ALUMNI AWARDS VC speech Time: 6:30pm 11:30pm Date: Saturday 31 October, 2015 Place: Brookman Hall, City East
1 Alumni Awards 2015 Event run sheet Date: Saturday 31 October 2015 Venue: Brookman Hall, City East Campus Time: 6.30 11.30pm Dress code: Black tie / Evening 6.30pm Guests arrive pre event drinks Music accompaniment by Amicus Strings Quartet ASR team Amicus Strings Quartet 7.00pm Guests ushered to seats ASR team 7.15pm MC welcome outline format of the night 7.20pm Video: Alumni overview ASR team 7.22pm MC invites Chancellor on stage for speech 7.23pm Speech: Chancellor Dr Ian Gould AM 7.28pm MC invites VC on stage for speech 7.29pm Speech: VC Professor David Lloyd 7.34pm MC invites guests to enjoy entrée 7.35pm 8.00pm Entrée served Background music accompaniment MC announces award proceedings and invites VC on stage for award presentations ASR team 8.03pm MC introduces 1 st award recipient Rachael Sporn OAM 8.06pm Video: Rachael Sporn OAM ASR team 8.09pm MC invites Rachael Sporn OAM on stage for award presentation Award presentation and photos Rachael Sporn OAM Professor David Lloyd 8.12pm Award recipient address: Rachael Sporn OAM Rachael Sporn OAM 1 P age
2 8.17pm MC introduces 2 nd award recipient Professor Tom Calma AO 8.20pm Video: Professor Tom Calma AO ASR team 8.23pm MC invites Professor Tom Calma AO on stage for award presentation Award presentation and photos (VC departs stage after presentation and photos) Professor Tom Calma AO Professor David Lloyd 8.26pm Award recipient address: Professor Tom Calma AO Professor Tom Calma AO 8.31pm MC invites guests to enjoy main course 8.32pm 9.15pm Main course served Music accompaniment by Amicus Strings Quartet MC announces second part of award proceedings and invites VC on stage for award presentations ASR team Amicus Strings Quartet 9.18pm MC introduces 3 rd award recipient Rob Chapman 9.21pm Video: Rob Chapman ASR team 9.24pm MC invites Rob Chapman on stage for award presentation Award presentation and photos Rob Chapman Professor David Lloyd 9.27pm Award recipient address: Rob Chapman Rob Chapman 9.32pm MC introduces 4 th award recipient Poh Ling Yeow 9.35pm Video: Poh Ling Yeow ASR team 9.38pm MC invites Poh Ling Yeow on stage for award presentation Award presentation and photos (VC departs stage after presentation and photos) Poh Ling Yeow Professor David Lloyd 9.41pm Award recipient address: Poh Ling Yeow Poh Ling Yeow 9.46pm 9.50pm MC congratulates all the recipients and officially closes the formal proceedings Dessert served Background music accompaniment ASR team 11.30pm Event concludes ASR team 2 P age
3 Good evening ladies and gentlemen and welcome to the inaugural University of South Australia Alumni Awards. I would like to once again welcome our distinguished guests: o Rachel Sanderson MP, State Member for Adelaide and Shadow Minister for Families and Child Protection; Social Housing; Volunteers; Youth; Higher Education, Science and Information Economy and o Our inaugural award recipients who are here with us: Professor Tom Calma AO, Rachael Sporn OAM and Rob Chapman. Unfortunately Poh is unable to join us tonight. As our Chancellor mentioned, she is filming on location in south east Queensland. 3 P age
4 We re about to celebrate our 25 th anniversary as a university. But, although we are only 25 years young, as most of you would know, our history dates back to 1856. So, for 159 years we have been creating new knowledge, educating professionals and engaging with our communities. Tonight we re celebrating the best of our best across our recent history from the Colleges of Advanced Education and Institutes of Technology that gave us our foundation, to our early years as a university from which we are building our future. And if our past is any guide, our future is filled with great potential. 4 P age
5 We re already recognised officially as one of the world s best universities under the age of 50. We re very proud of that achievement. So we re turning the spotlight onto those who helped create our success, who studied with us, who took their opportunities and guided their careers to new heights. We re turning the spotlight onto our alumni. They are a strong global network of UniSA graduates who are our brand ambassadors and stand as role models for the students going through the system now. They are amongst our greatest assets. When we launched our strategic action plan Crossing the Horizon in 2013 we made alumni relations one of the keys to our future success. We planned on being a globally visible university with global reach and leverage 5 P age
6 And to achieve that we focused on connecting, and reconnecting with our global alumni. There are almost 190,000 graduates from UniSA and its antecedent institutions who are using their skills, capabilities and innovation potential to drive the economies of this nation and many others. So when we called for nominations for these awards we were overwhelmed with the positive response we got from our alumni and from the wider community. The Alumni Awards gala dinner is an initiative that I strongly believe in. I have been to many such dinners at other universities and they are always wonderful events. So we planned to have our own and I am very excited to see the UniSA Alumni Awards finally come to fruition, especially in the lead up to our 25 th birthday next year. 6 P age
7 It s purely coincidental that it also falls on All Hallows Eve which, legend would have it, is a Gaelic harvest festival which involves lighting bonfires, bobbing for apples and games of divination. I assure you we will do none of those things tonight. We opened nominations for the awards back in July and within a month, we had more than 115 nominations from more than 20 countries around the world. They came from as far afield as Africa, the Middle East, Asia, Europe, North America and New Zealand. People were very quick to vote for the alumni they felt had made a difference to the world they lived in And the four people who made the biggest impression are being honoured here tonight. 7 P age
8 Tom Calma is a respected Aboriginal Elder who has spent the past 40 years championing the rights, responsibilities and welfare of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. He left us with an Associate Diploma of Social Work which he studied at the South Australian Institute for Technology. He took his degree to Darwin where he became a lecturer in the Aboriginal Task Force program at the Darwin Community College. This was the Task Force program that originated at the South Australian Institute of Technology in 1973; and became the precursor to the establishment of other Indigenous centres at other universities around Australia. 8 P age
9 Tom Calma helped change the lives of Aboriginal men and women at that Task Force, and human rights and justice became the centre of his being. Rachael Sporn s studies for her Bachelor of Education in Secondary Physical Education and Mathematics did not make her an Olympic basketballer. That she did all by herself, with a little help from family, friends, recruiters, coaches, national trainers, selectors and other team members. But her academic background did help her succeed in in coaching and leading and passing on her extensive knowledge of the game and the way it s played. The University of South Australia gave Poh Ling Yeow the right environment and great teachers who were a major creative influence on her. 9 P age
10 She completed a Bachelor of Design at UniSA and became a full time artist working mainly with acrylic paint on canvas. She has also developed a career as a television cook and presenter with a lifestyle program that celebrates Poh s love of food, family and friends. And Rob Chapman who took an Associate Diploma in Business from the South Australian Institute of Technology and parlayed it into a stunning corporate career that he is now using to Chair a number of companies in South Australia. His big contribution, however, is to help the State transition from old smokestack industries to new endeavours in future industries such as biotechnology, health, tourism and education. Tonight s award winning alumni are all ambassadors of the University of South Australia and role models for our next generation of leaders and innovators. 10 P age
11 They have all made significant contributions in their respective fields and each one is a great example of what our institution represents: scholarship, engagement, social justice, sustainability, innovation and openness. I trust you will be equally inspired by their achievements as you hear their stories tonight. Take the opportunity to say hello and have a chat with them. Congratulations to Professor Tom Calma, Rachael Sporn, Rob Chapman and Poh Ling Yeow. I am sure you will all continue achieving many more great things in your lives. Tonight is the first of our Alumni Awards events and I have no doubt they will continue to evolve in the coming years as we continue to shine a spotlight on those graduates who work to make a difference in all of our lives. 11 P age
12 Thank you all, and I hope you enjoy this very special occasion. 12 P age