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Graduands urged to address 'global imperfections'

March 31, 2006

Anderson.thumb.jpgAn eminent agricultural scientist and economist who has applied his expertise to the alleviation of world poverty has urged graduands at The University of New England to think about how they could address such “global imperfections”.

Emeritus Professor Jock Anderson was delivering the Occasional Address at the first of four UNE graduation ceremonies this Autumn. (The other three are scheduled for Saturday the 1st, Friday the 7th and Saturday the 8th of April.) Today’s ceremony was for people graduating from UNE’s Faculty of Economics, Business and Law, and Professor Anderson congratulated them by saying: “Your future is outstandingly bright – particularly as you enter an increasingly globalised world.”

He went on, however, to say: “As you enter and progress through your careers, spare a thought for the global dimensions of imperfection, and how you can do something to help. Your professional training has equipped you very well to engage in a broad range of development activities. Opportunities for engagement are boundless.”

“It is to your humanitarian inner selves that I’m appealing today,” he concluded.

Professor Anderson (pictured here during his address today) is a former Professor of Agricultural Economics at UNE who now lives in the United States and works as a consultant for the International Food Policy Research Institute and the World Bank. During today’s ceremony the Chancellor of UNE, Mr John Cassidy, presented Professor Anderson with the honorary degree of Doctor of the University. Mr Cassidy also presented testamurs to about 250 graduands from the Faculty who could attend the ceremony. Altogether more than 580 people are graduating from the Faculty this Autumn, and more than 2,500 people from all four UNE Faculties.

The new Vice-Chancellor of UNE, Professor Alan Pettigrew, said it was “a great pleasure” to be involved in his first graduation ceremony at the University. “So many wonderful achievements are celebrated on this one occasion,” he said.

Today’s ceremony was held indoors (in UNE’s Lazenby Hall) because of wet weather, and broken into two sections – morning and afternoon.

Posted by Jim Scanlan at March 31, 2006 03:38 PM