Eminent disability researcher to speak at UNE Graduation

March 20, 2007

A leading researcher and advocate for people with disabilities will be the guest speaker at the first of four graduation ceremonies at the University of New England in the last week of March.

Professor Trevor Parmenter, who graduated from Armidale Teachers' College in 1952 and UNE (with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Education and Psychology) in 1972, is the Foundation Professor of Developmental Disability in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Sydney, and Director of the Centre for Developmental Disability Studies. He was made a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) in 2005 for his contributions to special education.

Professor Parmenter will deliver the Occasional Address at the ceremony on Friday 23 March for those graduating in Education and Professional Studies. Renowned for his ability to translate research outcomes into practice through the setting up of model programs, he has served on the boards of several service organisations, has completed a four-year term on the Disability Council of NSW, and has been involved in the setting up of several advocacy organisations.

About 270 graduands will attend the ceremony on Friday, and the University is expecting an audience of about 1,000 visitors – friends and relatives of the graduands – to see them receive their testamurs.

Altogether, about 2,300 people – including those unable to attend the ceremonies – will be graduating from UNE this autumn.

The guest speaker at the ceremony on Saturday 24 March, for those graduating in the Sciences and Health, will be Emeritus Professor Ian Falconer. Professor Falconer was Foundation Professor of Biochemistry (1972-1997) and Head of the School of Biological Sciences (1974-1976; 1978-1982) at UNE, and held senior administrative positions at UNE and the University of Adelaide. He was made an Officer in the Order of Australia (AO) on Australia Day 2006 for "services to science, particularly through research in the area of algal toxins relating to water quality management, to education internationally, and to the conservation movement”.

The distinguished poet and literary scholar Julian Croft, an Emeritus Professor at UNE, will present the Occasional Address at the ceremony for graduands in Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences on Friday 30 March, and Professor Roley Piggott, Executive Dean of UNE's Faculty of Economics, Business and Law, will speak at the ceremony for graduands from that Faculty on Saturday 31 March. Roley Piggott graduated with both a Bachelor's and a Master's degree from UNE, the first university in Australia to offer degrees in Agricultural Economics. He took up a position as Lecturer at UNE in 1979, and served as Head of the University's former Department of Agricultural Economics and Business Management, and of the School of Economics, before becoming Dean in August 2003.

Posted by Jim Scanlan at March 20, 2007 10:42 AM