and a hard place. It would not be the first organisation to do so. Indeed, it has done so before! However, the thing that stands out to me is the continuing failure of the university to capitalise on what should be one of its greatest assets, its residential system.

The reasons for this lie deep in UNE's past and centre on the nature of the relationship between the University and its colleges.

UNE developed its colleges to provide residential on-campus accommodation. This was necessary, but the colleges were also seen as central to the University experience. Even those living in town such as myself were required to be affiliated with a college, in my case Wright College.

The formal trappings of the colleges - senior common rooms, junior common rooms, tutorial systems, masters - were drawn from Oxbridge. However, they were not given independent governance, but instead were treated as residential arms of the university.

As I argued even back the sixties and seventies, this was a fundamental error because it prevented the colleges developing a real independent presence including access to external funding sources, leaving them dependent on changing attitudes in a central university administration often pre-occupied with short term problems.

Wright and Drummond Colleges can be taken as examples.

Wright was threatened with closure in the eighties because residence numbers had dropped, maintenance costs were up. This was fought off for a period, but only for a period. Finally, the costs of full refurbishment were seen as too great, and the college was closed to the great distress of its alumni.

In Drummond's case, the college was closed because of a decline in student numbers, then re-opened, then merged with S H Smith House to form Dummond and Smith College.

I am well aware that part of the colleges' problems lay in changing student attitudes to accommodation, including a desire to live of campus, as well as needs for new types of accommodation. I am equally well aware of the nature of college costs, including the fact that they can bleed money should student numbers drop below break-even. My point is that poor governance arrangements contributed to the problems.

My wife is chair of council at Sydney University's International House. I go to many of its functions as handbag.

International House faces many of the same problems as UNE's colleges. It, too, is formally part of SU in a legal sense. It, too, faces challenges in attracting students, in deciding what to outsource (catering has in fact just been bought back in house because complaints about standards had begun to affect student numbers), in achieving viability with a relatively small number of residents. But what a difference a council makes!

IH's council is no cipher. It approves budgets, oversights finances, plans IH's future, negotiates with the University, helps sell the IH story. It provides both continuity and a structure that maintains involvement by others - alumni for example. The IH Director reports first to council.

Now compare this to UNE. There, as I suggested, the colleges are no more than subservient units of the central administration. They do have their own character and systems, don't get me wrong on this, but they have never had a chance to carve out a real independent role for themselves.

Back in July and August 2006 when I was trying to make some suggestions on UNE's strategic plan, I made two points relevant to the current discussion.

Point one was UNE's unique residential character. I have returned to this point a number of times. UNE is still a university, not a big degree shop. This is reflected in the way the place consistently scores high on student satisfaction ratings. I suggested that this was a key marketing strength that UNE must maintain.

Point two was the potential role of the college system in marketing UNE if the place could but take advantage of it. UNE has held on one, but gone back on two.

In all this, UNE's consistent mismanagement of its colleges over decades may now have reached the point that the college asset has been lost. If so, I hope that the administration has at least done its financial modelling properly.

There is no such thing as a free lunch.

Outsourcing, public-private partnerships, come at a cost. Private participants must earn at least a market return on their money. This comes from improvements in efficiency because of the private sector control, from payments by the agency to the private partners, or some combination of the two.

It may be that UNE has got to the point that it has to take the money now, paying the price later. If so, it might take a lesson from social housing in NSW.

Ten or so years ago, cut-backs in housing funding led to a decision to spend available funding on leasehold instead of capital properties. This did allow many more properties in the short term, meeting immediate needs. Today with funding still tight and rents through the ceiling, NSW is struggling to maintain the number of leasehold properties.

University of New England - entry page to blog posts

Photo: Booloominbah, University of New England

Founded in 1938 as a College of the University of Sydney, the University of New England has played a major role in New England life.

Because of my connection with UNE, I have now written a very large number of posts with some reference to the University. This page provides an entry point to some of those posts.

I am breaking the page into two parts.

The first part provides a list of posts in date order. The second part will group posts by subject. The sheer number of posts means that it will take time to get the whole series up.

Chronological listing of posts

• 17 April 2006. On History, Causation and E J Tapp. Ted Tapp taught philosophy of history at UNE.
• 8 July 2006. Welsman, University of New England and Planning. UNE strategic planning process. All of the various posts on UNE strategic planning include a variety of material on different aspects of the University including its history.
• 30 July 2006. On Rabbitohs, Welsman and the University of New England. More on UNE strategic planning.
• 31 July 2006. UNE Strategic Planning - Scoping Issues.
• 1 August 2006. UNE Strategic Planning - markets and marketing.
• 2 August 2006. A Pause for Reflection - in praise of UNE.
• 4 August 2006. UNE Strategic Planning - more on markets and marketing.
• 12 August 2006. New England Australia - Writers includes references to a number of writers with UNE connections.
• 13 August 2006. UNE Strategic Planning - impact of new technology.
• 14 August 2006. In praise of Patrice Newell. Story includes some cross-links to the UNE experience.
• 22 August 2006. Death of David Wright. The Wright family had a long connection with UNE.
• 24 August 2006. New England, Australia - still more writers. About Bob Herbert, Geoff Page, two writers with UNE connections.
• 6 September 2006. UNE Strategic Planning - Impact of New Technology 2.
• 13 September 13, 2006. Migration Matters - A Personal Perspective: beginnings. This post on a different theme includes material about growing up in Armidale. Background only.
• 15 September 2006. Migration Matters - A Personal Perspective: Times of Change. More material on the migration theme with an Armidale/UNE connection 50s and 60s connections.
• 27 September 2006. New England Australia - the siblings. About the children of NEUC staff.
• 28 October 2006. Confessions of a Policy Adviser - 2:Beginnings. Picture of life at UNE in the mid sixties.
• 5 November 2006. Patrick Desmond Fitzgerald Murray 1900-1967. Story of an international scientist with UNE connnections in the first half of the sxties.
• 7 November 2006. 'The Holiest Campus', its Decline and Transformation: the University of New England, 1946-1979. Drawing from Don Beer, religious life at UNE.
• 1 December 2006. The New Zealand Belshaws - now a dispersed Pacific family. Post an a family with strong UNE connections.
• 4 December 2006. William G (Bill) Hoddinott & New England's Aboriginal languages. The work of Bill Hoddinott in recording details of New England's Aboriginal languages.
• 17 February 2015. Belshaw Writings on Australian Aborigines 3: Australian Prehistory features the pioneering work of Isabel McBryde while at UNE, as well as the work of some of her students.
• 27 February 2015. Helen's UNSW Economic Development Course. A short if jaundiced post on economic development studies at UNSW with a cross-comparison to the Armidale experience.
• 10 March 2015. Ranking Australia's Universities. A new method of ranking Australia's universities. UNE comes in at second equal.
• 10 March 2015. Australia's Regional Universities and Indigenous Advancement. UNE comes in in the top group.
• 8 April 2015. A Far Country - Armidale Demonstration School 1955 includes a number of references to kids with UNE connections.
• 22 August 2015. University of New England acts to stamp out cheating by overseas students. UNE is not alone in facing the problem of cheating.
• 24 August 2015. University of New England scores high on student satisfaction.
• 4 November 2015. Musings on the University of New England Experience. Why UNE is still better.
• 9 November 2015. University of New England re-organises - 10 new professorial heads of schools to be appointed. One outcome from UNE's strategic review.
• 10 November 2015. Saturday Morning Musings - a variety. The Exploration Society, the 1967 Orientation Handbook etc.
• 23 January 2015. The changing meaning of words and the historian's craft. Includes some rather jaundiced views on my experience as a PhD student at UNE.
• 24 January 2015. Selection, perception and bias in the historian's craft. Includes more on my PhD.

"the king" passes - Death of David Armstrong

Photo: Southern Lawns, Booloominbah, University of New England. David Armstrong requested that his ashes be scattered here or at the adjoining deer park.

The end of 2006 saw the death of David Armstrong, one of New England's more colourful characters whose life was marked by passion and controversy as well as great achievement. I did not really know David, so the story that follows is drawn especially from Roy Masters' obit in the SMH (11 January).

David Patrick Armstrong was born in Bingara in 1941, son of Gywdir and Joan and grew up there with his parents and younger brothers Dennis and Ron. Roy records that while Dad Gwydir was named after the river, he was better known by the nickname "Ceidle", the name of the Lebanese haberdasher who visited Bingara by horse drawn cart. Gwydir acquired this name because he used to chase after the cart and be rewarded with a biscuit.

David started at the University of New England as a student in 1959, probably one of the first students from Bingara, studying there until 1961. I have described the intensity of UNE campus life during the fifties and sixties in a number of posts on this and my personal blog - too many to list here. Certainly David enjoyed himself, acquiring the nickname "the king".

In 1962 David joined the University's Department of Continuing Education. Reflecting the interests of the University's founders as well as the passions of early staff, New England had established a strong track record in adult and continuing education.

David acquired this passion for adult education, a passion that was to continue for all his adult life. One of his innovations while at Armidale was the creation of a radio farm forum educating 600 Northern Tableland farmers through radio and weekly tutorials.

After five years at New England, David moved to Toronto in Canada to further his studies in adult education. Upon completion of his PhD, he was appointed in 1972 at age 30 as director of the Prahan College of Advanced Education in Melbourne.

He described Prahan as "run down" and claimed to have turned it around. Indeed he did, although Roy Masters refers somewhat tartly to David's "fondness for self-aggrandisement", his capacity for presenting himself as larger than life.

Some time during this earlier period David married Valmai and had two children, Mark and Sally. This marriage broke up. David remarried Virginia Henderson, who Roy notes became central to the most volatile periods in David's life.

Along with Don Chipp, Armstong and Henderson conceived the idea of the Australian Democrats, officially formed in 1977 at the Melbourne home of Sid Spindler. Virginia Henderson became the Party's first campaign director, while David Armstrong wrote Don Chpp's campaign speech and acted as his adviser.

In 1980 Virginia and David moved to Sydney as chief of the Australian Bicentennial Authority under the chairmanship of John Reid, also chair of James Hardy. This marked the start of a difficult period for David.

There were tensions between David and the Authority Board. In 1986 he was sacked by the Board; one reason given was that he spent to much time out of the country. Virginia and David's marriage broke up. Then in December 1987, twelve months after the couple separated, Virginia married John Reid. David was bitter, although he was overjoyed when he saw how much of his original program was retained in the Bicentenary program.

In 1987 David was appointed CEO of Community Aid Abroad, a position he held until 1992, more than quadrupling the organisation's annual budget. David then spent four years working for the University of Melbourne first as director of the University's International Office and then warden of its graduate centre, reversing the declining numbers of international students. This was followed by a period as CEO of St John of God Services Victoria and then a similar position with St Francis of Assisi Aged Care.

Eighteen months ago David had a stroke, restricting his activities. However, he and Virginia were reunited after she and John Reid divorced, spending his last Christmas with she and son Luke.

In his final letter returning to his New England roots, David wrote: "At a convenient time, the ashes should be scattered on the southern lawn of 'Booloominbah" or in the deer park."

Looking at David's career as a whole, the boy had come a long way from his Bingara roots. As Roy notes, while David's most public post - CEO of the Bicentenial Authority - was a failure, his major contributions to adult education and education, to politics and the community sector went largely unseen.

More UNE Passings - death of Jo Woolmington

Photo; Jo Woolmington, Mary White College, 1979

I was browsing around looking for information on the current floods in the North when I cam across some sad news, the death of Jo Woolimington (23-4-1927 to 6-12-2015 ).

The material that follows is largely drawn from John Farrell's obituary in the Armidale Express (27 December 2015). However, I have added my personal recollections to flesh the story out. You see, Jo spans many of the things that I have been talking about on this and other blogs.

Born Jean Clara Cox at Essex, England, on April 23, 1927, Jo was a daughter of working class parents, Edward and Rose Cox, and a sister of Avis, Fred, Patsy and Celia.

Her secondary schooling was at Paddington and Maida Vale High School in London during World War II, when Jo experienced first hand the Blitz and other war time conditions, including rationing.

Possessing a strong social conscience, John records that Jo was greatly influenced by her robust Christianity which urged believers to go beyond personal moral reform to promoting social reform, and she was a prominent advocate for social justice while qualifying as a teacher at Whitelands College, London.

She graduated in 1947, and the following year married Eric Richard Woolmington, a geographer. As I remember Jo's stories, it was a whirlwind romance that essentially took place over one weekend!

In 1949 .the couple emigrated to Australia where Jo taught in Sydney at Abbotsleigh and Ascham. In 1956, Eric accepted a lecturing position in the Geography Department at the University of New England and the family moved to Armidale where Jo became an active member of the community.

She was active in the Armidale Association for the Assimilation of Aborigines and with the UNE Women’s Association which acted on their concerns about the social and economic conditions and discrimination experienced by Aboriginal people.

With like-minded people Jo was active in promoting education, employment, health and housing for Aborigines in Armidale.

She also used her dramatic talents, being a co-founder of the University Players which would produce two major productions each year in the Armidale Town Hall. Her production of East Lynn was the first to use the stage machinery at the UNE Arts Theatre. I also think that she was active first in the Armidale Theatre Club.

I must have met Jo soon after they arrived in Armidale, because she became friendly with my mother and used to drop in at home for coffee. I thought her a nice person, although I knew Eric better. At that point Jo was very much a compatriot of my mother's in my mind.

John Farrell notes that Jo enrolled at UNE, studying English in 1963 and History in 1964, while simultaneously teaching at NEGS from 1964 to 1967.

Now I think that John's dates are not quite right here, for Jo did History I with me in 1963. One of our first if not the first assignments was to prepare a summary of some work by Gordon Childe on prehistory - Jo did hers in poetry!

From then on I had a lot to do with Jo as she switched from Mum's to my friend. This was an interesting period to be at UNE in general, almost a golden time in the History Department.

The Department was very strong indeed. Mick Williams was one Professor, Russell Ward a second. Among others, Ted Tapp was pursuing his thoughts on the philosophy of history, Len Turner on military history, while Isabel McBryde had begun her pioneering work on the Australian Aborigines.

As a part time student with a family and a job, Jo could not join in all the things that we full time students did, including spending much time at our table in the Union arguing religion, politics, life and society. But she was there a fair bit of the time.

In 1965 Jo offered her house for seminars for the third year history honours group. There in the back room with its open fire, we held our seminars on the American Revolution, often side-tracking into other topics. In 1966 we all did honours together. Somewhere I have a photo of our table at the 1967 Graduation Ball, including Jo.

I mentioned that at first I knew Eric better.

On Sunday 23 February 1958, the Belshaw Block at UNE burnt down. Poor Eric. His PhD thesis was due to be submitted the following day. All copies were stored in the Belshaw Block and all were lost.

He started again. His new topic was an examination of the geographical scope of support for the New England New State Movement. This was finally finished in 1963 and the degree awarded.

In 1961 I did geography honours for the Leaving Certificate, getting into the top group in the state. As part of this, I had to do a local study. Eric helped me here. But as a strong New England New Stater, I was also interested in his geographic analysis of the movement.

Eric's central thesis was that New England was a marchland area, an area of economic competition between Sydney and Brisbane. Using a variety of techniques, he attempted to measure the natural economic boundary and then compared this to the actual boundary. The natural economic boundary lay far to the south of the actual boundat. He suggested that this area of overlap, contested territory, represented the natural heart of the movement.

He then looked at a whole variety of measurements to test movement support, relating this to his original thesis. In doing so, he painted a very accurate picture of the voting patterns that were to happen four years later in the 1967 New State Plebescite.

Eric's thinking was very influential on my own work.

In my 1966 honours thesis on the economic basis of Aboriginal life in Northern NSW. I used his model to postulate that the Northern Tablelands were a marchland area between the powerful and expanding Kamilaroi to the west and the strong Northern Coast tribes.

Later, his work formed an integral element in my own analysis of New Engalnd history. It remains powerful today when I look at the economic fragmentation and decline of Northern New South Wales, despite its apparent natural advantages.

Eric was not a new state supporter. He thought the dream unachievable, some of the logic flawed. But as he said in 1967, nobody in their right mind should vote no because it was the only thing that forced Governments to consider New England interests in any integrated way. I fear that he was right.

At the time that I am writing about, Erica and Jo's marriage was breaking up and Eric would leave Armidale, dieing in 1995.

In 1968 Jo successfully applied for appointment as tutor in the History Department. By then, I was living in Canberra. However, on most of my regular visits back to Armidale I took time to visit her, sometimes meeting with others like Brian Harrison. In fact, the last time I saw Brian was at Jo's house.

In 1972 Jo took up an active role in the Women’s Electoral Lobby. I remember this well, because I ran for Country Party pre-selection for Armidale in that year. Jo therefore interviewed me in my new role as pre-selection candidate.

I actually supported WEL, but I also knew that Jo's support for the Labor Party verged on the theological.

After talking for a bit, I said: "Jo, no matter what I say in answer to your questions, am I right in thinking it doesn't matter so far as your vote is concerned?" She laughed and said "James, I think that's right." We proceeded on that basis.

In 1973 Jo became acting principal of Mary White College at UNE , and was the principal from 1978 to 1982. Here I came in contact with her again while back in Armidale as a postgraduate student.

Jo's sensitivity to the Aboriginal cause, and its ambivalent relationship with Christianity, focused her research for two decades on the Aboriginal situation and the state of religion in the first half of the 19th century.

In 1973 Jo published a book of collected documents, Aborigines in Colonial Society, 1788-1850, still an excellent resource for anyone studying in the field. Her PhD thesis, ‘Early Christian Missions to the Australian Aborigine: a study in failure’ was completed in 1979.

In 1985 Jo was appointed a lecturer, then senior lecturer. She tells her own story up to 1987 in a chapter in a book titled The New England Experience, edited by Margaret Ann Franklin.

Jo joined with Dr Bruce Mitchell in 1988 – the bicentennial of white settlement in Australia – to present the first course on the history of Aborigines and their interaction with whites.

In this last period I was back in Armidale yet again, this time running a consulting business. Busy with business and family, I saw far far less of her than I had in the past.

After retiring from UNE Jo remained in Armidale. The last time I saw her was by accident in the main street on a fleeting trip.

She is survived by her two children, Jonathan and Nicola, as well as some members of her own family. I will remember her.

Postcript

Gordon Smith kindly sent me a link to the obit on Jo on the UNE site. This presents the same picture, but provides more information on her role in Mary White College.

UNE Passings - deaths of Dr David Evans, Professor Rod Gerber

Photo: Dr David Evans, 1979

Browsing the UNE web site I realised that I had missed the deaths of two people who will be well known to different UNE generations. The material that follows is largely drawn from the UNE web site.

David Evans who died on 21 September 2015 will be well known to UNE students from the 1950s through to the 1990s. He was certainly a familiar figure to me as both an undergraduate and later postgraduate student, although I did not do English.

Born in Goulburn in 1937, he came to UNE as an undergraduate in 1954 – the year the University obtained its autonomy from the University of Sydney.

He went on to gain a UNE Arts degree with First Class Honours in English, and then a Diploma of Education from Armidale Teachers' College, finishing Dux of the Teachers' College in 1959.

After several years of teaching at Maitland Boys' High School he joined the staff of UNE's English Department and quickly rose to the level of Senior Lecturer, gaining his PhD from UNE in 1967. His passion for Early English literature took him to the UK for several periods of sabbatical study, while, back in the UNE lecture room, he was able to share that passion – particularly his love of Chaucer – with his students, becoming life-long friends with many of them.

Typical of his engagement with the University and Armidale communities was his voluntarily-assumed role as mentor and friend of Indonesian students and their families. Starting from a desire to alleviate the difficulties of living within an unfamiliar culture, this role led him to become fluent in Indonesian and to spend his evenings at the residential colleges helping Indonesian and other overseas students with their written work. He is remembered as having transformed the lives of these students and their families over two generations.

UNE's continuing reputation as a welcoming place for students from other cultures and countries rests on the continuing work of people like David.

Always a believer in the value of strong social networks within the University community, he was, as a student, a founding (non-residential) member of Wright College, UNE's original residential college, and was appointed a Non-resident Fellow of Earle Page College in 1968.

Even as a schoolboy David had drawn and painted. He developed this talent in adulthood, producing an impressive body of work that includes paintings and drawings in a variety of styles and with a wide range of subject-matter, as well as illuminated manuscripts inspired by medieval art.

Over four years in the 1980s he worked on what is perhaps his artistic masterpiece – a hand-written and illustrated text of the Old English epic Beowulf. That unique book is on display – along with many other works of his – in the Uralla gallery ("Chaucer on Bridge Street") that he opened in 2000 and managed until his death on the 21st of September 2015.

His belief in the vital role of art in the community led him to become a driving force behind the establishment of the New England Regional Art Museum (NERAM) in Armidale. As well as his vision and enthusiasm, he lent his creative talents to the project: for example, by donating the proceeds from the sale of one of his published books of poems to the NERAM fund.

David Evans is survived by his wife Helen, their three children Michael, Peter and Jenny, and three grandchildren.

Photo: From left, Catherine and Michelle Gerber with UNE's Acting Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academic Services), Eve Woodberry. The portrait of Professor Gerber by Don Gentle shown in the photo is to hang in a meeting room on the top floor of UNE's Education Building to be officially named "The Rod Gerber Meeting Room".

Rod Gerber, the distinguished geographer, teacher, and academic administrator died on 22 August 2015.

Professor Gerber was Dean of the Faculty of Education, Health and Professional Studies at UNE from 1995 to 2002. His colleagues and students remember him as a leader who was at once inspiring and compassionate – a "people person" whose generosity of spirit informed his work as both mentor and administrator.

He was recognised internationally as a leader in the field of geography education, and had more than 200 publications (including books, journal articles and reports) to his credit. However, in the words of Associate Professor John Lidstone from Queensland University of Technology, perhaps his greatest achievements were in "his support and help for others to achieve great things". "The academic world is often a hard one in which to maintain a cool head – much less a sense of compassion," Dr Lidstone said, "but Rod built a solid reputation around the world for being considerate and supportive of others."

At UNE, Professor Gerber was heavily involved in financial management, staff development, research leadership through the development of research centres, academic leadership of a wide range of undergraduate and postgraduate courses, community development projects, international partnerships, and international professional organisation leadership.

He also managed the Oorala Aboriginal Centre and the UNE Heritage Centre, and was a leader in international partnerships that successfully delivered UNE courses in Vietnam, Hong Kong, Canada, the United States, China, New Zealand, Tonga, Fiji and Indonesia. Professor Gerber's work helps explain why UNE continues to rank in the top group of Australian Universities for indigenous access.

The adjectives "generous" and "inspiring" are common to many of the tributes to Rod Gerber that former colleagues and students have penned since his death. One of these characterises him as "a person who turned loose networks of people into small families". Another speaks of his "unfailingly encouraging words". And another reads: "Rod will always be remembered as a dear friend and co-researcher, knowledgeable but humble, and able to work closely to produce results."

Rod Gerber is survived by his wife Michelle and their children Andrew, Elizabeth and Catherine. Michelle Gerber, with her daughter Catherine, have donated a portrait of Professor Gerber by local artist Don Gentle to the University, and made an endowment that will allow the University to honour her husband's name by the annual provision of a scholarship – the "Rod Gerber Memorial Scholarship for a Higher Degree Research Student in the Faculty of The Professions".

The portrait of Professor Gerber is to hang in a meeting room on the top floor of UNE's Education Building to be officially named "The Rod Gerber Meeting Room" at an opening ceremony on Monday 18 February 2015. Rod Gerber's son Andrew, and UNE VC Professor Alan Pettigrew, will speak at this event.

University of New England Exploration Society

Photo: Gordon Smith, University of New England Exploration Society Marker, Robinsons Knob Trail in the New England National Park

Gordon Smith keeps on putting great photos up on his photo blog with short commentaries that bring memories flooding back. In this case Gordon suggests that Marker “5A” in the photo is, probably, an indicator of some surveying work done by The University of New England Exploration Society in the area in the 1960’s. Gordon also notes that it’s also marked “3080” which would match the altitude in feet above sea level (930m).

At this distance I do not remember who was involved in the Society - I think Ian Hore-Lacy was one - nor did I get involved directly. The Society lived on the science/rural science side of the campus, I was on the arts side - the union separated the two. My pre-history work also satisfied my desire to charge round the country in Land Rovers. All this said, I was awfully impressed with the Society when I first arrived at University and remained so.

The Exploration Society was an excuse for adventure with a scientific focus. With, as Gordon notes, Everest conqueror Sir Edmund Hilary as patron, the Society managed to attract a fair bit of sponsorship to fund exhibitions

Gordon records that in 1962 the Society mounted an expedition to North Queensland, and in 1964 staff and students mounted an expedition to Central Australia to study camel physiology. In 1968 the Simpson Desert was a Society research area. I am not sure that these dates are quite right, but they do give the pattern.

They also did a fair bit of work on the Northern Tableland, including support to other researchers. And last but not least, the Society also provided a four wheel drive driving course, something that I really wanted to do but did not get round to.

Even today, a web search picks up references to the Society's work. Between 1960 and 1966 the society published reports in a monograph series, as well as a book in in 1968 - Central Australia Expedition 1962. Then there are references in several journals, although I was not able to access these since I do not have access to a University Library and cannot afford to pay the on-line costs just to collect facts.