Bulletin

Issue: July 2006

News

Installation of new Chancellor

La Trobe University has launched a major push to consolidate and improve its position as one of the top ten Australian universities by adopting measures to significantly boost ‘the excellence of our learning, teaching and research’.

Mrs Walton addresses the University after
she was formally installed by the Governor
of Victoria, Professor David de Kretser, AC,
as the fifth Chancellor of La Trobe University.

Speaking at her installation on 1 August, La Trobe’s new Chancellor, Mrs Sylvia Walton, said this effort also included maximising new opportunities through stronger links with business and professional organisations when the University opens its new central City Campus next year, at the corner of La Trobe and Elizabeth Streets.

She said La Trobe Vice- Chancellor, Professor Brian Stoddart, had described how the higher education sector faced extraordinarily challenging times.

‘In recognition of these challenges, La Trobe recently completed a comprehensive consultative process to develop a Strategic Plan to 2010 and well beyond, by giving the University a very specific place in the Australian and international higher education systems.’

A leading Australian educationist, Mrs Walton said: ‘The University’s expansion across Victoria has supported the Federal and State governments’ policy of providing access to higher education to rural and regional students.

‘We are acutely aware of the vital role our campuses play in the advancement of Victoria’s regional communities and are proud of the contributions we have been able to make. But we cannot do it by ourselves.

‘We need ongoing government recognition of the economic and social benefits that La Trobe University has brought to these communities - and of the substantial investment of financial and human resources that such commitment demands.’

Mrs Walt on said La Trobe featured regularly among the world’s leading universities as judged by international surveys. ‘The humanities were one of the founding disciplines and for the last 40 years La Trobe has been a leading generator of public dialogue in our society.

‘This has been recognised internationally, for example in recent rankings by The Times Higher Education Supplement in the UK, which ranked La Trobe 23rd in the world in humanities.

‘This tradition is amply demonstrated in the publication Reflected Light, a collection of essays by a number of La Trobe’s outstanding public intellectuals. I commend this rich collection to you.

‘Next month the Victorian Premier will launch the University’s multi-disciplinary international Centre for Dialogue, to foster research and discussion between cultures, religions and civilisations - surely a most crucial role in society today.

‘La Trobe’s strength in the biological sciences also reflects our history,’ Mrs Walton said. ‘It was one of the first disciplines established in 1967, with agriculture introduced the following year.

‘Today we have on the Bundoora campus one of Australia’s largest, most successful wholly universityowned and managed research and development parks.

‘The $20 million Victorian AgriBiosciences Research Centre which opened earlier this year, is an outstanding example of this type of collaboration and builds significantly on La Trobe’s internationally recognised strengths in the biosciences.

‘The Centre houses academic, government and commercial research and development groups collaborating on research that will provide significant benefits to Australian agricultural and biotechnology industries.

‘Along with the Microarray Consortium and the Bioinformatics Consortium, this puts La Trobe on the map as a precinct of world-class biological and agricultural science.

Such developments resulted from ‘a myriad of achievements by men and women who have devoted learning, wisdom, passion and care to create all that is excellent and unique about La Trobe.

‘Their efforts are exemplified in the enormous contributions of two of my predecessors who have honoured us with their presence tonight: Sir Archibald Glenn, the University’s first Chancellor, and my immediate predecessor, Emeritus Professor Nancy Millis,’ Mrs Walton said.

‘The vision and energy Sir Archibald brought to the establishment of the University, and the wisdom and passion with which Professor Millis guided the development of La Trobe as a multi-campus University, are inspirational to me as incoming Chancellor.’

Mrs Walton, who took up her post as Chancellor in April this year, has been a member of the La Trobe University Council since 1993 and Deputy Chancellor since 1997. She is a long-standing contributor to the development of education policy in Victoria in both government and nongovernment sectors.

Full details about the appointment of the Chancellor appeared in the March 2006 Bulletin