SYDNEY ALUMNI Magazine Autumn 2007 DIXON THE DEFENDER Reports of the death of our national literature are greatly exaggerated, says the newly appointed chair of Australian literature, ISSN 1834–3937 ISSN Professor Robert Dixon SYDNEY ALUMNI Magazine 6 8 20 26 NEWS: BUSINESS SCHOOL ALLIANCE RESEARCH: PREDICTIVE TECHNOLOGY ESSAY: OUR LITERARY CITY SPORT: WOMEN’S CRICKET Autumn 2007 features 10 DIXON THE DEFENDER Reports of Australian literature’s demise are greatly exaggerated. 16 CAMPUS 2027 Editor Dominic O’Grady What kind of world will our students enter The University of Sydney, Publications Office 20 years from now? Room K6.06, Quadrangle A14, NSW 2006 Telephone +61 2 9036 6372 Fax +61 2 9351 6868 Email [email protected] Sub-editor John Warburton regulars Design tania edwards design Contributors Robert Aldrich, Gregory Baldwin, 2LETTERS Tracey Beck, Vice-Chancellor Professor Gavin Brown, Cautious and suspicious: US Studies Centre reaction. Graham Croker, Carole Cusack, Rebecca Johinke, 5 OPINION Stephanie Lee, Robert O'Neill, Peter Reimann, Maggie Renvoize, Chris Rodley, Ted Sealy, Rick Shine, We’ll tolerate complexity for the sake of flexibility, says Vice-Chancellor. Marian Theobald, Geordie Williamson. Printed by PMP Limited. 28 ALUMNI UPDATES Senate approves new name for alumni body. Cover photo Karl Schwerdtfeger. Advertising Please direct all inquiries to the editor. 32 GRAPEVINE Class notes from the 1940s to the present. Editorial Advisory Committee The Sydney Alumni Magazine is supported by an Editorial 36 DIARY Advisory Committee. Its members are: Kathy Bail, Editor, Rational order: Carl Von Linné at the Australian Financial Review Magazine; Martin Hoffman Macleay Museum. (BEcon ‘86), consultant; Helen Trinca, Editor, Boss (Australian Financial Review); David Marr (LLB ‘71), Sydney Morning Herald; William Fraser, Editor, ACP Magazines; Don Wilson, Vice-Principal, University Relations, University of Sydney; and Andrew Potter, Media Manager, University of Sydney. autumn 2007 1 The University of Sydney’s successful bid to host a US Studies Centre, letters reported in the summer 2006 edition of the Sydney Alumni Magazine, accounts for the majority of letters received during the past three months. An edited selection of those letters appears below. Professor Robert O'Neill, the Centre’s planning director, responds. But surely the answer is not for implemented in your name and mine? Australians to change the views which If universities cannot fulfil this important they have formed on their own terms, function in society, who will? but for Washington to respect those Mark Notaras ( BCom ’02) views and reflect upon what it does to Turner, ACT make so many around the world feel this way. Foreign policy problem We do well to be suspicious of the I still cannot believe that the University motives of the only country on Earth of Sydney will host the US Studies Centre which needs to create an institution (Sydney Alumni Magazine,Summer purely to stop people from hating it. 2006). I am astonished to see my alma Andrew Byrne (DipMus ’01) mater supporting it. It is based on the Bowral, NSW assumption that a power which has been a force for good in the past will Wonky thinking automatically continue in this role. I was fascinated and disgusted to read I am a graduate from 1954 and I the article “Heavyweight Support for am old enough to acknowledge our US Initiative” (Sydney Alumni Magazine, enormous debt to the United States Summer 2006). It illustrates only too in regards to the defeat of fascism, the well what is so wrong with our Govern- creation of the UN, and the containment Suspicious motives ment and political system. of Stalinist aggression. I found the article “Heavyweight support Instead of analysing and considering Today, however, what do we have? for US initiative” (Sydney Alumni what might be wrong with (US) policies The Vietnam disaster is being repeated, Magazine,Summer 2006) disturbing. and actions that are causing so much with no lessons learnt, in the Iraqi Rupert Murdoch and co should concern and resentment, it is the tragedy, which we all saw coming rightly be worried about the “anti- thinking of the people which must before a shot was fired. American” feelings which the Lowy be wrong and has to be changed! I am not anti-American, but I poll revealed many Australians have Dmitri Perno (BArch ’61) am unable to defend the present towards the US, and he is right to fear Buderim, Qld administration in its foreign policy. that our relationship to the US may We should in these matters be treating follow that of France. Caution please the US as a pariah among nations. The excitement surrounding the Instead, my university gives its approval. selection of the University of Sydney Are we living in the same world? Write to us to host Australia’s new US Studies Centre Rodney Knock (BA ’54) Letters to the editor should include (Sydney Alumni Magazine,Summer Merewether, NSW contact details, degree and year of 2006) should be tempered with a note A waste of effort graduation if applicable. of caution. It was reported that “Australia’s I am a graduate of both the University Please address letters to: negative feelings about the US” have of Sydney and Monash University, and The Editor, Sydney Alumni Magazine fuelled this idea. It is obvious that the I recently received alumni magazines C/- Publications A14, Centre’s mission, backed by powerful from both institutions. I compared two The University of Sydney NSW 2006. government and business interests, will articles, both referring to fundraising. Letters may also be sent by email to: be to counter these negative feelings. The Sydney magazine published [email protected] The Centre risks being a corporatised “Sydney to host US Studies Centre”, Opinions expressed on these pages learning body, which is antithetical to (Sydney Alumni Magazine,Summer are those of the signed contributors the idea of universities as independent 2006), while the Monash magazine or the editor and do not necessarily learning institutions. published a story headlined “Study represent the official position of the If the University of Sydney is pressured support for refugees” (Spring/Summer University of Sydney. to contribute to the enhancement of 2006) about a bursary program for Space permits only a selection of our relationship with the US, can it asylum seekers. The second story is the edited letters to be published here. question sufficiently US foreign policy one I would support financially. (read Australian foreign policy) that is I fail to see how a national opinion 2 sydney alumni magazine poll measuring Australian’s attitudes to the US, or the screening of a classic American film festival, would change attitudes one iota. Do we not already have a continual supply of American films? I would hazard a guess that negative attitudes to the US are fuelled by our own involvement in Iraq, where so many lives are being wasted and so much money is uselessly being spent. Beverly McIntyre (BA ’51) Hawthorn, Vic illustration: Maggie Renvoize Editor’s response: It should be noted the edition of the Sydney Alumni Magazine which carried reports on the US Studies everyone else’s Centre also carried extensive reports on The business of America is business. other activities of significance. These Calvin Coolidge 1925^ include funding for the University’s first indigenous research fellow, Joe Gumbula, and funding through the Sir Zelman want to know what’s going on anywhere, It is being established by the University Cowen Universities Fund of a doctoral follow the money trail”.There must to study salient aspects of the USA in a candidate who discovered an ingenious have been economic analyses done on balanced and expert way. There is no treatment for cystic fibrosis. The first half the benefits of more promotion of US implication of approval of everything of Beverly McIntyre’s letter appears to culture in Australia. It ought to be American in the decision to establish rely on selective comparison. remembered that love cannot be bought. the Centre. The Centre’s work will Robyn Dalziell (BN ’04, MScMed ’04) involve balanced, critical analysis of Follow the money trail Castle Hill, NSW policies, practices and people on both How crass of your publication to dig sides of the Australian-American rela- up the old phrase “And the winner is Paternalist agenda tionship. There is no doubt that the Sydney” to announce the US Studies I write in regard to your report on the United States has an impact on the daily Centre (Sydney Alumni Magazine, US Studies Centre (Sydney Alumni lives of most Australians. We need to Summer 2006). Magazine,Summer 2006). I am a US- study it closely and in an integrated way. While this is not a blanket dismissal born, Australian naturalised, University It is our intention that the Centre will of US studies, it can hardly be argued of Sydney graduate and I am dismayed help Australians to relate to the US in a that awareness of American culture is by the Centre’s stated first year agenda. more informed and successful way, better lacking in Australia. This US Studies It smacks of paternalism. able to serve our own interests and those Centre could have been a private insti- I have great regard for education and of the wider international community. tution with all the usual links to the would especially look forward to seeing Australians, hopefully, will learn more media, and to others, which the business the University of Sydney engage in about how to engage the United States in sector and the wealthy so adeptly culti- research of a more meaningful nature. the fields of politics, security, business vate. To use a public university, after I’m afraid that, at the moment, I am and culture so that we have more control years of systematic rationalising, seriously and sadly dismayed.