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A hubbub of bubbling voices surges out of the lecture theatre,
young voices, strong voices, exhilarated into sun-laden grounds, into the intransigent
summer’s impossible light, into a place that Nyoongar people fished and sang
for thousands of years, tossing up ideas, chiacking each other, taking the mickey
but so alive and dimly aware: the future is on their tongues
and they taste it because others have worked and thought,
discussed and written, through study and intuition in laboratory, library and class, over
coffee and committee - the endless striving to know, to imagine,
to understand from what we are what we might yet be
in Romanesque stone and flourishing gardens that show the first academy an Athenian grove:
an acknowledgement of history even in times of easy cynicism, when history is glibly forgotten,
drowning in pop culture and mindless chatter; here is a place where apprehensions of thought,
of ideas and imagination really matter, a community that is the wider community’s
best part; the heart lifts a little on perceiving its
beauty, eyes open a little wider,
ears listen a little more acutely.
To be of our time is all that time allows us
but UWA, one century old, will persist bigger than any or all of us. We lucky enough
to have studied here, taught here, to have thought here
acknowledge the University as part of us because we have been part of it, know that
wisdom is a horizon, that as you come closer it recedes,
and that this is the nature of knowledge, the journey
more enriching than the goal. To those who have gone we cannot speak, but can respect;
to those young voices to come, a hundred years hence
we offer you the gift of what we know and of our ignorance, that you will sweep
aside in that ongoing search, yours and ours;
and may you keep a sense of the modesty of wisdom,
of its poetry and grace pursued forever in this special place.
This weekend is more about connecting and reconnecting, about enjoying the shared memories
and reigniting forgotten friendships, about finding and re-visiting those places that
are very special to us on this very beautiful campus.
…and although over the time we expanded from the original 184 students to almost 25,000
today, we’ve never deviated from our original purpose which was to Seek Wisdom and to make
a difference.
Your presence here this morning is testimony to one of the great strengths of this University
- that is the relationships that it has with its alumni, friends and with the general community
here in Western Australia.
It’s a very great privilege to welcome all of you here tonight on behalf of the University.
I like all of you, have a very proud friendship with this place. We are here to celebrate
a century of achievement of The University of Western Australia. The University was established
as a very practical institution with the purpose of advancing prosperity and welfare of the
people. It’s an institution that has always had a very strong community orientation and it’s
fabulous that we are able to host you here tonight as our alumni and host the wider Perth
community on campus for the rest of this evening until after midnight.
…our staff and students and our alumni have made major contributions to knowledge, to
the development and prosperity in Western Australia, and throughout the nation and the wider world.
Tonight represents the first official event
of the University’s Centenary Celebrations. And in a moment we’ll see the UWA story
told in all its glory across one of the most iconic landmarks of Western Australia, Winthrop Hall
named of course, after our great benefactor Sir John Winthrop Hackett. There could be
nowhere more appropriate on the campus to begin our Centenary Celebrations.