UNE > News and Events > Browse by article > Memories shared at UNE reunion weekend

Next Foreign-language learning: new techniques revealed October 6, 2004  

Previous National sheep project to survey farmers September 29, 2004 

Memories shared at UNE reunion weekend

October 05, 2004

University of New England alumni from all over Australia gathered in Armidale at the weekend for a reunion to celebrate the University’s 50 years of autonomy.
They included people who were students when UNE gained its autonomy in 1954.
Sister Pat Bundock, a Dominican nun now living in Wallangarra, Queensland, was living and working in Tamworth when she became UNE’s external Arts student No. 45 in 1954. She remembered her fellow externals as “all older students who’d been denied university because of the Depression and the War”.
Sister Bundock, who studied Latin, paid particular tribute to her lecturer
Maurice Kelly who, recognising that the “externals” were high-achieving
students, gained them the right to sit for the Distinction exams.

Ken Williams, who was born and brought up in Armidale, was one of UNE’s
first Science graduates (in 1955). He travelled to the reunion from
Laurieton with his wife Lal, also originally from Armidale, whom he met when
they were both students at UNE.
The weekend of activities included a welcome on Saturday morning by the
Vice-Chancellor, Professor Ingrid Moses, and the President of the UNE Alumni
Association (Armidale Branch), Dr Neville Webb; lunch on Saturday at the New
England Regional Art Museum (NERAM) and a tour of the NERAM storeroom; a
picnic lunch on the lawns of Booloominbah on Sunday, followed by afternoon
tea and live jazz music. UNE’s fund-raising Spring Ball on Saturday night in
the University’s Lazenby Hall formed part of the Golden Jubilee
celebrations.
Professor Moses and Dr Webb traced the growth of UNE from 242 students in
1954 to about 19,000 today, mentioning the unique “living and learning”
experience provided to internal students by the University’s residential
colleges, and the opportunities that UNE, as a pioneer in distance
education, had opened for so many people.
Later in the weekend Professor Moses said it had been “a wonderful
experience to hear people reminisce about their student years at UNE”.
“They can still be proud of their UNE degrees,” she said. “The University
has grown enormously, but its values are still the same.”
Media contact: Lydia Roberts, Public Relations Manager, UNE (02) 6773 2779
or Jim Scanlan, Public Relations, UNE (02) 6773 3049/
Photographs are available. Please contact Jim Scanlan on (02) 6773 3049.

Posted by Lydia Roberts at October 5, 2004 03:14 PM