Prominent Australians join University of Melbourne
Media Release, Wednesday 31 August 2005
Three prominent Australian intellectuals, noted for their significant contributions to public life, scholarship, and the arts, have been appointed as Vice-Chancellor’s Fellows by the University of Melbourne.
They are former Federal politician, public policy expert and scholar, Dr Barry Jones, composer and artistic director, Jonathan Mills, and historian, author, musician and award-winning actor, Dr Alice Garner.
The Vice-Chancellor of the University of Melbourne, Professor Glyn Davis announced the new Fellows at the University’s annual Town & Gown Dinner tonight (Wednesday 31 August 2005).
Vice-Chancellor's Fellowships provide "in residence" status for distinguished public intellectuals in the University of Melbourne, allowing them to engage in the public life of the University by providing a scholarly environment for research, writing, teaching and related activities in an area of new intellectual interest.
Professor Davis said the University is delighted that Dr Jones, Mr Mills and Dr Garner have agreed to join the University in this role.
“As a leading university, Melbourne must actively encourage public intellectual discourse and help extend the reach of ideas and knowledge in the public domain. Universities have embraced this ‘critic and conscience’ role for centuries.
“There are many amongst our University of Melbourne academic community who can claim the role of public intellectual. They are scholars who are prepared to speak their minds in public - although it can be a contested and often uncomfortable role – and we warmly welcome our new Vice-Chancellor’s Fellows to this community.”
As a Vice-Chancellor’s Fellow, Dr Jones will work with the University’s Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics on aspects of education policy development – particularly in innovation and science education.
Mr Mills will help the University take its rich cultural resources to a broader audience and contribute advice on future directions for the creative arts curriculum and teaching.
Dr Garner will contribute to the cultural life and sense of community of key University stakeholders, reflecting on the undergraduate experience in a major book on student life commissioned by Melbourne University Press.
Over the past 10 years six outstanding intellectuals have been Vice-Chancellor’s Fellows at Melbourne. “The University has indeed been fortunate to have such high quality and committed Fellows contributing their own scholarly ideas, while enhancing the reputation of the University,” Professor Davis said.
Bio-notes on Vice-Chancellor’s Fellows:
Dr Barry Jones’ contribution to public life was recognised by the University of Melbourne in 2002 with the award of an honorary degree of Doctor of Laws.
A graduate in arts and law from the University of Melbourne, Dr Jones spent 26 years in the Australian political scene, as a member of the Victorian Parliament before moving to the Commonwealth Parliament where he served in the science and technology,customs, and small business portfolios.
In 1998, the National Trust named him a “Living National Treasure”. He has been honoured for his contributions to the Australian film industry, to libraries, and to intellectual leadership.
His career has included close involvement with the arts, particularly film and television, international affairs, education, and world heritage. He is currently a member of CARE Australia and Vision Australia.
Barry Jones is the only person elected as a Fellow of all four of the Australian learned academies.
He is the author of Decades of Decision (1965), The Penalty is Death (1968), Age of Apocalypse (1975), Sleepers, Wake!: Technology and the Future of Work (Oxford University Press, 1982), and Dictionary of World Biography (1994). He is completing his autobiography A Thinking Reed, which is essentially the odyssey of a public intellectual. He has contributed to the Australian Dictionary of Biography.
Mr Jonathan Mills has created and directed some of Australia's most acclaimed arts festivals, including the Federation Festival in Melbourne in 2001 - incorporating the Alfred Deakin Lectures - and the Melbourne International Festival of the Arts in 2000 and 2001.
Following on the success of the 2001 Deakin Lectures he was invited by the Victorian Government to direct another series earlier this year.
Jonathan Mills studied composition with Peter Sculthorpe in Sydney and piano and composition with Lidia Arcuri-Baldecchi in Italy and has been Composer-in-Residence and Research Fellow in Environmental Acoustics at RMIT University where he established the Australasian Soundscape Project.
He is regularly commissioned by major festivals, orchestras and companies in Australia and increasingly in Europe and the UK. His works include; Ethereal Eye, an electro-acoustic dance opera based on the ideas and architectural schemes of Walter Burley & Marion Mahoney Griffin commissioned by the 1996 Adelaide Festival; and The Ghost Wife, a chamber opera based on a short story by Barbara Baynton, with libretto by Dorothy Porter, co-commissioned by the 1999 Melbourne, 2000 Adelaide and 2001 Sydney Festivals.
Mr Mills has served on the Australian Heritage Commission and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.
Dr Alice Garner is a Honorary Research Fellow in the History Department at the University of Melbourne, where she obtained her Doctor of Philosophy degree in French history in 2001 with a study of the representations of sea and shore in south-western France.
Dr Garner is an accomplished professional musician playing cello with two musical groups, euphonia and Xylouris Ensemble, and an award-winning actor, with starring roles in the campus comedy Love and Other Catastrophes and successful Australian television series such as SeaChange and The Secret Life of Us, and on stage with Melbourne Theatre Company, Anthill Theatre and Playbox.
In 2001, Alice Garner founded Actors for Refugees, with fellow SeaChange actor Kate Atkinson, to bring the personal stories of refugees and asylum seekers to a broader audience.
A fluent French speaker, Dr Garner has conducted archival research on a number of projects in France and Australia over the past eight years. Last year she curated an exhibition Performing the French Revolution at the University’s Baillieu Library, drawing on the Library’s special collections/
Earlier this year her first book, Shifting Shore: Locals, Outsiders and the Transformation of a French Fishing Town, 1823 to 2000 was published by Cornell University Press.
More information:
Christina Buckridge
Senior Media Advisor
Tel: 8344 6158
Mobile: 0412 101 316
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