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CQU Murri Centre to be dismantled
by Margaret Hornagold 4 December 2015
I
n the early years of the 1970’s a vision of an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Education Support Centre was developed in Rockhampton on the verandah of the late Lloyd Willie and his wife Carol. They were assisted by Professor Reg Shelley from the then Capricornia Institute of Advanced Education (CIAE) and other local people. That vision was realised and over the years CAITEC provided academic, social, political and communal support to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who wanted to further their tertiary education. In the 1990’s, CAITEC was renamed Nulloo Yumbah meaning ‘Our Place’ by the Darumbal people and continued the work started on that verandah. In 2012, under a new ViceChancellor and with a newly appointed Pro-Vice ChancellorIndigenous, Dr Bronwyn Fredericks, steps were taken to mainstream Nulloo Yumbah and the first stage was the change of name to the Office of Indigenous Engagement. There was no consultation with the Darumbal people or with any students or the wider Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Professor Bronwyn Fredericks with CQU Vice-Chancellor Professor Scott Bowman and Dr Pamela CroftWarcon. Image: cqu.edu.au
Islander community. The NTEU protested about these changes but to no avail. But the worst was yet to come. In October 2015, an Initial Change Proposal was developed to downsize and realign the Office of Indigenous Engagement and staff would be ‘absorbed’ into other sections of CQU. Again, students and the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community was not a party to these deliberations but found out about them. The local community demanded a meeting with Dr Fredericks and CQU and the meeting was held on the 3rd November 2015, Melbourne Cup Day.
A further meeting was arranged by the community on the 25th November 2015 with the Vice Chancellor, Scott Bowman and the Provost of CQU. Members of the local Murri community demanded that the decisions to mainstream the Office of Indigenous Engagement be delayed. CQU was told that the move was not innovative but was assimilation on display and that it would not be anyone’s best interests to remove the centre known as Nulloo Yumbah or Our Place. A personal invitation was issued to the Vice Chancellor to come out of the university confines and meet with local Elders and other Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Alumni to get a true
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Prof Bronwyn Fredericks with Ms Margaret Hornagold and Prof Brenda Happell. Image: cqu.edu.au
appreciation for what was needed and not just act on the views and opinions of one person. The Vice-Chancellor has failed to respond to this invitation and on the 2nd December 2015 the decision to remove the staff from the Office of Indigenous Engagement and disperse them to different parts of the University was made. The green light for the abolition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander support centres on university grounds was made in Recommendation 10 of the ‘Review of higher education access and outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander People’ (Behrendt review). Whilst the intentions of the Review may have not been to dismantle our support units, this is how universities have embraced the recommendation and pushed ahead with their decisions. The sad case at CQU is that there will be no presence or place for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students and the community to call Our Home and once again we have been dispossessed and dispersed.
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