OPENING OF THE MONASH HALLS OF RESIDENCE Thursday 3 December 2015

Dr Alan Finkel AO Chancellor

Professor Margaret Gardner AO President and Vice-Chancellor

The distinguished guests acknowledged by the MC

Ladies and gentlemen

I also acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which we are gathering and pay my respects to their Elders past and present and to any Elders who may be with us this morning.

It is a pleasure for me to be here. Of course, I didn’t study at this university, but I did “marry in” as it were, my husband being a Monash graduate, and I certainly went “the extra mile” by producing two sons who are now alumni of this University. In any event, it is not difficult to know what an illustrious place of learning, research and innovation it is. One of the jewels in the Crown of Victoria’s renowned tertiary education offering.

It is a particular pleasure to be here to officially open these four new halls of residence that will house another 1000 students in ’s Clayton Campus Urban Community.

The Halls are of course to be named in honour of four members of the academic staff of the University, each selected for their outstanding leadership and service. Let me talk briefly of their contributions.

I can't resist starting with the women who came before my generation, and paved the way for our achievements. And forgive me too for playing to my own professional background by starting with a lawyer!

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The late Emeritus Professor Enid Campbell achieved countless firsts, leading the way for female law students for generations.

She was the first female Law lecturer at the , before moving to the , where she became Australia’s first female Associate Professor of Law. Then here at Monash, she became Australasia’s first female Professor of Law upon her appointment to the Sir Chair of Law. Later she was appointed as the first female Dean of Law.

She taught and inspired the likes of Australia’s first female High Court judge, the Honourable QC and the first female Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Victoria, also the current Lieutenant-Governor of Victoria, the Honourable Justice Marilyn Warren AC.

How fitting that Monash University has chosen to highlight the life and work of Enid Campbell in naming one of the new Halls in her honour.

Now the Hall in which we are located this morning, Holman Hall, is named for the late Emeritus Professor Mollie Holman.

She moved to Monash as a senior lecturer in physiology shortly after the University was established. She became well known across the globe for her pioneering work in neurophysiology. Her scholarship has been recognised through the establishment of the Mollie Holman Doctoral Medal for Excellence, awarded to the best PhD thesis from each Monash Faculty.

I found it interesting to note that she was born in Launceston in 1930. Enid Campbell was also born in Launceston just two years later. Perhaps there was something in the water that provided these inspiring women with the drive and intelligence to reach new heights in a society still largely dominated by men.

I am pleased to note that, from today, five of the twelve Halls of Residence at Monash will be named after women.

That said, naturally, I am equally in awe of the contributions that both Emeritus Professor Mal Logan and Associate Professor Ian Turner have made to the Monash community, for whom the other two new halls are named.

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Monash owes much to the foresight and wisdom of Professor Mal Logan, who served as Vice- Chancellor from 1987 to 1996. My own Official Secretary, Charles Curwen CVO OBE, who is also a member of the Monash Council, has described Mal Logan as a “visionary”.

On his watch, there was a concentrated period of change in the University, that saw it expand from one campus with 20,000 students to 6 Victorian campuses across Clayton, Caufield, Frankston, Gippsland, Parkville and Berwick, with a total student population of 40,000.

Significantly, it was Professor Logan who paved the way for Monash to become the truly global University that it is today. Having lived and studied overseas himself, he was quick to recognise the benefit of a larger international footprint, and the importance of the rise of Asia as presenting unprecedented opportunities for expansion.

He drove the partnership with Sunway University College so that in 1998, Monash became the first non-Malaysian institution granted permission to establish a presence in that country. It was, as we know, just the start – Monash South Africa and the Prato Centre followed, and more recently Monash has achieved great success in establishing a joint venture with South East University in Suzhou, China, as well as a partnership with the Indian Institute of Technology.

These developments, so crucial to maintaining Monash University’s position as a leading global University, would not have been possible without Professor Logan’s early leadership and strong belief that the University could be an active player in driving change across the globe.

It is fitting that Logan Hall will offer many of our international students a place to call home during their study at Monash University. That brings me to the late Associate Professor Ian Turner, after whom the final hall of residence shall be named. He came to Monash just a year after Mollie Holman and a few years before Enid Campbell. He played a key role in the transformation of this University – in developing an ethos that embraced and valued diversity and difference – one of the cornerstones of it’s success.

Associate Professor Turner can be described as many things - an academic, former communist, political activist, a mentor, an historian and an academic. Tragically, he died at the young age of 56.

Author, Peter Corris, then wrote that, when he met Turner in 1964, Turner was “not yet as heavily bearded and bush-haired as he later became” but, “he was nevertheless different. He dressed different from other senior academics….in cords, boots, open-necked shirts and army surplus jackets. He rolled his own and was a breath of fresh egalitarian air”. For Official Use Only 3

Corris added, “Conservative and less vivid members of the department were alarmed by him…” and he outlined how he had been guided by Associate Professor Turner in his own research and in his use of language.

With my AFL Commission background, I was particularly fascinated by a description of Turner’s annual Ron Barassi memorial lecture in the Australian Dictionary of Biography. It records Turner as having offered an annual lecture on Australian Rules football, equipped with a Richmond beanie, a can of beer, and a pie and sauce.

He was clearly a fascinating individual with a striking intellect and an exceptional ability to relate to and inspire those from all walks of life.

These four new Halls will undoubtedly enhance the student experience and extend the diversity of the student population for which Monash is rightly known. I can hazard a guess that these beautifully designed and contemporary Halls will also be fun to live in. As I vaguely recall it, all those years ago, “fun” is an important component of University life. I am confident that it hasn’t gone out of fashion between generations. At least I hope not!

Victoria is rightly proud of the many achievements of Monash to date and it is clear that there are many exciting achievements to come.

I congratulate the leadership of the University, the architects and the construction teams for this wonderful development and I look forward to officially opening the new halls of residence shortly. Thank you

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