University of Wollongong Campus News August 1980

THE UNIVERSITY OF WOLLONGONG CAMPUS NEWS VOL. 6 NO. 6 AUGUST 1980 A GRAND NEW NOTE University of Wollongong graduate Andrew Snedden practising on the University''s new grand piano. The piano will make its official debut at a concert in the Union Hall on Sept ember 12. - Piano After five years of planning and fund raising, the University of Woll piano was purchased) said the piano was makes worth $8,740. She said Yamaha was de ongong has finally had delivered a lighted to provide tertiary institutions with brand new Yamaha concert grand top quality instruments that would be used piano. for concerts and would attract top artists concert to the region. The piano arrived this month and a Those performing at the Inaugural special Inaugural Concert will be held on Concert include Keith Johns (piano), 12th September at the Union Hall where Helen Mandl (vocal). Rod McConehie the piano will make Its debut at the hands (vocal), Janet Morris (vocal), Karen Segal of some of Wollongong's most promising debut (violin), Rosalie Segal (cello), Andrew musicians. from a ball held at the University and from Snedden (piano), Richard Tognetti (violin) concerts. Funds raised totalled $2,70058. and David Vance (piano). The planning for the piano began during At this stage Yamaha offered its special University Year (1975) and the piano fund deal for tertiary Insitutions and said the The new piano will be used in eacH was launched from the profits of Wollongong piano could be purchased for $4,795 which performance either solo or as accompani Festival of Music held in 1975 by thb is virtually at half its worth. The balance ment. lllawarra Music Qlub in conjunction with of the price was then provided from the the University. Vice Chancellor's reserves, as a loan to be Tickets are available at the University repaid from concert profits. Union Office or Jurgens Pianos and Organs, lllawarra Music Club President Mr. 232 Keira Street, or at the door. Admission Abe Segal, said further funds were raised Mrs. Val Smith of Jurgens (where the $6, concession $3. Campus News 1 UNIVERSITIES AND THEIR COIVIMUNITIES The University Day address was It was Capp's position that anyone the minutes of their meetings, and offer, given this year by Mr. Evan Whitton, ought to be able to put his name down for on the same basis as before a degree in Editor of the National Times. The an examination, and if he could turn up and Cross Purposes. The material, one would pass the examination, he ought to be given hope, would not be used for the purpose of address, given on August 8th, was credit for whatever degree was going. recrimination - for who among us is so entitled 'The Relationship Between pure as to be able to cast the first stone - Universities and the Communities that I note that the university has established but to understand how things work. There Support Them." The full text of Mr. an archives division. In first year English is no doubt in my mind .that each side 30 years ago, I learned that Mr. William would be staggered to find to what extent Whitton's speech appears below. Shakespeare was very, very fond of putting it had misunderstood and misjudged the those two great steeplechasers. Appearance other. Chancellor, Vice-Chancellor,. Dlstrin- and Reality, over the hedges and water guished guests, ladies and gentlemen, jumps. And while we may think that Aust It follows of course, in terms of how Robert Graves opened a series of memo ralia, or even Wollongong, is a fairly the community can better understand what rial lectures at, I think, Cambridge by humdrum sort of place, where nothing the university Is doing, that the university saying: "If I say anything untoward, forgive much of interest ever occurs, because in too might consider inserting into the me: I am a stranger here," I can't think of a short order the astonishing becomes the Archive the minutes of its Academic Senate better way of beginning. normal, Shakespeare would have known and other decision - making entities. My first task on the fifth anniversary I hope these suggestions will not be of the founding of the university is to seen as altogether too shocking to contem congratulate the Vice-Chaneellor, the univ Adding to plate. In the short run, elements of the ersity, and particularly the citizens, and minutes might be mildly embarassing, but, industry of Wollongong and the lllawarra as I think it was Maynard Keynes remarked, whose donations gave an initial impetus in the long run we are all dead, and in the to its founding. meantime we are all pretty much in the soup, and anything we can do to arrest I have been asked in this University knowledge the further development of the divisiveness Day lecture to say a few words on how the strikes me as being no bad thing. university might better serve Its commun ities, how the community can better under In the university's submission for the stand what the university is doing, and the 1982-84 triennium, I note that the current relationship between universities and their a task for student load is a little over 2000 and that it communities. is unlikely to exceed 2550 instead of the four or five thousand on which earliest The first thing to try to decide is to planning was based. This may cause all what community a university belongs. sorts of problems of funding, but I wouldn't Traditionally, universities have tended to see be the slightest bit defensive about the themselves as part of an international everyone size of the student body, since, almost by community of scholars. definition, a university of this size is bound different: That Australia - or Wollongong - to be a better university than universities I don't think that there can be any is in fact a rich and strange and curious with a very large student body. doubt that, in terms of contributions from place. To see this, all that is required is a the public purse, a university ultimately slight mental shift: you try to see something I note from the Williams Report that belongs to the community. And, from as if it Were for the first time, what Is 4000 students Is regarded there as necessary glancing through this university's submission called in journalism the Man from Mars for "effective and economical operations." to the Universities Council for the 1982-84 approach. triennium, one can readily see that Woll I have lately been reading, with a view ongong is aware of this, as for example Whatever the appearance may be, we to excerpting some of it In The National in the work of the Centre for Multicultural don't know how Australia, or Wollongong, Times, a new book called "Human Scale" Studies which, I have no reason to doubt, or "the university really works'. So if I were by Kirkpatrick Sale. Sale's thesis is that in is rather more useful than programs at running the History course here, I would view of the virtually total failure of bigness, other institutions which may be designed give serious thought to buying in for the we ought to try to find, before the whole essentially to appease the increasingly Archives the transcripts of as many Royal system collapses, some way to scale things restless natives. Commissions in Australia as I could get down to the human size. On the face of it, hold of, and establishing a degree in How he is fighting a battle that is already irrevoc It is in areas such as this that the Univ The Wheels go Round, and award it to any ably lost, but if this is in fact the case, ersity of Wollongong distinguishes itself, one who could, in a couple of hundred events may very well in the end force us to its advantage, from older and larger thousand words, make a fair fist of adding back to his preferred mode. universities which sail serenely on, as if to the sum of our knowledge. Royal Comm we had not suddenly entered into the un issions are, sadly, never adequately reported Meanwhile, on universities, he says charted seas of the fourth great revolution in the press, and Indeed, on a day to day this: 'They are by no means the only of western times. This is the post-industrial basis, are very nearly unintelligible, but places to learn" - he says that for his part economy, the others being the development I can assure you, from the couple I've he learned far more in the 42nd Street library of feudalism, the development of capitalism, looked at fairly closely, they contain a of New York than he ever did in 16 years and the development of industrialism and wealth of material that would blow your of schooling - "and they are not necessarily state capitalism. mind. suited for everybody, but If you are going to have them, they will perform best if they A university can, and has a duty to, By the same token, if I were involved are small." serve its community in many ways. In the in running the industrial relations course academic field, I am inclined to take an here, I would seek to persuade the major There is no time here to do more than extreme position, similar to that of the late unions and the major companies in town to glance at his argument, but I can point to Al Capp. insert into the archives annotated copies of some of the major points.

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