TRINITY TODAY 2020 | Trinity College | The University of Melbourne | Issue 89

TRINITY TODAY T H E

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THE UNIVERSITY OF MELBOURNE

THE BIG IDEAS ISSUE

Is this Australia’s first president?

RONNY CHIENG The law of comedy

ROB SITCH

No longer dreamin’

BRENDAN MURPHY COVID chief responder

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TRINITY TODAY 02 CONTENTS DIRECTORY

TELL US WHAT YOU THINK Email your feedback about this edition of Trinity Today to tt@trinity.unimelb.edu.au or write to us at: Trinity Today Marketing, Communications and Events Trinity College 100 Royal Parade Parkville VIC 3052 Stay up-to-date with Trinity College news at trinity.unimelb.edu.au MANAGING EDITOR Emily McAuliffe Communications Manager, Trinity College EDITOR Simon Mann MediaXpress DESIGNER Bill Farr MediaXpress WRITERS Jeremy Bourke Blanca Brew Ferrer Dr Peter Campbell Mark Daffey Anabel Dean The Revd Canon Dr Robert Derrenbacker Kate Elix Prof Ken Hinchcliff Jake Keane Juliet Mentor Danielle Norton Jocelyn Pride Nicole Thomson-Pride Laura Waters PHOTOGRAPHERS Dan Avila Kit Haselden Photography Chris Hopkins Matt Phan Tom Roe

30 YEARS OF FOUNDATION STUDIES We celebrate our anniversary in 2020 with the stories of 30 people.

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Additional imagery courtesy of Century Entertainment, Working Dog Productions/ Lisa Tomasetti, and staff, students, alumni and friends of Trinity College.

Information in this magazine was understood to be correct at the time of printing.

Views expressed in Trinity Today do not necessarily reflect the views of Trinity College.

We acknowledge the traditional custodians of this country and pay our respects to Elders past, present and emerging.

Trinity Today is printed on HannoArt Plus, which is manufactured using low environmental impact FSC certified pulps in a facility that is ISO 14001 Environmental Management System accredited.

SOCIAL IMPACT Why Simon Griffiths gives a crap about global sanitation.

LAUNCHING HISTORY 32

The students behind the first Australian-built satellite.

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WELCOME 03 TRINITY TODAY

Click to listen to a message from Warden Ken Hinchcliff

Celebrating big ideas

COLLEGE NEWS

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DR BRENDAN MURPHY

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THE HON DAN TEHAN MP

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OPINION – ROBERT DERRENBACKER

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ROB SITCH

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RONNY CHIENG

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SOPHIA GAWAN-TAYLOR

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COVER STORY

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JEANINE HOURANI

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SIMON BIRKETT

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CHLOE BUITING

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PROFESSOR FRANK BILLSON

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AMELIA JONES

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EVENTS GALLERY

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OBITUARIES/VALETE

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HONOURS

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Trinity College is a remarkable place and, in a year that brought COVID-19, this has become more evident than ever before.

As an institution that upholds Anglican values, we did not waiver in our commitment to enable the success and fulfilment of the students who live and study with us. Trinity’s educational, wellbeing and academic support programs continued throughout the pandemic. Our students adapted to new ways of learning and, despite restrictions, maintained a vibrant collegiate community, while our staff delivered services and care in innovative and compassionate ways.

This edition of Trinity Today features members of the Trinity community who have made the world a better place as a result of their big ideas. My prediction is that the challenges of this year will lead to a bounty of such ideas from the students who lived and studied at Trinity during COVID-19, as adversity tends to create fertile ground for novel thinking, and the people profiled in this edition may well serve as role models for such endeavour.

Those who are featured come from all walks of life and have turned their attention to many fields and causes, which include creating better outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. At Trinity College, we promote justice, rights and respect for Australia’s First Nations peoples and support the Uluru Statement from the Heart as a means of helping to achieve reconciliation.

It’s up to all of us to play a role in creating a more equitable Australia and Trinity continues to promote diversity within our collegiate community through our scholarship program. Sadly, because of the pandemic’s impact on Trinity’s finances, this has been dialled back for 2021. However, the College’s imperative to make the Trinity experience accessible to young people who would not otherwise have been able to become Trinitarians remains. I encourage you to join me and my wife Carole in supporting this initiative.

To everyone who has supported us throughout 2020, we are immensely grateful. We couldn’t have gotten through this year without you.

Professor Ken Hinchcliff Warden and CEO

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TRINITY TODAY 04 COLLEGE NEWS

The Hon Dan Tehan officially opened our new 100-room residential building on 7 February. The ecofriendly building includes a large, open study area, a two-level Junior Common Room, music rooms, the David Tan Visual Arts Studio and a shaded courtyard. In line with Trinity College’s commitment to sustainability, the new building is heated and cooled using geothermal energy, has a solar system and harvests and reuses rainwater for the gardens and toilets. The building, designed by Hayball, was shortlisted in the IDEA interior design awards.

Kerry Gleeson has been named incoming Chair of the Trinity College Board and will be the first woman to serve in the role. She will take over the position from Charles Sitch when his term concludes in May 2021.

Kerry is an experienced non-executive director and has been on the Trinity College Board since 2015. She is also a member of the Finance and Audit Committee and Chair of the Pathways School Business Committee.

‘My vision for 2021 is for the Board to continue to focus on the wellbeing of our students,’ she says. ‘As we adjust to what many are terming the

“new normal”, I want us to focus on and embrace the creation of a new normal that ensures Trinity continues to operate as a strong, vibrant college and an important and valued part of the Melbourne community, as it has done for more than a century.’

THE YEAR

Watch the P100 opening video

COVID-19 restrictions meant 2020 was the first year since its introduction in 1931 that the annual Juttoddie steeplechase didn’t go ahead.

We opened the exhibition Balnhdhurr – A Lasting Impression in Trinity’s Burke Gallery on 20 February.

The exhibition showcased nearly 100 artworks produced through the Yirrkala Print Space, which is located on the tip of North East Arnhem Land.

View the virtual exhibition

View the recording

Learn about the history of Juttoddie

At our third annual Peacebuilder’s Conference, University of Notre Dame Associate Professor for Conflict Transformation and Peacebuilding David Anderson Hooker led a discussion about how the arts can help heal generational trauma and shape new beginnings in line with the theme Healing Our Stories. Australian X Factor winner, Eurovision representative and Masked Singer contestant Isaiah Firebrace (pictured) joined the discussion and treated participants to an incredible online performance.

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COLLEGE NEWS 05 TRINITY TODAY

Congratulations to our new Senior Student Oscar Hollands, who takes over the role from Morgan Galea.

Oscar says that he’d ‘never seen so many smiles per square inch’ when he joined Trinity in 2018 and felt immediately welcome. He now aims to ensure all of Trinity’s resident students feel the same warmth and collegiality, particularly in light of 2020’s oncampus disruption.

‘It’s through shared experiences that you really integrate, so my main goal as Senior Student will be to create as many shared experiences as possible, such as arts groups, bands, social events and other opportunities that let people find common interests and help them meet people outside of their spheres, particularly in terms of their physical buildings or their year levels.’

We offer many thanks to Morgan for his exceptional leadership in 2020 and for helping our students navigate one of the most challenging years in Trinity’s history.

Watch Oscar’s welcome video

THAT WAS

The Behan car park was upgraded and won the 2020 AILA Victoria Landscape Architecture Award for Cultural Heritage.

Our Foundation Studies students created a series of wellbeing videos to show support for one another in lockdown (while our staff delivered care packages to accommodation facilities), held an online media festival to showcase their creative works and showed off their best performances through an online lip sync battle. For the first time in Trinity’s history, we held virtual ceremonies for our graduating students.

Watch the lip sync battle

In February, accomplished researcher and writer Dr Scott Kirkland was named our Theological School’s inaugural John and Jeanne Stockdale Chair in Practical Theology and Ethics. The creation of the position was made possible thanks to a generous gift to the Theological School by the late John Stockdale.

Click to read more

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TRINITY TODAY 06 COLLEGE NEWS

We held virtual fireside chats with a range of speakers, including our 2020 Gourlay Visiting Professor of Ethics in Business, Professor Andrew Crane, of the University of Bath, who addressed the issue of modern slavery, and Professor Edward ‘Ned’ Foley (pictured), Ebersold Chair in Constitutional Law at Ohio State’s law school, who spoke about the US presidential election.

The Choir of Trinity College squeezed in a tour of Canada and the US from 29 January to 14 February before international borders closed, giving 14 performances in cities including Toronto, Boston, New York and Washington, DC. The choir also released a new album, Walking on Waves.

Watch our choir’s virtual performance of Ye Banks and Braes, recorded during Melbourne’s second lockdown

THE YEAR

Trinity celebrated International Women’s Day in March with a panel discussion about Indigenous women in leadership, which was moderated by Dr Shireen Morris (left). Panellists (L–R) Rona Glynn-McDonald, Associate Professor Sana Nakata, Dr Janine Mohamed and Belinda Duarte offered insights into some of the many areas in which inspiring Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women lead and better our society.

Our Theological School staff published a number of books, including The Ministry of Women in the New Testament: Reclaiming the Biblical Vision for Church Leadership by the Revd Canon Professor Dorothy Lee (for release in February 2021); God Has Chosen: The Doctrine of Election Through Christian History by the Revd Professor Mark Lindsay; and Epicureanism and the Gospel of John by the Revd Dr Fergus King.

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The site of our new campus at 611 Elizabeth Street officially broke ground on 10 February.

The planned multi-level building will be used by our Pathways School when we consolidate several of our smaller Carlton campuses into a comprehensive second campus. The development forms part of a new educational and biomedical precinct.

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COLLEGE NEWS 07 TRINITY TODAY

Our on-campus Residential College students held a Survivor contest, modelled on the TV show of the same name, which was filmed and streamed to students both on and off campus to maintain a sense of collegiality during the first Melbourne lockdown.

Other lockdown activities included morning fitness sessions on the Bul, a virtual Corri Feud (a Family Feud spin-off) and online mindfulness sessions. The Trinity versus St Hilda’s COVID Cup was also introduced, which involved socially distanced sports and cultural competitions.

In March, we welcomed Ulrike LinkWieczorek from the University of Oldenburg as our Theological School’s visiting professor.

Professor Link-Wieczorek’s visit aimed to help forge research connections and explore student exchange partnership opportunities between the University of Oldenburg Click to and Australian read more institutions.

Read about student Annabelle Stevens’ experience off campus during lockdown

THAT WAS

Residential College students hosted a number of fundraisers throughout the year, including a 50-kilometre charity run for multiple sclerosis research, a 24-hour piano-playing marathon by student Ian Coyukiat to raise money for Watch part of Ian’s the Australian Red Cross, and a 12-hour relay as part piano performance of Connor’s Run to support brain cancer research.

We got involved in Wear it Purple Day on 28 August to show our support for and acceptance of the LGBTQIA+ community. Trinity’s Gender and Sexuality Alliance organised some colourful cakes to Click to read more celebrate.

10 February marked the 150th anniversary of the laying of Trinity College’s foundation stone.

Learn how Trinity College came about

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TRINITY TODAY 08 BIG IDEAS

Writing the rule book Dr Brendan Murphy made some of the boldest public health decisions in Australia’s history during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Here he talks about gut instinct, overcoming shyness and souvlakifuelled study sessions.

Dr Brendan Murphy led Australia through the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic as Chief Medical Officer, before becoming Secretary of the Department of Health in July 2020.

BY E MILY McAU L IFFE

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n mid-January, Brendan Murphy (TC 1973) issued a media release stating that the Australian government was monitoring a novel coronavirus that had emerged in China’s Wuhan region. The statement assured there was ‘no cause for alarm’ for Australians, but Brendan – then the Chief Medical Officer, who was preparing to step into a new role as Department of Health secretary – was on high alert.

He had become aware of the virus on New Year’s Day and was tuned into early reports of human-to-human transmission in the weeks that followed. ‘That’s when we got really worried,’ he says.

At this point, the World Health Organisation had not issued a travel alert for China, least of all any suggestion of border closures, but key onlookers – Brendan included – were getting twitchy.

The virus had started to spread, and while the US planned, Australia acted, becoming the first nation to bring down the grill on arrivals from China.

Would it be the right move? Brendan wasn’t sure.

‘There wasn’t a rule book, so all we could do was look at the evidence,’ he says. ‘Every measure you take in a public health sense takes a couple of weeks to have an effect, so sometimes you have to read the tea leaves and follow your gut.’

The bold move – and the travel restrictions that ensued – proved to be the circuit breaker that shielded Australia

from a catastrophic first wave of a pandemic that would lead to a clamp on civil freedoms and push economies and health systems to the brink.

As the virus accelerated, and government controls were tightened, Brendan and his team nursed a heavy responsibility for the knock-on effects of their decisions. And it was the words of Brendan, delivered daily as the key spokesperson, that would seek to educate and comfort as Australian cities, airports and businesses were plunged into near dormancy.

Despite having their wings clipped and socialising curtailed, most Australians came to appreciate Brendan’s straight-talking yet sensitive delivery as they looked to the government for guidance. Some were learning for the first time that the role of Chief Medical Officer actually existed.

A self-described shy student, Brendan credits his Trinity years with building his confidence – putting him in good stead for roles such as Head of Nephrology at St Vincent’s Hospital and CEO of Austin Health, both in Victoria.

He was appointed Australia’s CMO in 2016, a position that demanded up to eight media appearances a day during the COVID-19 crisis.

Upon taking his first top-level leadership role at the Austin, Brendan admits to having felt like ‘a bit of a fraud’, leading 8500 people and managing a multi-million dollar budget with no formal management or finance training.

His post-college career ambition had been to work as an academic physician, which he did – becoming a nephrologist and researcher – before coming to the realisation that a typical 30-years-plus career in academia wasn’t his calling.

‘I had a big interest in health system reform and thought if I could go to the federal government as a senior political adviser, I could do a lot in workforce reform, Medicare reform, research reform and the like,’ says Brendan of his decision to take on the CMO role.

‘I thought I’d have a go.’

That ‘have-a-go’ attitude lingered from Brendan’s college days, where he joined the orchestra and squash team

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BIG IDEAS 09 TRINITY TODAY

EDUCATING THE NATION Australia’s Minister for Education talks about improving university access for rural students, offering free childcare in a pandemic and life on the farm.

BY E M ILY McAU L IFFE

WEDDING BELLS Brendan Murphy met his wife Sally Walker – a former student of Janet Clarke Hall who became ViceChancellor of Deakin University – on the Bulpadock and the couple were married in the Trinity College Chapel by Trinity’s fifth Warden, the Revd Dr Evan Burge, in 1979. The couple are shown here with Evan in the background and Brendan’s groomsman and ex-Trinity student Dr Stuart Anderson (TC 1973) on the right.

… and learnt to party. ‘I didn’t work terribly hard in those first few years, but I had a lot of fun.’ After two years living on campus and three years house sharing, Brendan returned to Trinity in his last year of medicine and bunkered down in Upper Bishops’ with plenty of coffee and 3am souvlakis to prepare for his final exams.

‘I didn’t participate as much in college life in that last year; I was almost catching up on those past years of study I should’ve done earlier.’

The crammed study paid off and led Brendan to a fulfilling career, so much so that he makes the enviable claim that he’s never not wanted to go to work. ‘I’ve had the huge privilege of enjoying every job I’ve ever done,’ he says. ‘Even as a junior doctor working 120-plus hours a week, I loved every minute of it. I think it’s helped that I’ve changed careers fairly dramatically on different occasions, but I’ve been incredibly fortunate. Not everyone gets to enjoy what they do every day.’ n

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t was something I was better able to do 30 years ago, but I think my back would get very sore even attempting to do it now,’ says Dan Tehan (TC 1987) of his sheep-shearing skills.

The federal Minister for Education had seriously considered becoming a farmer after growing up working on his family’s sheep and cattle farm in regional Victoria.

But Dan had also grown up with an insider’s view of politics, with his late mother Marie Tehan serving in the Victorian parliament from 1987 to 1999.

‘If you see politics that upfront and personal you can see the positives, but you do question why anyone would want to go into it,’ he says, admitting that volunteering in his mother’s office didn’t leave him with a burning desire to enter politics.

During his time at Trinity College and the University of Melbourne, Dan developed an interest in international relations and foreign policy. He subsequently worked as a diplomat before deciding that a career in parliament was worth pursuing.

Dan was elected to federal parliament in 2010 and was sworn in as Australia’s Minister for Education in 2018. He says his insights into different schooling systems has been immensely helpful in this role, having attended a Catholic primary school, public high school and independent boarding school. And the rounding experience of Trinity topped it off.

‘At the higher-education level, especially for students who are coming from regional and rural Australia, college life brings a wide array of

benefits,’ he says. ‘Anything that broadens your horizons, helps you to develop friendships, and gives you experiences that you would never otherwise have had is incredibly beneficial and Trinity does that within the bounds of a tight-knit community.’

However, Dan is aware that a fulfilling education isn’t accessible to all, so is pushing to break down the divide between rural and city kids. ‘Moving away [from a rural or remote area] to attend university comes at a cost, and often that is a strong determinant as to whether people will decide to go down the higher-education path or not,’ he says. ‘If we are to continue to grow and develop as a nation, then it’s absolutely vital that we break down that divide when it comes to accessing education.’

To this end, in 2020, Dan announced a $400 million investment in regional education to improve access to higher education for students living in rural and remote areas, in addition to a controversial university fee overhaul.

Dan also made one of Australia’s boldest policy moves by announcing free childcare during the COVID-19 pandemic. ‘They were exciting times, they were challenging times and they were a little bit nerve wracking as well, but ultimately it was something that worked for both parents and the sector itself,’ he says of the decision. ‘Looking back on my career, it will be a period that will be forever with me.’ n

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TRINITY TODAY 10 BIG IDEAS

(Re)discoverING the Common Good O P INIO N TH E R E V D CA N O N DR RO B E RT DE R R E NBAC KE R Dean and Frank Woods Associate Professor in New Testament, Trinity College Theological School

2020

saw many of us living under harsh lockdown restrictions, particularly those in Victoria, as we tried to combat the COVID-19 pandemic. It created tension between individual freedoms and community needs, and, to put it bluntly, between wealth and health.

The Victorian government marketed its restrictions under the banner, ‘Staying apart keeps us together’. Underlying the restrictions – the ‘staying apart’ – was a concern for the Common Good.

The principle of the Common Good essentially affirms that actions – whether in economics, politics or public health – are conducted with the ‘good’ of society in mind. It is a principle rooted in ancient Greek philosophy (Aristotle and Plato), and can be traced through the Western philosophical traditions established by Aquinas, Locke, Rousseau and others. But it is also rooted in the theological principle of the ‘Golden Rule’ (‘Do unto others as you would have them do to you’), which we see in a number of the world’s religions, including Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Sikhism, Hinduism and Buddhism. In Christianity, it is particularly seen in the command to ‘love your neighbour as yourself’, an obligation that stems from the Hebrew Bible, but is also found in the teachings of Jesus and in the writings of St Paul and St James in the New Testament.

As a society, 2020 has tested our ability to adhere to the Common Good principle, to ‘do unto others’, and to ‘love our neighbours as ourselves’, with myriad examples of selfishness and individualism – think of the panic-buying

and hoarding of toilet paper and other essentials, or the protests against mask-wearing.

But this year has presented opportunities and reminders to (re)discover a vision for the Common Good or, to put it more theologically, an opportunity to love our neighbours as ourselves, beyond ‘staying apart keeps us together’. Here are two examples.

First, during the COVID-19 pandemic, we witnessed a renewed call for racial justice. The Black Lives Matter movement has experienced a resurgence of sorts, starting with the tragic murder of George Floyd by police officers in the US city of Minneapolis in May. Protests spread globally, with many people speaking out for the first time against racial injustice and systemic racism. This movement became, and remains, an instance where we all have the opportunity to love our neighbours

as ourselves by standing against systemic racism and standing up with our Black and Indigenous fellowcitizens, who have experienced injustice and discrimination for far too long.

Second, we have been reminded of our need to safeguard the environment.

Lockdowns brought cleaner water to the canals of Venice and clearer air over the city of New Delhi. Our Earth became healthier as we consumed less. As a result, we are now able to see more clearly that the desecration of the environment is chiefly due to our own selfish consumption. The Christian environmental activist Bill McKibben puts it this way: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself. This always seemed like hard moral advice that very few of us were really able to follow.

But in recent times its meaning seems clearer. Loving mainly ourselves – which is the definition of the high consumer society we inhabit – means creating a world that stinks. It’s a world that is getting steadily hotter, where almost all of us feel increasingly economically insecure. Jesus had it figured out: it only works when we’re in it together.’

At some point, we, as a society, will return to a post-COVID normal. It is my hope and prayer that when we do, we will not lose that sense of the Common Good that we have been reminded of so acutely during this pandemic.

In particular, it is my hope that the (re)discovery of the need for racial justice and the concern for the environment will not be lost – two crucial movements rooted in the essence of the Common Good and the love of neighbour as oneself. n

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BIG IDEAS 11 TRINITY TODAY

C E L E B R A T I NG 30 Y E AR S O F F O UND A T I ON S T UD I E S Trinity College opened the doors to its international school in 1990 – and, it’s safe to say, we haven’t looked back.

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TRINITY TODAY 12 BIG IDEAS

It may not be so obvious now, but starting a Foundation Studies program in the 1990s to help international students transition into the Australian DENIS WHITE university system Setting FS up for success was a major risk PhD on moral responsibility, looking at r Denis White built a career the conditions under which it’s around strategic planning, and he for Trinity. It was appropriate to hold people morally thought he’d better start planning an untested model as soon as possible after being responsible, although he admits: ‘I’ve forgotten what I thought those appointed the second executive director in Australia and the of what was then known as the Trinity largely conditions were.’

He went on to teach politics at Education Centre (TEC) in 1990. big question was: Monash University and, in 1980, after a ‘The relationship with the university ‘two-minute interview’ with Malcolm was weak, our financial situation was would it work?

Fraser, became an adviser in the prime weak,’ he says of his early days in the

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Given the inherent risk involved, not everyone was on board with the idea.

However, after much negotiation and effort, Trinity College in 1990 welcomed an initial cohort of around 100 international students to what was then known as the Trinity Education Centre.

The College’s flagship Foundation Studies program has since grown to accommodate more than 1000 students per year, with young people from all over the world choosing to study at Trinity, where we help prepare them for a successful tertiary education at the University of Melbourne and a fulfilling career thereafter.

With 2020 marking the program’s 30th anniversary, we decided to compile 30 stories to celebrate the program’s history and, most importantly, its people.

Here’s a recap of the staff, student and alumni stories we’ve shared throughout the year.

For the full series, visit trinity.unimelb.edu.au/fs-30-years

role. ‘But we had a good program and some very good teachers. So rather than look back and fix what had gone wrong, I decided to start afresh.’

Denis travelled to Malaysia and Singapore in search of students, seeking to engage their minds to the opportunities Foundation Studies afforded, especially the ‘pot of gold at the end of the rainbow’ that was Melbourne University.

Denis also understood the critical importance of maintaining a strong relationship with the University, so ensured Trinity had a robust selection process, good teaching and engaging courses. ‘What a university wants is good students. And if we could deliver them, the university would like us. That was how it turned out.’

Success took time, with student numbers growing slowly. The watershed period was the mid-1990s when Melbourne University actively sought more international students, and Trinity was in the right place to deliver. The program grew exponentially from there.

Denis had forged a career in academia after completing a master’s degree on the philosophy of Edmund Burke and a

minister’s office, before ‘falling into’ the role of speechwriter. He eventually became director of Fraser’s office, which today would be titled chief of staff.

When the Coalition lost power in 1983, Denis returned to Monash but also set up a consultancy around the idea of strategic planning. ‘Strategies weren’t very popular at that time but I got interested in the question of why governments fail, and I thought it was because they weren’t very good at identifying key issues.’

It was while being in this mindset that he was attracted to an advertisement for TEC, especially given his insights into the sort of channels available to Asian students for studying in Australia, gained through his knowledge of the Colombo Plan acquired during his Fraser years.

When Denis left Trinity in 1998 after almost 10 years as executive director, Trinity’s Foundation Studies program was a recognised and respected international brand. Now, another 20-odd years later, Denis has written a book about his time at Trinity, provisionally titled The Magic of the Dream: A TEC Memoir, Read the full article 1988-1998.

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BIG IDEAS 13 TRINITY TODAY

TRANG DANG Awakening Vietnam’s sleep industry

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rang Dang (TCFS 2010) says that in her home country of Vietnam, sleep is almost considered a luxury. ‘We do not think about the quality of sleep we receive and how it can affect our life,’ she says.

Trang – a marathon runner – became tuned into the importance of a good mattress after injuring her back in 2017 and suddenly found sleep, or lack thereof, at the forefront of her mind.

‘Before that injury, I didn’t really care about mattresses or sleep products because I never really had a problem with sleep.’

The injury prompted her to launch Ru9 – The Sleep Company with co-

founder Vinh Nguyen. The company, which appeared on Vietnam’s version of Shark Tank, sells foam mattresses direct to consumers and educates people on the importance of sleep.

Trang says studying at Trinity equipped her with many of the analytical and problem-solving skills required to run a business. But more important than the subjects studied were the friendships she formed.

‘Some of my friends are still in Australia, while some have moved back to Singapore, Malaysia, China and Indonesia,’ she says. ‘We continue to help each other grow by sharing our expertise and giving each other advice.’

Read the full article

JED VAN DIN THANG Sparking change through self-belief

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ailing from Myanmar, Jed Van Din Thang (TCFS 2018, TC 2019) first moved to Australia with his family when his father was studying for a PhD in theology. He completed four years of school in Melbourne before returning to Myanmar, taking with him memories of an accommodating, friendly and multicultural city that he considered a second home. And so, when he was offered the opportunity to return to Melbourne and take part in Foundation Studies at Trinity many years later, he jumped at the chance.

Jed now lives on campus in Trinity’s Residential College and looks back fondly on his time in Foundation Studies – a formative period of making lifelong friendships and connections with people from around the globe.

During his Foundation Studies year, he got involved in the Young Christian Leadership Program, which seeks to create dialogue and understanding between Christian denominations, as well as the Pathways Liaison Committee, which aims to facilitate connections between Foundation Studies and Residential College students.

He went on to become publicity director for the University of Melbourne’s Myanmar Student Association and strengthened his Trinity connection by joining the Residential College community when he started university. In 2019, he claimed victory in one of Trinity’s

oldest and most-beloved traditions, Juttoddie.

For Jed, being the recipient of three scholarships – for both Trinity’s Foundation Studies and Residential College, as well as for the University of Melbourne – is a source of immense pride. Not only on a personal level, but also because he sees it as proof for those back home of what can be achieved through determination, hard work and self-belief.

‘I believe that anyone in this world can better themselves and can work to being in a better position than they are in, if they just have self-confidence and believe in their ability,’ he says. ‘I’m very proud to be able to show my people that we’re all created equally. It’s a great feeling to be able to take part in the dispelling of the notion that we are inferior.’

Read the full article

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TRINITY TODAY 14 BIG IDEAS

WAI HONG FONG Discovering a new way of selling

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mart but lazy’ is a label affixed to many a misunderstood teen, thought to be whiling away talent through sheer indolence. In the case of Wai Hong Fong (TCFS 2002), Singapore’s rote learning-based education system did little to inspire a brain that thrived on problem solving and big-picture thinking, so his parents suggested he move to Australia, which he did.

After graduating from Trinity College and Melbourne University, Wai Hong began working for his uncle, trying to sell gifts on eBay. This exercise tapped into Wai Hong’s obsessiveness (previously channelled into video games) as he focused on cracking algorithms to get search engines to prioritise his products. Within a couple of years, the business was turning over $5 million in revenue.

In search of new products to sell, Wai Hong came across a telescope supplier whom he helped become one of Australia’s

largest retailers of its kind both on and offline. ‘I figured out how to get the product in front of the right audience at scale and in a cost-effective way,’ he says.

Wai Hong later moved to China to study Mandarin and had a chance encounter with a lingerie retailer struggling with his computer system. Wai Hong investigated to find an outdated sales program, and few upgrade options on the market, so he decided to start his own online sales platform, StoreHub. Narrowing in on the frustration being experienced by many retailers, he came up with a product now used by 14,000 retailers in more than 15 countries.

Through seeking out a challenge, Wai Hong has proven to his former teachers that he’s far from lazy. And with a multimillion-dollar business to run, he’s certainly not bored either.

Read the full article

CÍNTIA CHEN Finding comfort in a challenge

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íntia Chen has moved around a lot. With ethnic ties to China, an upbringing in Brazil, her teenage years in Macao, and her university studies in Melbourne, she has been a part of multiple communities, cultures and international experiences.

Upon moving to Australia for Foundation Studies in 2009, she was determined to take advantage of the opportunities that college life offered but recalls feeling frustrated, going from a straight-A student in high school to struggling within a new academic milieu in her first year. It wasn’t easy, but she remembers making a conscious decision to step up. ‘Over the year, it became natural for me to look at a challenge and think, this is difficult – this means I must be learning something.’

Thanks to her tenacity and altered perspective, Cíntia went on to become one of the youngest managers in her community of practice and the first female consultant to be promoted to manager within her team at KPMG – one of the world’s biggest consulting companies, and chair of our Foundation Studies Alumni Advisory Committee (TFAN).

‘In the moment, when faced with challenges, it feels really hard. But I know that once I overcome them, Read the I will look back and realise that I have climbed a full article mountain.’

Adapted from stories by Jeremy Bourke (Denis White), Nicole Thomson-Pride (Trang Dang), Juliet Mentor (Jed Van Din Thang), Emily McAuliffe (Wai Hong Fong), Blanca Brew Ferrer (Cíntia Chen).

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BIG IDEAS 15 TRINITY TODAY

Completing the series

Click to view the full series

AMESH PERERA

CATHY SYMINGTON

BARRY TSE

BILL COWAN

CHENG TAN

JANE SYKES

JANUSZ SYSAK

KIM CRUICKSHANK

BARBARA TRAUER

ELSPETH JACK McCRACKEN-HEWSON MIGDALEK

JACK QIAN

MIN THANT AUNG

NANA TOMIHARA

NERALIE HOADLEY

PHOEBE ANG SI OON DON & ISAAC WONG MARKWELL

ROSEMARY BLIGHT

SAY CHIN LIM

SOON-TZU SPEECHLEY

STEFANIE GUNTARI

STEVEN NG

TONY BUZZARD

IRENE CHANDRA

YUCHEN WANG

VINCENT RAMOS

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TRINITY TODAY 16 BIG IDEAS

Everybody’s kicked a GOAL Actor, director, producer, comedian and screenwriter Rob Sitch has created some of Australia’s most loved and relatable characters as part of the Working Dog Productions team. And it’s all been a decades-long distraction from a medical career.

BY EM I LY McA U L I F F E

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BIG IDEAS 17 TRINITY TODAY

F

or many Australians, the ‘pool room’ is a symbolic repository of cherished objects, and to have a gift bequeathed to this room is a compliment of the highest order. If the gift stays in its packaging, even better.

Aussies were introduced to the pool room by way of The Castle – the 1997 film directed and co-written by Rob Sitch (TC 1980) that encapsulated the endearing narrative of a ‘typical’ Australian family, who had little but more than enough. It underscored a moment in time when rissoles were trendy and the Trading Post ruled (even if many of the goods it was flogging were overpriced), while highlighting the abiding principle that a home is more than a house.

Above all, it was a movie that intended to capture the precious moments in a child’s life before they discover their parents have flaws.

‘It was the realisation that a really fertile time for anecdotes came from around the age of 10 to 14,’ says Rob of the simple idea that led to the creation of what is one of the most iconic Australian films of all time.

Told through the eyes of Dale Kerrigan, played by a young Stephen Curry, the movie was inspired by the childhood memories of the Working Dog team – Rob and his wife Jane Kennedy, Tom Gleisner and Santo Cilauro.

‘The setting came from visiting my cousins who lived close to the house in the movie [next to Essendon Airport]. As an aviation buff, I genuinely thought they were the luckiest family in the world,’ says Rob, reflecting on the inner-thoughts of his 10-year-old self.

The fact that the private lexicon of the scriptwriters – also drawn from childhood – was suddenly inaugurated into the Australian vernacular upon The Castle’s release is something Rob says was one of the unexpected joys of the film. (Most Australians have noted the serenity of their surrounds at least once in their life.)

‘The only line I was certain would catch on was “It’s the vibe”,’ says Rob. ‘It seems such a silly way to decide constitutional law, but I’ll bet when those justices get to the end of their deliberations and still can’t decide, “the vibe” can’t be far away.’

The first draft of the film’s script was written in two weeks (‘though we’re famous re-drafters,’ says Rob); filming took even less time. ▶

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TRINITY TODAY 18 BIG IDEAS

‘The week before we had a full readthrough with the cast and it was close to the most enjoyable 90 minutes I’ve experienced, so we went in thinking there might be a chance for [the film] to do something. Not a lot, mind you, just something.’

The film indeed became ‘something’ – grossing more than $10 million at the Australian box office (against a $750,000 budget) and rooting itself in Australian cinema history.

Tailing The Castle for the Working Dog team was The Dish, which tells the story of the role played by the Parkes (NSW) radio telescope in broadcasting man’s first steps on the moon. 2020 celebrates the 20th anniversary of the film’s release.

‘The Dish was completely different,’ says Rob, who directed both films. ‘We were tossing around ideas and Tom Gleisner said, “Do you know about Australia’s involvement in the Apollo 11 mission?” How that disappeared from our consciousness is amazing. It was on the front pages of the newspapers at the time.’ The Dish went on to become another top-grossing Australian film, with actor Sam Neill playing the lead as Cliff Buxton. The real-life ‘dish’ was put on the National Heritage List in August 2020.

Despite Working Dog’s film successes, the group’s beginnings are in television and, for Rob, his theatrical antics started midway through his studies at Melbourne University when

THE CASTLE’S MOST QUOTABLE QUOTES • Tell him he’s dreamin’ • How’s the serenity?

• This is going straight to the pool room • Suffer in your jocks • What do you call this?

• It’s the vibe • Looks like everybody’s kicked a goal • It’s not a house; it’s a home

he and a group of students toured a revue around Australia. Their satirical sketches caught the attention of the ABC, which commissioned them for the D Generation series, so Rob completed his medical degree and internship while juggling a budding television career.

Rob had always found study to get in the way of more enjoyable things – not least a TV series, but also activities including plays and sports at Trinity. ‘The only obstacle for me [at college] was the medical curriculum, which I found relentless,’ he says. So, after struggling to strike a balance between medicine and acting, Rob took a year off to pursue the latter upon completion of his medical internship. But one year kept rolling into the next and, at last count, 33 years had passed.

‘The really big pivot in most of our lives was The Late Show,’ says Rob, referring to the ABC series screened between 1992–93, which toyed with fake news long before Trump was elected US president. The Late Show preceded Frontline and The Panel in the 1990s, with Frontline picking up a Logie in 1998 for ‘most outstanding series’ and ‘most outstanding achievement in comedy’.

The Working Dog team went on to create the hapless Russell Coight for his all-Aussie adventures, impromptu skits with some of the nation’s best comedians via Thank God You’re Here, and the ‘Nation Building Authority’ in Logiewinning Utopia, in which Rob oversees the equivocal decision-making of federal bureaucrats as lead character Tony Woodford. In 2020, the group’s comedic news-recap show Have You Been Paying Attention entered its eighth series.

‘Self-importance is extremely amusing for some reason,’ says Rob, of his long-time angling towards political satire. ‘Whether it’s TV or politics or the professions … there’s a lot of pretending at the top.’ And deciding what exactly to poke fun at comes down to a shared consensus among his team. ‘When an idea gets lobbed up and there’s any level of disinterest … goodnight!’ he says of Working Dog’s secret to success. At a higher level though, Rob admits the team’s comedy leanings are hard to pin down, because sometimes logic and reason are hard to define.

Sometimes, it’s just … the vibe. n

FROM TOP: Rob in Frontline; Sam Neill, Kevin Harrington and the late Tom Long in The Dish; on the set of The Panel; Rob as Tony Woodford in Utopia.

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BIG IDEAS 19 TRINITY TODAY

READY TO LAUNCH

It’s been 50 years since the first Australianbuilt satellite took flight. And two Trinity College students were behind its creation.

BY E MILY McAU L IFFE

I

Australis, soon to become Australis OSCAR 5 once in orbit, sits in the Delta rocket waiting for the early morning launch.

n 1967, Steve Howard (TC 1965) sat at his desk in Upper Clarke’s and reached for the soldering iron he’d ordered by air mail. In quiet concentration, he fused wires to connectors, assembling a series of little boxes to create a larger one. One of the smaller pieces was stuffed with a scrap of Trinity notepaper – put there by fellow Trinitarian Owen Mace (TC 1965), who had earlier been tasked with ensuring the box’s contents didn’t vibrate when shaken.

Steve’s corridor companions took little interest in the contraption sitting on his desk. To the untrained eye, it looked like an innocuous box devoid of remarkable features. That ‘box’, however, was destined for great things – it was the first Australian-built satellite, and it would one day be launched into space.

For engineering students Steve and Owen, building a satellite had become an all-consuming side project after they joined the Melbourne University Astronautical Society in 1965. One of the society’s chief ‘space nerds’ had made the lofty proposition that the group build a satellite. It was uncharted territory for Australia, but the fact that this particular student was studying law and not engineering infused the project with optimal parts conviction and naiveté.

His engineering contemporaries, while slightly more attuned to the complexities of such a feat, had youthful enthusiasm on their side and, backed by fond childhood memories of Sputnik, the project was deemed a goer. ▶

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TRINITY TODAY 20 BIG IDEAS

Though the concept was bold, it wasn’t the group’s first experience with satellites, given they had been listening to American weather satellites through self-made radios for some time and were adept at researching, recording and printing transmitted images – providing a valuable service to the Bureau of Meteorology before the bureau invested in its own equipment.

(The high-tech action took place in an unused heating duct in Melbourne University’s physics building, with an antenna affixed to the walls of the lift well.) So, really, making a satellite seemed like a logical next step.

Young and naïve didn’t mean witless, for the group was acutely aware that there was little point building a satellite if there was no plan to launch it. So, there was a plan – they’d reach out to the Americans.

In October 1965, the group penned a letter to Californian radio group Project OSCAR, which had successfully built and launched satellites through the US Air Force. In crude summation, the request was along the lines of: ‘Hello, we are a group of students from the University of Melbourne and we plan to build a satellite. Would you help us launch it?’

To which they received a reply some weeks later: ‘Yes’.

‘It was a very simple, innocent world in those days,’ says Steve. ‘The modernday complications like insurance and legal liability just didn’t exist.’

With a launch plan in place, it was time to create. The satellite – which would go on to be known as Australis OSCAR 5 (or AO5 for short) – was resourcefully cobbled together with donated parts, with the shortfall covered

by what was considered a hefty sum of $1400, bestowed by the Wireless Institute of Australia. ‘We were students,’ says Owen pragmatically, evoking the threadbare lifestyle of an undergraduate.

As materials were collated and designs were drawn, Owen assumed the role of project manager while Steve got to work on the orientation and stabilisation system, coming up with a novel solution that drew on the Earth’s magnetic field. Dozens of others touched the project during its various stages as it was polished to completion.

After an 18-month build, the big question was whether the thing would

work. For a group of space fanatics, presenting a technical failure to the US Air Force would be like tripping in the final straight of the 400 metres at the Olympics. Much of the satellite’s effectiveness hung on untested technology, and in the pre-Google era, the group had relied on a lean collection of not particularly useful library books to guide their project, along with a good dose of lateral thinking.

Steve was quietly confident though.

He’d run the sums and studied the theories and, while admitting that their collective understanding of such theories was primitive, concluded that the satellite’s systems would work.

When the moment of truth came, he was right, though that moment would take a while to arrive.

LEFT: Dr Owen Mace and Steve Howard at the University of Melbourne in February 2020, celebrating the 50th anniversary of their satellite’s launch.

TOP RIGHT: Australis in its shipping container.

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BIG IDEAS 21 TRINITY TODAY

THE DELIVERY

The next step post-completion was getting the satellite to America. ‘We thought, wouldn’t it be fun to deliver this ourselves?’ says Owen. So – as nearbroke uni students – they approached the newly founded Potter Foundation for help, and the resultant donation made the trip possible for Owen and two other group members. In June 1967, their precious cargo was bundled onto a plane bound for California.

Upon arrival, the students had anticipated that their satellite would be tacked onto a US Air Force launch facilitated by Project OSCAR, but the Americans had a change of mind. ‘If you think about it, this was a foreign satellite built by a bunch of students, planned to go on a highly classified launch,’ says Owen. Though it sounds preposterous that this would have even been considered, the possibility wasn’t

completely out of line – even given the prevailing disquiet over the Cold and Vietnam wars. ‘[While in America] we were taken into a room where someone was winding a big fibreglass tube,’ recalls Owen. ‘I said, “Oh, that looks interesting, what is that”?’ It was a Polaris intercontinental ballistic missile. ‘Can you imagine that?!

If that’s not classified beyond top secret and then some...,’ he trails off, still perplexed and impressed by the trusting nature of the Americans at that time.

This disappointing false start saw the satellite shelved in a garage, but in 1969 a newly founded group of amateur radio operators in Washington called AMSAT (shorthand for ‘amateur satellite’) heard of the dormant Melbourne-made satellite and made plans to launch it.

Despite their ‘amateur’ badge, AMSAT had a direct line to NASA – and when you know the right people, things get done. On 24 January 1970, Australis hitched a ride on a NASA rocket – the first amateur-built satellite to do so – and triumphantly found its rightful place in space.

AO5 began transmitting signals to thousands of amateur radio operators around the world, and delighted members of the Melbourne University Astronautical Society tracked the satellite’s first orbit from the roof of the physics building.

The satellite continued to send signals in the ensuing weeks, proving the effectiveness of a string of innovative systems, from telemetry to command to orientation. ‘We didn’t intend to do any ‘firsts’,’ says Owen. ‘We just did

stuff that we thought would be fun and interesting.’

Now, every night around 9.30 Melbourne time, Australis OSCAR 5 passes overhead. While some may classify the now-inoperative satellite as space junk, its eternal orbit serves as a reminder that ignorance and enthusiasm can be invaluable on the journey to discovery and success. And for Owen and Steve, that little piece of Trinity notepaper gives a clue as to where the journey started.

Owen Mace and Richard Tonkin (a.k.a. the law student) published Australis OSCAR 5 in 2017 to document their story, with a second edition released in 2020 as part of the 50th anniversary celebrations. Visit atfpress.com

MAIN: Steve Howard points an antenna towards a satellite on the roof of the Old Physics (Natural Philosophy) building.

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TRINITY TODAY 22 BIG IDEAS

Comedian Ronny Chieng has gone from Foundation Studies student to international superstar, and he isn’t afraid to shine a light on the issues that unite and divide us.

ALL IN THIS

together

BY E M ILY McAU LI F F E

W

e’re all stupid and none of us are more or less stupid than the rest. This blunt premise underscores much of Ronny Chieng’s (TCFS 2004) comedic material as he strips away ethnicity and class to tune audiences into the ridiculousness of human behaviour.

From a laundry list of oddities, the Melbourne University law graduate turned stand-up comedian and actor has called out the idiocy of those who complain that Facebook steals data they willingly hand over, has targeted the ‘hypocrisy’ of Texas’s state motto of ‘friendship’ (which he deems to be 180 degrees offmessage), and has even suggested a peaceful future for ISIS shouldn’t be discounted given Japan’s successful pivot from war crimes to Pokémon.

As a Chinese Malaysian, Ronny routinely plays the Asian card in his sets, but isn’t reticent in dragging his own race into the ring to spotlight the absurdities of the Chinese – conceding that stereotypes hinged on bad driving, online censorship and obsessions with wealth are fair game.

The concept of universal stupidity formed the cornerstone of his 2017 sitcom Ronny Chieng: International Student, filmed at Melbourne University and Trinity College, which mirrors his own experience studying law and commerce in the early 2000s. During his studies, he deduced that the Asian minority wasn’t made up of helpless victims, nor were local students remorseless bullies – rather, ‘everyone was equally dumb’. But in some ways, it seemed natural: ‘it’s because we were all just kids’.

Ronny says the experience of attending Trinity and the University, in itself, felt like the making of a series, which put him in good stead when it came to writing the show. ‘Going [to Trinity] felt like going to school on a TV show,’ he says. ‘We were on this beautiful campus and were essentially alone, because our parents weren’t around. Everyone – me included – suddenly had to make adult decisions, even though we weren’t really ready to make any decisions.’ ▶

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BIG IDEAS 23 TRINITY TODAY

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TRINITY TODAY 24 BIG IDEAS

For Ronny, this newfound freedom was a lot of fun, but he doesn’t recall being particularly funny – even though his ability to crack jokes would eventually outrank his ability to interpret the law. A winning routine at a Melbourne University comedy competition in 2009 flicked the indicator that would eventually lead him down an unexpected career path, and though Ronny was admitted as an Australian lawyer and officer of the Supreme Court of Victoria in 2012, being named best newcomer at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival in the same year signalled the start of a serious stand-up career.

Ronny credits his Trinity drama classes for helping get him out of his comfort zone on stage, and memories of certain Melbourne Law School students for providing method acting-style fodder in his role as status-obsessed Eddie Cheng in the Hollywood blockbuster Crazy Rich Asians. ‘I knew the character well – I feel like I went to uni with some of those [crazy rich Asians],’ he quips.

This plum silver screen role in 2018 was yet another professional coup for Ronny, who three years earlier had secured a coveted correspondent’s gig on America’s Daily Show in New York City. The late-night talk show dissects world events and interrogates what host Trevor Noah describes as ‘American stupidity’. (This eye-to-eye world view makes it easy to understand why Ronny is returning to the Daily Show for a sixth year). In his role, Ronny has interviewed the likes of Bill Gates (about toilets, no less) and famously mowed down Fox News presenter Jesse Watters for a racist Chinatown segment that portrayed elderly Chinese people as having no political opinion and which

24

misappropriated Japanese, Korean and Chinese cultural references.

Though he regularly makes light of Asian stereotypes and turned to comedy the idea of ‘token Asians’ in his International Student series, Ronny is firm in calling out entrenched racial bias that throws equality off balance, particularly in his familiar storytelling sphere. ‘I feel like television in Australia has a real problem with not putting people [from minorities] in positions where they can make decisions,’ he says. ‘You can talk about all the diversity you want and all the quotas, but if people aren’t empowered it just becomes tokenism. It becomes, “Oh, we have a gay Asian person or an Indigenous person here, so we’re not the problem”. You can pat yourself on the back for putting minorities in some of your stuff but, in my experience, if they’re not empowered [to tell stories], it means very little.’

W

hile he believes society is becoming increasingly aware of racism and inequality, Ronny notes that understanding is easy to say, but difficult to know. ‘It’s fair to say things are changing – credit where credit’s due,’ he adds. ‘A lot of people are working very hard to change things.’

Despite being outspoken on matters of race, when asked whether he sees himself as an influential public figure, Ronny responds matter-of-factly. ‘No. I don’t think anyone is listening to me about anything. I just want to tell interesting stories and funny jokes, and if they happen to touch upon [stereotypes and race], then I won’t be afraid to talk about it, but I won’t say those things for the sake of it. I only bring things up if I

feel there’s something interesting to say that hasn’t been said before.’

Ronny’s ability to glean new angles and see things for what they are – perhaps shaped with the help of his law degree – coupled with his signature deadpan delivery, is arguably the very thing that has made him so successful, with routinely sold-out shows suggesting people do care to listen to him. And despite a sharp, unvarnished on-stage persona, which is known to creep into his personal life (in his Netflix special Asian Comedian Destroys America, Ronny says his wife accuses him of ‘always sounding sarcastic or angry’) – he comes across as polite and down to earth, viewing his career with pragmatism and humility.

‘I assumed I’d have to go back [to law] right up until I got the job at the Daily Show,’ he says. ‘In my head, I thought, there’s no way I can keep doing [comedy] forever. It was only after I got that role that I thought, oh, you can actually do this full-time.’

Alongside Daily Show host Noah – a Black South African raised under apartheid – Ronny told the Washington Post that he doesn’t know any other show that has as much of a genuinely diverse cast giving their opinions straight to camera. And although world news reports can deliver edifying new truths through a different lens, when the details are finally unpicked and the day’s events hung out to dry, what generally emerges is that we’re all just as stupid as one another. n In 2020, Ronny was in Australia filming Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, a superhero film based on the Marvel comic character of the same name, due for release in 2021.

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BIG IDEAS 25 TRINITY TODAY

TAKING IT TO THE STREETS

A second-year science student has eyes on becoming a doctor, but it’s a love of design and desire to give back that really makes her heart race.

‘I

wanted to make clothes while doing something good for the world,’ says Sophia Gawan-Taylor (TC 2019) of her clothing brand Pulse Streetwear. Set up with her brother Johan, the label uses profits from T-shirt sales to donate to charity.

The T-shirts’ signature heart motif was designed by Sophia and honours the siblings’ founding charity of choice, the National Heart Foundation. ‘Our friend’s father passed away from a heart attack, so it’s quite personal to us,’ says Sophia. ‘We wanted to fund research and paramedics working in cardiac health.’

Responding to the needs of the

TOP: Trinity College students modelling for Pulse Streetwear.

LEFT: Sophia Gawan-Taylor

times however, Sophia and her brother this year have directed their profits to Filipino workers displaced as a result of COVID-19. While Sophia manages sales in Australia, Johan, who is currently based in the Philippines, helps coordinate with food banks to gather provisions for those out of work. ‘It’s been received really well, and I’ve been so happy seeing how we’ve helped people,’ says Sophia.

Asked about her motivation to give back, Sophia offers a thoughtful yet

humble response. ‘I feel like I’ve been very lucky in life. It’s almost like I’m too lucky to be here, living at such a beautiful college and studying at the University of Melbourne – one of the best universities in Australia. I feel so grateful that I’ve been given an opportunity to study, educate myself and meet new people, and I want to do something with that to help others.’ n Support Sophia and Johan’s project at pulsestreetwear.com

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TRINITY TODAY 26 BIG IDEAS

LEADING There is growing awareness and recognition of Australia’s First Nations cultures and history, and the associated power imbalances that have shaped Australian society.

Meet some of the people driving important conversations and actions to produce real change for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

PICTURE: DAN AVILA

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BIG IDEAS 27 TRINITY TODAY

CHANGE PICTURE: CHRIS HOPKINS

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TRINITY TODAY 28 BIG IDEAS

Ethan Taylor is a man on the move and it seems only a matter of time before we see his name on political ballot papers.

BY M ARK DAFFE Y

I

t’s safe to assume that anyone who publicly declares their ambition to one day become prime minister of Australia must possess a healthy dose of self-belief. When that person is still a teenager, it’s easy to be dismissive – until you learn what they’ve achieved already.

Ethan Taylor (TC 2018) was just 18 years old when, in 2017, he announced on ABC Radio his intention to one day run for PM. Three years on, however, even that exalted pinnacle might not satisfy the Warumungu man’s lofty aspirations.

‘I’d love to be Australia’s first Aboriginal president,’ he says from his temporary base in Alice Springs, where he spent a month working on the 2020 Northern Territory election.

Ethan is nothing if not driven, with a track record that backs it up. At high school in Geraldton, Western Australia, his peers recognised his leadership credentials when they elected him head prefect. Then, halfway through Year 12 and disillusioned with the formulaic approach to achieving an ATAR, he skipped the remaining two terms and went straight on to tertiary studies in Canberra, enrolling in online science, maths and arts subjects through Open Universities Australia.

Ethan was raised as a Warumungu boy, and says that ‘as an Aboriginal person, you are politicised from day one; you’re born into it’.

‘Tell someone you’re Indigenous and it’s 50-50 as to whether you’ll then talk about normal things or whether they’ll have some kind of opinion [about us].’

But rather than shy away from his heritage, Ethan has always embraced it. In 2019, he joined Culture Is Life to help prevent Indigenous youth suicide through mental health initiatives.

Earlier, he founded the Union of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Students (UATSIS), which saw him travel around the country lobbying for a better go for Indigenous students in tertiary education.

‘It was about making sure there’s

space for Indigenous students in our universities, so we get the same opportunities,’ he says. ‘Part of that is making sure that academics and university staff aren’t racist, and part of that is making sure that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander knowledge is understood and respected.’

After excelling in his studies in Canberra, Ethan was accepted into Melbourne University in February 2017.

For the first 12 months, he boarded at Whitley College, before shifting to Trinity at the start of his second year.

It was there that Ethan felt like he’d found his place. ‘I haven’t come across another college that’s so firm on its values of students being able to access

education equally and fairly,’ he says.

‘Trinity takes its students’ wellbeing seriously. It’s also the only college to have a full-time Indigenous liaison officer, which is so good when you want to have a rant with someone after a class.’

On a broader level, perhaps Trinity subtly sang to his political aspirations, given the College has produced three Victorian state premiers and numerous state and federal government ministers.

After briefly contemplating studying law, a Trinity counsellor steered Ethan towards the arts. He majored in philosophy with a focus on political theory and ethics, preparing a road back to Canberra.

For now, however, he’s building his skillset in a communications role at Seed, an Aboriginal climate justice network that is a thorn in the side of the mining industry.

Ethan’s role is focused on the Northern Territory; in particular, on scrutinising Origin Energy’s efforts to harvest coal seam gas through fracking on land where the traditional owners haven’t given their consent.

Ethan spends much of his time researching and sharing ideas, all aimed at creating a better life for – and understanding of – Indigenous people.

He lists Aboriginal self-determination as his main priority.

‘It starts with trust,’ he explains.

‘There are a lot of government investment projects that insist on codesign. But co-design is flawed, because it’s still two people with their hand on the wheel trying to steer it in different directions. It should be: what do you need?’

Listening to Ethan, you sense his frustration at having to deal with governments that value economic prosperity ahead of wellbeing. He’d prefer that Aboriginal communities be able to set their own economic agendas.

Mistakes will be made, he admits, but that shouldn’t stop the process.

‘Economics is all about having people’s needs met,’ he says. ‘Some of the communities around Tennant Creek – Warumungu country – look like a slice of Brunswick in the desert.

‘The architecture and the services provided don’t fit the climate and I don’t think anyone’s asked the traditional owners how much productivity or how many jobs they think they need in their towns to provide food. None of that makes sense.’

‘Change is slow,’ he adds. ‘But being a part of that is what matters.’

And the future? What does that hold?

‘I want to live a life in service, making sure my people have what we need,’ he says.

Sounds presidential, don’t you think?

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BIG IDEAS 29 TRINITY TODAY

Associate Professor Sana Nakata, Associate Dean, Indigenous at Melbourne University’s Faculty of Arts and a member of the Trinity College Board, wants to tip the power dynamic to create a more equitable Australia.

BY EMILY McAU L IFFE

W

hen Sana Nakata joined Trinity as one of the College’s first Indigenous students in 2001 (alongside Lilly Brophy), she felt immense responsibility for ensuring she would not be the last. Her attendance was only made possible through a scholarship and she sensed that many of the other students came to university with a freedom and lightness to explore and have fun, while she needed to maintain focus to keep her place.

‘There was a huge sense of what was at stake, of something much bigger than me,’ she remembers. The bigger picture was that Sana and Lilly would pave the way for other First Nations students to become Trinitarians and pursue a tertiary education.

For Sana, higher education was always a given. In 1997, her father became the first Torres Strait Islander to receive a PhD, and from as early as primary school, she knew she wanted to become a lawyer.

Through growing up in the ’90s, Sana was hyper-aware of the power of the law and the way it was being used

by Indigenous people to elicit change, stating that the work around land rights and the Mabo decision – along with the ensuing backlash – was a very present part of her childhood.

But that wasn’t the only reason she wanted to study law. ‘I probably did a law degree because I was hoping to get rich,’ she smiles, before adding more seriously: ‘There was a material aspiration and ambition that went with wanting to go to university and seeing how that kind of qualification could put you in a financially secure and comfortable position – something I could only imagine.’

Upon completing her law degree at Melbourne University, Sana had the sense that she was ‘going to be okay’.

And because she was okay, she could really think about how to spend her time and energy.

Throughout her studies, Sana took an interest in public law, feeling drawn

to high-level perspectives and social justice. ‘I wanted to understand how the law operated as a power that structures human beings’ lives,’ she says. ‘I took a politics major alongside my law degree and [studying] politics was where I found a way to think about power.’

One of the final subjects of Sana’s undergraduate degree was about children’s rights and the law, which she credits for sending her down a research path as she sought to understand the dynamics between politics and the law, and the meaning of human rights from the perspective of children and their relationships to adults.

Her research started broadly with a PhD about childhood in Western

enlightenment thought, but her Islander background was ever present.

Through ongoing research, Sana uncovered the troubling reality that nonWestern children in Australia are seen as being at odds with Western ideals of adulthood.

‘We’re governing children towards a particular endpoint. We call it “growing up”, but what we’re really doing is directing children towards becoming a liberal, rational, mature, autonomous person who thinks, performs and understands their relationship to the world in a particular way … The history of [modern] Australia is really a history of Indigenous children being governed and

educated towards becoming white people.

‘When it comes to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children, and those from other non-Western backgrounds, all the assumptions about how that child is embedded as kin and in broader relationships to family and country are misunderstood in the first place.’

Sana says matter of fact that justice will never be possible in Australia, because justice can’t be found on stolen land. ‘Even the idea that we can reconcile harms of the past – as though those harms are not ongoing – I don’t think that’s possible,’ she says.

‘The legitimacy of legal and political power on this continent is questionable and will always be questionable. The second-order questions are not about reconciliation or meeting halfway, or the kinds of compromises or negotiations that take place, but are really about how power can be redistributed.’

To this end, Sana views the proposals for ‘voice, treaty and truth’ in the Uluru Statement from the Heart as a substantive means of structural reform that can help reallocate this power. ‘Constitutionally enshrining the right of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to monitor the use of the parliament’s law-making power over us has immense transformative potential – not least, in the possibility of strengthening the terms of negotiation and enforceability for future treaties,’ she says.

Rather than having Australians feeling guilty and overwhelmed, she encourages people of all colours and ethnicities to start by thinking about whose land they live and work on and to consider what dispossession and social structures made it possible.

‘It’s not about producing better knowledge about who Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander peoples are – we’re not here to be studied. It’s about understanding how knowledge about Indigenous peoples has been produced and the power dynamic that made it possible. And the way forward is disrupting that dynamic.’

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TRINITY TODAY 30 BIG IDEAS

Indigenous students at Trinity College have got the ball rolling on an important conversation about Indigenous experiences and perspectives.

BY JAKE KE ANE

D

uring her second year at Trinity College, Nyamal and Jaru woman Jordan Holloway-Clarke (TC 2018) began talking with other students about ways to improve the educational environment for Indigenous students, including ways to support staff and non-Indigenous students in becoming more culturally aware and informed on Indigenous perspectives and experiences.

From these discussions a common theme emerged – the need to create safe spaces for Indigenous students to talk openly about issues affecting them, and for non-Indigenous students to ask questions, learn and reflect on their knowledge of Indigenous cultures and perspectives.

With this in mind, the group decided to produce a video to be posted on the Trinity College Facebook page where students could ask questions and have them answered by Indigenous students.

‘The concept grew from wanting to create a platform for students to ask questions they might not necessarily know how to Google, or about issues they might not have the time to read a whole book about, so it was providing some easy, quick education,’ explains Jordan.

The high levels of engagement the post achieved, as well as the number of questions posed, validated the impact that these forms of studentled activities can have when it comes to addressing cultural education gaps, overcoming misconceptions and developing impactful dialogues

between Indigenous and nonIndigenous Australians.

‘At the moment, especially with the Black Lives Matter movement, there’s a lot of interest in people educating themselves and understanding unconscious bias and prejudice,’ Jordan adds. ‘But I think a lot of people are still struggling with where to find information.’

Titled You Can Ask That, the format for the video was inspired by the ABC series You Can’t Ask That, which is based on guests responding to awkward and controversial publicly sourced questions.

‘We created the video in an

anonymous Google format and invited students to ask whatever they wanted.

Some people get really worried and don’t ask questions because they’re afraid they’re going to say something wrong, and that stops the conversation from progressing,’ says Jordan.

Born in Darwin, Jordan has cultural links with the Kimberley and Pilbara regions of north-west Australia. She began her arts degree at Melbourne University in 2018, majoring in sociology and Indigenous studies.

Jordan hopes the momentum generated by the video post will continue through the involvement and energy of other Indigenous students at Trinity, leading to more educational activities and the strengthening of Indigenous student networks within the College.

‘We had lots of messages of support related to the video and lots of views, which was really pleasing,’ says Jordan, who believes things are moving in a positive direction in relation to social justice issues impacting Indigenous Australians, albeit slowly.

‘Lots of people haven’t quite linked the US and Australia, which are quite similar in a lot of ways when it comes to race and social justice issues … It was an interesting time to be able to spotlight those issues. I think it’s caused a lot of people to look at things differently and to reflect.

‘My hope is that we can continue this momentum so that, in the future, other students can find it easier to hold these types of events and activities that bring us together and get people having important conversations.’

NEW STUDENT COMMITTEE You Can Ask That was an initiative of Trinity College’s inaugural First Nations committee, which Jordan helped establish and headed up as president in 2020.

The committee has been liaising with N’arweet Dr Carolyn Briggs AM – a Boon Wurrung Elder who works closely with Trinity College students and staff –

to come up with a language name for the committee, to be officially announced in 2021. Following the success of You Can Ask That, the committee is planning a range of other initiatives to help celebrate and share Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture within the Trinity College community.

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BIG IDEAS 31 TRINITY TODAY

This artwork forms part of Trinity’s new branding suite, designed by proud Yorta Yorta and Gunnai man Dixon Patten. It pays respect to local customary designs representing Bouverie Creek – a subterranean watercourse that runs from Princes Park, underneath Trinity College, to Bouverie Street.

Other members of the Trinity College community helping to promote change

Professor Marcia Langton AO

Rona Glynn-McDonald

Robert Lean

Dr Shireen Morris

Marcia is a Trinity College Fellow and was named an Officer of the Order of Australia this year in recognition of her advocacy for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and her contribution to tertiary education. Since 2000, Marcia has held the Foundation Chair of Australian Indigenous Studies at Melbourne University and is influential in the fields of anthropology, Indigenous agreements and engagement with the minerals industry, and Indigenous culture.

Rona (TC 2014) is a social changemaker, drawing attention to First Nations peoples and the importance of sharing and celebrating their culture, knowledge and stories. She is founder of the Aboriginal-led organisation Common Ground, and a director at YLab. Rona also works with First Nations communities to create systems in Australia that highlight the value of Indigenous Australians to broader society. In 2020, she was named Trinity College’s Bill Cowan Alum of the Year.

Robert (TC 2012) is a 2020 John Monash Scholar.

He is studying a Master of Entrepreneurship and has an interest in social enterprises and leveraging business to achieve social change. Through his studies, Robert aims to help run high-impact, highgrowth social initiatives that address Australia’s structural inequalities, with a particular focus on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander rights.

Shireen is a constitutional lawyer, an Academic Fellow at Trinity College, and a Senior Lecturer at Macquarie University Law School. She has worked in the area of Indigenous constitutional recognition for almost a decade, and was previously the McKenzie Postdoctoral Fellow at Melbourne Law School. Her PhD thesis presented the argument that First Nations peoples should have a voice in our country’s constitution.

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TRINITY TODAY 32 BIG IDEAS

Saving the world, one toilet joke at a For many, the pandemic spelled disaster, but for Who Gives a Crap CEO Simon Griffiths, COVID-19 sent his profits soaring. And in Simon’s case, more profit equals more toilets.

BY E M ILY McAU L IFFE

A

t just 27 – not an age in the high-risk demographic for deep-vein thrombosis – Simon Griffiths’ doctor thought it unusual that an otherwise healthy young man had presented with concerns about DVT, citing pain in his calves and quads.

Though the medical assessment cleared Simon (TC 2001) of the condition he feared, the quad pangs signalled nerve damage (which would linger for another three years) and proved that the entrepreneur had literally suffered for his cause.

Sitting on a toilet for 50 hours in an attempt to raise $50,000 will do that.

While painful, and at times hallucinatory, Simon’s bold crowdfunding stunt was successful, and he and his two co-founders of Who Gives a Crap – a toilet paper company that donates 50 per cent of its profits to charity – almost doubled their fundraising target, clocking in at $93,000.

It was 2012 – a time when crowdfunding was novel and ‘going viral’ had only recently been facilitated

by Facebook’s new share function.

It was also a time when social entrepreneurship was an unfamiliar concept, and Who Gives a Crap was about to become a global leader in showing how benevolence and aid could be remodelled.

‘The philanthropy market is relatively fixed in terms of its size,’ says Simon.

‘I could see that organisations were essentially competing against each other for a fixed pool of funds. They were celebrating when they won – not realising they had taken funding away from three or five other organisations competing for the same money.’

That’s where one of the most popular fast-moving consumer goods came into the equation: toilet paper. A good decade before hoarding toilet paper became a national obsession, Simon walked into the bathroom, saw a six-pack of loo paper and thought, I should start a company called Who Gives a Crap and use half the funds to help build toilets in developing countries. It was that easy.

Well, sort of.

While the idea and ensuing success of Who Gives a Crap came quickly (a projected three-month supply sold out in just five days following its initial production run, with the company making $8.3 million worth of donations since), like many entrepreneurs, Simon’s success grew from failure.

In 2007, he had founded the online fundraising platform Ripple with Jehan Ratnatunga (who would go on to co-found Who Gives a Crap) and fellow Trinity alum Matthew Tilleard.

Ripple enjoyed some early success but soon proved unsustainable. Next came Shebeen, a bar that donated 100 per cent of its profits. Simon’s hard lessons ▶

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BIG IDEAS 33 TRINITY TODAY

time

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TRINITY TODAY 34 BIG IDEAS

Amid the great toilet paper apocalypse of 2020, Who Gives a Crap saw an 1100 per cent increase in demand, at one stage selling almost 30 rolls of toilet paper per second. As a result, the company made a $5.85 million donation to their partner NGOs for the 2019-20 financial year.

Simon in Timor-Leste, visiting one of WaterAid’s projects in the field.

from the now-defunct CBD hangout were that: one, there’s no equity in a non-profit to help the business grow; two, hospitality is tough, even if you are in it for profit; and three, setting up a bar next to the East Melbourne police station’s sleeping quarters was not a good idea.

The Shebeen experience amounted to what Simon describes as a ‘three-year, very expensive MBA’, but learning from its failure, he, Jehan and third Who Gives a Crap co-founder Danny Alexander steered clear of the not-for-profit model.

‘We believed we could grow [Who Gives a Crap] twice as fast by re-investing our profits and getting the [staff] incentives working,’ says Simon. ‘If you can grow the business twice as fast, you can have the same impact donating half the profits.’

However, the business’s master plan extends past the profiting power of Who Gives a Crap. The aim is to light the path for other businesses, which can help tackle issues beyond sanitation. ‘There are a lot of social problems that need to be resolved, so if we’re going to have the most impact, we can show that business models like ours achieve social impact at scale as well as financial returns at scale,’ says Simon. ‘The best thing we can do is to prove we can make a profit,

because that’s ultimately how we’ll get more people coming into the sector and having a crack at some of the other social problems that exist.’

S

imon’s philanthropic bent stems from his travels to south-east Asia, Central America and Africa during his university years, where he went in search of cheap holiday destinations and started doing development work.

His entrepreneurial spirit on the other hand manifested in childhood. ‘I was the kid that looked after people’s cats when they went away for pocket money,’ says Simon. His schoolboy hustling levelled up when he made and sold sand boards to friends so they could surf the dunes in his home state of WA. During a post-school gap year, Simon taught himself how to code and used his freelance web development funds to put himself through university, while a Trinity scholarship gave him access to a collegiate education. This he relished, getting involved in athletics, football, hockey, swimming and the TCAC,

alongside his role as Music Society treasurer and coordinator of events such as Clean Up Australia day and Shave for a Cure.

Simon found he liked doing a lot of things but working for someone else on problems he didn’t care about wasn’t one of them. ‘When you did well at university, you got funnelled into a corporate job and there wasn’t another pathway that was seen to be viable,’ he says, reflecting on his brief foray into the corporate world. ‘I always saw [my development work] as a hobby until I started to think about doing something other than management consulting, and thought my fascination with the developing world could be turned into a viable career.’

And a viable career he now has. Through Who Gives a Crap, Simon transformed one of the least-sexy household items into something fun and desirable through the use of playful colours, poignant storytelling and plenty of toilet humour, finding the sweet spot between commercial success and social responsibility. As for sitting on the throne for 50 hours to get there, Simon says: ‘I’d never do it again, but it was the right thing to do.’ n

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BIG IDEAS 35 TRINITY TODAY

Amplifying Refugee Voices Born stateless, Jeanine Hourani is inspiring others through the power of storytelling.

Hear more of Jeanine’s story

BY JOC E LYN PR I DE

J

eanine Hourani (TC 2013) believes in luck, even though luck hasn’t always been on her side. ‘I often joke that there are lots of other things I would’ve loved to inherit other than statelessness, but it’s the luck of the draw and you just have to make the best of whatever you get,’ she says with a light-upany-room smile. ‘You don’t decide the country you’re born into.’

It’s this glass half-full outlook that’s at the core of the can-do attitude Jeanine exudes in her work with refugees.

Born in 1994, in Bahrain, Jeanine became the third generation of her family to endure statelessness. ‘My grandfather was displaced from Palestine and walked to Syria where he lived in a refugee camp. My dad was born in the camp,’ she says.

Although Jeanine’s mother is Lebanese, at the time it wasn’t possible for a Lebanese passport to follow through the maternal line, so her family migrated to Australia in 1997 under the skilled worker points scheme.

Jeanine was naturalised in 2000, and after completing a few years in primary school, she and her family went back to Bahrain, then to the UAE where she finished secondary school.

‘It was at this point my parents wanted me to return to Australia to attend a college. I didn’t even know what a college was,’ Jeanine admits.

However, something in the back of her mind triggered a memory. ‘The previous year, one of my Melbourne friends posted on social media that they were going to Trinity College. So, in a way, it was just luck I ended up somewhere that was a perfect fit for me.’

From the get-go, Jeanine embraced the community feel of Trinity. ‘In my first year, I started volunteer tutoring and by third year I was elected community representative on the TCAC.’ While studying for an honours degree in biomedicine, Jeanine immersed herself in community projects at Trinity; the more she became involved, the more it reaffirmed her career trajectory into the non-profit sector.

It was then that a moment shared with a college friend narrowed Jeanine’s focus even further – it was the moment when she disclosed her background for the first time.

‘One day, I was walking around Princes Park with a Trinity friend and I told her how I came to Australia and became an Australian. She stopped in her tracks. I could see the impact the story had on her – I was humanising a refugee experience.’

This moment formed the premise for Jeanine to approach the grassroots, non-profit organisation Road to Refuge in 2016 with an idea for a project. ‘I wanted other young refugees to have the opportunity to tell their story on their own terms and in their own words.’

Fittingly, her project was titled

‘In My Own Words’ and is now the flagship program of Road to Refuge where, through a series of workshops, participants develop the skills to be able to express their story. ‘We’ve had participants feature in movies and others have had their stories and poetry published. If we keep doing this in media outlets, art galleries and film festivals, they end up having a collective impact.’

Since developing In My Own Words, Jeanine has gone on to become the director of Road to Refuge. Although she feels there’s a long way to go in changing public perceptions and challenging preconceived notions and negative rhetoric, Jeanine believes the program is gaining traction through understanding and diversity of experiences.

‘If everyone hears a story like mine, it decreases the stigma around refugees and people seeking asylum.

I wish I’d seen refugee stories on film screens or in books when I was growing up. It takes a story to displace a story.’ n In 2020, Jeanine helped Road to Refuge launch a new project, ‘Shifting the Story’, to encourage refugees to tell stories of how they’ve been impacted by the pandemic.

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TRINITY TODAY 36 BIG IDEAS

Don’t drink the water The Tom Lehrer song Pollution is one of the first songs the founder of Clean Air in London remembers. The lyrics are etched into Simon Birkett’s memory, perhaps subconsciously driving him on his chosen career path.

BY K ATE EL I X

A

fter supporting a local traffic campaign in London in the early 2000s, Simon Birkett (TC 1978) decided to start campaigning on something he felt even more strongly about – air pollution.

In 2005, Simon says there was no one campaigning assertively for clean air in the smoggy UK capital, so he wrote letters to the Lord Mayor of London and the European Commissioner for the Environment. It was bold for someone with very little experience in the field.

But it paid off.

‘What was surprising was that because I was operating in a vacuum, whenever I asked people to do things, they just said, “Yes”.’

The encouragement he received

was all the motivation Simon needed to press ahead. He created the Clean Air in London campaign, aiming to meet World Health Organisation (WHO) air quality guidelines across London (and elsewhere) by building public understanding of the issues and enforcing air quality laws.

Investigating the extent of London deaths from air pollution led to the discovery of shocking statistics that helped Simon’s campaign gain traction.

He questioned then Lord Mayor Ken Livingstone’s assertion that 1031 Londoners died each year as a result of air pollution, and after pushing the government for answers, found the number of estimated annual deaths, in fact, to be more than 4000.

‘I put in a letter to one of the parliamentary select committees saying

that the government had covered up or failed to publish this estimate for the number of deaths from long-term exposure to air pollution,’ he says.

‘And it turned out I was right.

The government was forced to start publishing this number. Asking for the calculations and reports led to the discovery of some fairly extraordinary things.’

Among the many accolades bestowed upon the environmental activist was the label ‘force of nature’ by London’s Evening Standard, with Simon included among the newspaper’s ‘Progress 1000’ list of the most influential people in London every year from 2014 to 2019. But he feels the policy changes his campaign has prompted are more important than awards.

This includes influencing the

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BIG IDEAS 37 TRINITY TODAY

and don’t breathe the air

environmental agenda across Europe.

After the European Parliament, Council of Ministers and European Commission failed to agree on air quality legislation in the mid-2000s, Simon wrote to the European Commissioner for the Environment encouraging him to take the most ambitious position among the three groups. He did, and the legislation was enacted throughout Europe in 2008.

‘I felt I was playing a real part in that, and that was very exciting.’

Between 2015 and 2019, Simon assisted the United Nations as the only air pollution stakeholder on the UN Environment Program’s HighLevel Intergovernmental and Stakeholder Advisory Group, which was steering work on the UN’s most comprehensive report yet on the global environment.

S

pending weekends and holidays on a five-acre plot on the Mornington Peninsula in Victoria, Simon says his love of the environment began at a young age – he was attuned to all things nature and spent many hours building dams and playing in treehouses.

Following his father’s death in 1972, he moved to his mother’s homeland, the UK, returning to Australia to attend university five years later.

‘My first experiences of what I would call real critical thinking happened in Melbourne,’ says Simon, who completed a civil engineering degree while living at Trinity College, where he met some of his best friends to this day.

After graduating from Melbourne University with first-class honours, Simon was hired as the only graduate

engineer with Consolidated Gold Fields Australia in 1982. He was concerned by evidence of poor environmental standards set by the company in Tasmania, and says he felt sympathy for the protesters he encountered there.

The job wasn’t meant to be, so he returned to London, completed an MBA at London Business School and began work in the financial services industry, where that early taste of activism set him on a fulfilling career path.

His hope now is that others, particularly young people, will stand up for their beliefs, just as he did. ‘I really think that we need young people today to shake things up because we can’t just let older people like myself, or anyone else, just gently ride off into the sunset.’ n

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TRINITY TODAY 38 BIG IDEAS

Conservation quest

Our very own ‘jungle doctor’ is on a mission to protect the world’s threatened wildlife, while helping our own fragile ecosystem too.

BY L A UR A WATE R S

O

n a tiny speck of land in the South Pacific, 11-year-old Chloe Buiting (née Breakwell, TC 2010) marvelled at the abundant and unspoilt natural beauty of her home. Lord Howe Island has been described by David Attenborough as ‘so extraordinary it is almost unbelievable’,

and after spending two years there as a child, Chloe vowed she would do whatever she could to conserve the animals and environment of such special places.

Many years later, a meeting with Professor Ken Hinchcliff – the Warden of Trinity College and then Dean of the Faculty of Veterinary and Agricultural Sciences at the University of Melbourne – set her on the path to becoming a veterinarian and conservationist. ‘He really made time for me and answered all my questions,’ she says. ‘I’m forever grateful.’ It was just a taste of the mentorship and camaraderie she would later cherish during her time at Trinity.

‘I was inspired by my fellow students.

All of us had big aspirations, and even

though we were on different paths, we shared ideas and goals.’

Vet school saw Chloe posted in wildlife hospitals around Australia and New Zealand before she ventured further afield; in Africa, she learnt skills such as darting animals from helicopters and transporting them safely. The goal was to protect them from poaching, trafficking and habitat loss. However, Chloe recognised there were challenges. ‘I suspected local Masai communities had a lot of people like me telling them how important it was to coexist with animals rather than kill or poach them, but many of them hadn’t had the privilege of actually seeing them. I set up student safaris, taking students from remote rural

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BIG IDEAS 39 TRINITY TODAY

Chloe taking a break from Australia’s bushfire response with Indy the wombat (far left); a wild lioness in southern Zimbabwe gets a check-up (centre); and meeting a rescue elephant in Chiang Mai, Thailand (below).

schools into a national park to hopefully form a connection with the animals. I believe [the students] should be afforded the same opportunities we are, since they’re the ones who are ultimately going to be responsible for ongoing conservation.’

Chloe’s energy and passion is evident as she rattles off project after project.

Additional to her wildlife work is her involvement with Loop Abroad, in which she leads vet students from around the world to see wildlife conservation in action. ‘I did a few of these trips myself as an undergrad and they had a lasting impact on me. It’s a privilege to meet students in the early stages of their career and talk to them about what their path might look like, what their

dreams and aspirations are, and to show them why I believe conservation is so important.’

On this, she adds: ‘We should all be focused on conservation because we are ultimately dependent on the health of the ecosystem. Species are going extinct at 1000 times the natural extinction rate and this really impacts the fragile web.

If one element of the chain collapses, others are left far more vulnerable.

Climate change, habitat destruction and the illegal wildlife trade are all accelerating the process.’

Chloe has put her money where her mouth is, setting up a scholarship to help wildlife organisations in need. ‘A small amount of money can go a long way in developing countries which

are trying to do their best with limited resources.’

For now, she’s based on South Australia’s Kangaroo Island, working to rehabilitate wildlife injured in the bushfires while spreading her conservation message via her website jungledoctor.org and the Instagram account @jungle_doctor. In March 2021, her book, Becoming a Jungle Doctor, will be published.

‘Support ecotourism, become an informed shopper, donate to organisations on the frontline, use your own platform to spread the message,’ she urges. ‘It doesn’t matter who you are, where you come from or how old you are, when it comes to conservation, you can make a difference.’ n

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TRINITY TODAY 40 BIG IDEAS

A vision for change Frank Billson AO built a legendary reputation for patient care in a career dedicated to the alleviation of suffering.

BY A N A B EL DEAN

F

or a man regarded as one of the most significant figures to emerge in the field of ophthalmology over the last century, there has been a lifetime of recognition.

Professor Frank Billson’s (TC 1954) achievement awards are almost too numerous to recall, but ask him about the key details, and he cuts straight to the heart of the matter.

‘The patient is everything,’ he says.

‘In 50 years of medicine, I have never forgotten the person behind the disease.’

Frank’s first salutary lesson at the University of Melbourne – having been awarded a Commonwealth scholarship – was personal and enduring. He was struck down by a mysterious illness in his second year as a medical student and the idea of a lengthy hospitalisation was profoundly disturbing.

‘Before the diagnosis, I wanted to know what was going on,’ he recalls.

‘The doctor was looking at X-rays in my bedroom and saying, “This is a time for contemplation: have you ever read the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire?”

I just thought, what the hell is he talking about? He should have said: “I’ve got bad news for you: you’ve tested positive for tuberculosis. It could go either way.

You’ll be in bed for months”.’

Frank’s experience helped him recognise doctors who had empathy as opposed to those who were interested only in the clinical diagnosis.

He completed his medical degree in 1958, five years after being discharged from the sanatorium, and having had half a lung removed.

‘My time at Trinity College was a tremendous exercise in maturation from adolescence,’ he says. ‘I enjoyed the wonderful intellect of colleagues who, ultimately, went on to be significant in other disciplines.’

His focus changed while undertaking neurology training in the Alfred Hospital’s eye department where he developed a keen interest in neuro-ophthalmology.

‘I was excited by the potential of eye surgery to directly improve quality of life,’ he says. ‘Patients could see again with cataracts removed and it was wonderful to be able to contribute to a diagnosis or sight-saving surgery.’

There was, at that time, a four-year waiting list to train in ophthalmology in Australia so Frank moved to Leeds in England to begin his training. He returned to Australia in 1966 to work as a researcher in Melbourne University’s Department of Ophthalmology and as an ophthalmic surgeon at the Alfred Hospital. Soon, he was head of paediatric ophthalmology at the Royal Children’s Hospital, working as a neonatal ophthalmologist at Mercy Maternity Hospital and the Royal Women’s Hospital.

‘There’s a special place in my heart for children and one must never underestimate a child’s ability to understand,’ he says.

Frank moved to Sydney to become Foundation Professor of Clinical

Ophthalmology at the University of Sydney in 1977, where he established a training program in ophthalmology with posts in every state of Australia and the Torres Strait Islands.

His skills as clinician and researcher improved the lives of, quite literally, thousands of people. He spent close to 25 years with the neonatal health team at the Eye Hospital and Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in Sydney having pioneered in-ward (rather than postdischarge) screening to prevent blindness in premature babies.

In 1978, he co-founded Foresight Australia, a not-for-profit organisation committed to the prevention and cure of blindness, which enables local doctors to develop skills in cataract surgery and other procedures across the Asia Pacific region.

Later, he established the Sight for Life Foundation, which supports Sydney Eye Hospital’s registrar training program by providing access to facilities and experienced teachers free of charge.

Frank was made chair of the World Health Organisation’s Vision 2020 taskforce, which aimed to eliminate preventable blindness in children – ‘an overall success’ – following the discovery of the role of vitamin A deficiency and supplemental oxygen in the development of preventable blindness in premature babies.

‘People don’t achieve things alone,’ Frank concludes with characteristic humility, reflecting on his career success.

‘They achieve as part of a team.’ n

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BIG IDEAS 41 TRINITY TODAY

Risky business pays off From Senior Student to entrepreneur, Amelia Jones pushes through barriers to get on with the job.

BY DANI EL L E N O RTON

A

melia Jones (TC 1992) laughs when asked about her career journey.

‘I really don’t feel like I’ve achieved anything of substantial value yet,’ she says, despite being at the forefront of technology initiatives since the 1990s, building and running the hugely successful adventure experiences website Adrenaline and now sitting on the board of her cryptocurrency company CryptoStar Corp.

In fact, Amelia has achieved a great deal. After leaving Trinity and completing the last six months of her degree at King’s College (London), she worked in e-commerce before returning to Melbourne for a role in e-business strategy at top-tier professional services firm PwC. Although Amelia had broken gender barriers during her time at Trinity (in 1995, she became one of the first women to be elected as Senior Student, and had been appointed TCAC treasurer the previous year), she eventually hit the proverbial glass ceiling at PwC. This prompted her to pursue a career in media strategy at ID Media.

In 2001, Amelia and her business partner, now-husband David Jellins, were invited to meet with BHP to discuss the live streaming of the company’s annual meeting to shareholders. This marked the beginning of STREAMX, catapulting Amelia and David to the forefront of streaming media.

‘I threw every dollar I had into it,’ she says. ‘I’ve never been risk averse. My attitude was, “If it all goes wrong, I’ve got nothing to lose; I’ll just start again. I’ve still got my skills”.’

Amelia focused on the sales side of the business and learnt on the fly. ‘We didn’t know what we were doing as the technology was brand new,’ she says,

‘but we worked it out.’ The company was such a success that it soon counted over half of Australia’s top 200 public companies as clients, streaming results announcements, AGMs and even the Melbourne Cup. STREAMX was ultimately sold to Thomson Financial Services in 2004 and, after a period of consultancy, Amelia started looking for a new challenge.

The couple set up Trackcorp, running drive days for motorsport enthusiasts and corporate clients on racetracks around the country. Soon, they partnered with adventure experience company Adrenaline to sell experiences online, such as rides in a Porsche with champion driver Jim Richards.

When Adrenaline went into voluntary administration in 2008, Amelia and David decided to buy it.

The couple had some experience with online marketing, so David was certain they could grow the online booking and gifting company. Amelia schooled herself in all areas of marketing and, together with David, steadily grew the business, eventually turning over more than $30 million a year. They launched the Adrenaline business in the US, and ultimately sold the Australian company to their biggest competitor.

In 2017, cryptocurrency became a topic of interest for Amelia and she and David began investing in cryptocurrency mining operations. Their next company, CryptoStar, was born. The future of money is clear, according to Amelia, and it won’t be cash. She notes that cryptocurrency isn’t controlled by any one government, so if governments fail, investors will be safe.

Following her impressive business achievements, Amelia is now intent on having a positive impact on the world. She has the skills and corporate contacts to effect change and wants to use them. Concerned about how the environment has been pillaged, she says: ‘I really need to shift my focus to doing something that will set the next generation up.’ On a micro level, she has started by removing plastic from her home, as well as assisting her children’s schools, but she knows more action is needed nationally. If Amelia’s track record is anything to go by, it’s almost certain her next big idea will hit the macro level in no time. n

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TRINITY TODAY 42 GALLERIES

DRINKS UNDER THE OAK

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Dick Sutcliffe, Nick Freeman, Taffy Jones, John Freeman, John Royle

Jono Gourlay, Emma Harrison, Andrew Gourlay, Louise Gourlay, Will Gourlay

Rick Tudor, Margie Moroney

The Committee of the Union of the Fleur-de-Lys

Ken Hinchcliff with Alum of the Year Rona Glynn-McDonald and Bill Cowan

Eliza Chomley, Kirsty Thatcher

Lara McKay, Jane Freemantle, Anni Grimwade, Tim Roberts, Mary Paul, William Edwards

Alicia Brown, Tim Roberts

Campbell Horsfall, Susan Burgess, Robert Dawson, Anita Muller, Michael Shand, Claire Miller

BALNHDHURR EXHIBITION OPENING

Ben Thomas, Ken Hinchcliff, Ruby Alderton, Annie Studd, Denise Salvestro

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Alexandra Grimwade

Yirrkala art displayed in Trinity College’s Gateway Building

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GALLERIES 43 TRINITY TODAY

P100 OPENING

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Bruce Sutherland

Charles Abbott, Taffy Jones

Janelle Chaptini, Archbishop Philip Freier, Marcia Langton, Tamm Kingi

Leonie Jongenelis, Dan Tehan, Ken Hinchcliff, Archbishop Philip Freier, Kellie Hunter

Scott Charles, Susie King, Dan Tehan

Dan Tehan, Ken Hinchcliff, Melbourne University Provost Prof Mark Considine and Trinity students

The completed building

Kath Murray, Jim McCluskey

Carol Smallwood , Scott Charles

INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY BREAKFAST

Anna Foley, Amber Kristof, Jackson Kristof, Georgie Mason

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Josh Copeland, Jasmine Dennison, Bridget Lieberman, Anne McAlister

For the first time, we held our Archbishop’s Dinner and Cordner Oration breakfast virtually, featuring speaker Prof Geoffrey Blainey.

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TRINITY TODAY 44 OBITUARIES

WILLIAM BARRETT (BARRY) CAPP AM

12 July 1933 – 5 August 2020

(TC 1952)

A “kind, gentle and generous man”, Barry Capp joined Trinity in 1952, studying engineering and winning the Alcock Scholarship. He represented the College in football, athletics and rowing and played for the University Blacks. Barry was an emergency member of the winning Melbourne rowing crew at the Australian University Championships at Murray Bridge, South Australia, in 1952. He served as Trinity’s outdoor representative on the TCAC in 1954 and was Captain of Boats in 1955. He graduated with a Bachelor of Civil Engineering and Bachelor of Commerce and, later, a Bachelor of Arts. He married Margot Lethlean, née Greening, in 1983.

Acknowledged as a “corporate doctor”, Barry served on the boards of a number of leading listed companies in Australia and New Zealand. He was chairman of National Foods and Exicom, and a director of Ariadne Australia, the Australian Infrastructure Fund, Freight Rail Corporation, Hawthorn International Education, Melbourne University Private, Touchcorp and Westpac.

He was also a director of the Australian Industry Development Corporation. In the community, Barry was a member of the board of the Brotherhood of St Laurence, chairman of the William Buckland Foundation, a council member of Philanthropy Australia and was on the board of the Geelong Community Foundation.

Barry was made a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) in 2012 for “service to business and to the community through a range of philanthropic, social welfare and educational organisations”.

Barry served as the second chairman of the Board of Trinity College from 1997 to 2004. He was made a Fellow of the College in 2002 and a Senior Fellow in May 2020. In 2005, Barry and Margot endowed a scholarship, at the time anonymously, for a talented all-rounder, preferably from a rural background, studying medicine.

Barry died peacefully in St John’s intensive care unit, with Mozart playing in the background. His son Peter described him as “empathetic, patient, devoted and fun, an inspiring role model with strong social values and moral compass, and a trusted and caring counsel”. At Trinity, he displayed all these qualities to the full.

WILLIAM (JOHN) DOUGLAS STOCKDALE

12 October 1924 – 29 August 2020

The Reverend John Stockdale trained at Moore College, Sydney, taking the Licentiate in Theology. He was ordained deacon by Archbishop Booth in Melbourne in 1951 and, following a curacy at the Melbourne Diocesan Centre, ordained priest in 1952, alongside Angus Cooper, Stan Moss and David Warner. In 1953, John was sent back to Wilcannia in the Diocese of Riverina, NSW, where he oversaw a very large parish.

CLIVE (ROGER) HELE BROOKES (TC 1953)

26 September 1929 – 25 July 2020

Roger entered Trinity in 1953 as a third-year commerce student. He was the great-grandson of Alfred Deakin through his daughter Ivy, who married Herbert Brookes (TC 1888), and the son of industrialist Sir Wilfred Brookes (TC 1925). In an interview in 1990, Roger cited the fond recollections of college life of his grandfather, who said it was about mixing and living with people who brought different perspectives, and the networks it provided which underpinned a successful business career thereafter.

Herbert and Ivy were significant donors to the University of Melbourne, and Roger continued this tradition.

On graduation, Roger worked briefly for Dunlop before going to help on a family sheep station in central Queensland. He then bought a share in a property near Glenrowan in central Victoria, but suffered considerably from the dust and soon returned to Melbourne to work in accounts for Colonial Gas and then Alcoa (1973 to 1985).

During a long history of philanthropic giving, Roger aligned himself most closely with cultural organisations, including the National Gallery of Victoria and State Library of Victoria, and, due to obvious family connections, Deakin University. In 2006, he established the annual Brookes Oration at the Deakin Business School to “encourage thoughtful debate about the contribution of corporate Australia to the global community”. He created the Sir Wilfred Brookes Charitable Trust in 2007 and, in 2020, founded the Brookes Cultural Heritage Scholarship in the Faculty of Arts and Education at Deakin to support research in cultural heritage and museum studies.

In retirement, Roger renewed his interests in medieval history – his adopted name comes from Sir Roger de la Hele (c.1285–c.1340) of Devon – and music. From 2000, he was closely associated with the Australian Tennis Museum at Kooyong, with purchase of the club’s Glenferrie Road site in 1919 having been promoted by his great-uncle Norman Brookes, Australia’s first Wimbledon champion. Roger was a significant donor to Trinity, giving to music, art and chaplaincy funds, as well as to buildings. The Brookes Tutorial Room in the Gateway Building perpetuates his memory within the College.

He served there for eight years, working closely with the Bush Church Aid Society.

In 1962, John was called as Assistant Priest to Holy Trinity, Doncaster, serving there until 1969. He was also Victorian Secretary of the Bush Church Aid Society until 1969, when he was appointed vicar of Holy Trinity, Thornbury, beginning a near 20-year ministry there. During that time, he was an industrial chaplain to APM and the Herald and Weekly Times, under the leadership of the Revd Laurie Styles of the InterChurch Trade and Industry Mission. John remained at the Herald until 1995. From 2005, he served at Box Hill, assisting there in his retirement.

John married Jeanne Graham in 1953. Jeanne was involved with the Girls’ Friendly Society, serving on the board

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OBITUARIES 45 TRINITY TODAY

CHARLES (IAN) EDWARD DONALDSON (TC 1954)

6 May 1935 – 18 March 2020

Ian Donaldson was secretary of the TCAC in 1956 and Senior Student in 1957, the year he won the Leeper Scripture Prize and graduated Bachelor of Arts (Hons) in English literature. He then went to Oxford where he took a Bachelor and Master of Arts. Ian was tutorial Fellow in English at Wadham College and chair of the Oxford English Faculty for a year before his return to Australia in 1969. In 1974, while Professor of English at the ANU, he became the founding director of the new Humanities Research Centre (HRC), building it to international prominence. Ian returned to the UK in 1991 as Regius Professor of Rhetoric and English Literature at the University of Edinburgh and then, from 1995, Grace I Professor of English at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of King’s College. Between 2004 and 2007, he was back in Canberra as director of the HRC. In retirement, Ian was Honorary Professorial Fellow at the University of Melbourne.

Regarded as “perhaps the finest scholar of Ben Jonson the world has ever seen”, he published The World Upside-Down: Comedy From Jonson to Fielding (1970), Ben Jonson: Poems (1975), The Rapes of Lucretia: A Myth and its Transformations (1982), Ben Jonson (1985), Jonson’s Magic Houses: Essays in Interpretation (1997), and the widely praised Ben Jonson: A Life (2011). He was also a general editor of the seven-volume Cambridge Edition of the Works of Ben Jonson (2012). He was made a fellow of the British Academy and the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and was a fellow and past president of the Australian Academy of the Humanities, for whom he produced several influential reports on the place of philanthropy in the humanities and the revitalisation of languages in Australia’s universities.

In 2012, Ian was inducted as a Fellow of Trinity College. In his later years, he assisted in investigating the Shakespeare ‘Second Folio’ held in the Trinity College library. He married Tamsin Procter in 1962, having two children, Benjamin and Sadie. He is survived by them and by his second wife, Grazia Gunn, whom he married in 1991. Australian author Peter Robb once said that Ian was “a scholar and a gentleman, maybe one of the last, and it is almost certain that we shall not look upon his like again”.

VALETE We are saddened to acknowledge the passing of the following alumni and friends of Trinity College.

Dr Michael Stewart Armstrong (TC 1979) Richard (Lawrence) Baillieu (TC 1953) Laurie Edward Baragwanath (TC 1943) Charles Frederick Bowers (TC 1958) Dr Kenneth Stewart Brearley (TC non-res 1948) Clive Hele (Roger) Brookes (TC 1953) William Barrett (Barry) Capp AM (TC 1952) Emeritus Prof Lauchlan Chipman (TC 1969, Res Tutor) Peter Ronald Arthur Cohen (TC non-res 1963) Geoffrey Michael Collins (TC 1971) The Revd Andrew Philip Covington (TCTS 1984) Dr Robert Arrol Craig (TC non-res 1945) Dr Edwin Sydney (Syd) Crawcour AO (TC 1946) Robin Fehon Cuming (TC 1953) Malcolm James Cumming (TC 1952) The Hon Frederick George Davey (TC 1957) Geoffrey Adrian O’Dell Davies (TC 1950) Dr Arthur Joseph Day AM (TC 1952) Emeritus Prof Charles (Ian) Edward Donaldson (TC 1954) The Revd Donald Haslam Edgar OAM (TCTS 1959) Frank Albert Esler Smith (TC 1971) Dr Peter Stewart Everist (TC 1965) John Hume Alymer Floyd (TC non-res 1939) Dr Ian Floyd Grant (TC 1978) Dr Robert Leck Grant (TC 1952) The Very Revd Arthur John Grimshaw (TCTS 1951) Ralph Fletcher Jones (TC 1945) The Hon Chester Stewart Keon-Cohen AM (TC 1960) David John Kent (TC 1948, Res Tutor, College Organist) Andrew Brabazon Lockwood (TC 1953) Prof Ian Reay Mackay AM (TC non-res 1940) Prof Donald John MacDougall (TC non-res 1953) Peter Richard Mitchell AM (TC 1956) Dr Stewart Geoffrey Moroney (TC 1967) Askin Wanliss Morrison (TC 1950) Ene Reade (Non-Res Tutor)

of its hostel in North Melbourne, Edith Head Hall, for more than 30 years. Jeanne died in 2011. The Stockdales had no children of their own and John also outlived his three siblings – all younger – Owen, Beatrice and Eileen. He died at Faversham House, Canterbury, aged 95.

In 2018, John approached Trinity about endowing a lectureship at the Theological School. Before his death, he made the first of expected annual donations to create the John and Jeanne Stockdale Chair in Practical Theology and Ethics, strengthening the Theological School’s ability to offer a full and broad curriculum. Trinity College is deeply grateful for John’s generous vision for excellent and comprehensive theological education.

COMPILED BY DR PETER CAMPBELL

The Revd William Alexander (Alec) Reid (TCTS 1946) Dr James Dudley Rose (TC non-res 1960) Maxwell Herbert Charles Schultz (TC 1951) David Kenwyn Sholl (TC 1952) Henry Leopold Speagle OAM (TC 1946) Robert Kellar Todd AM (TC 1951) Wayne Edward Walker (TC 1973) Dr Dudley Frank Walton (TC non-res 1945) The Revd Jo-Anne Marie Wells (TCTS 1997) Desmond Alan Wenzel (TC non-res 1942) Frederick George Wilesmith (TCTS 2008) Lindsay Helen Woods (TCTS 2010)

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TRINITY TODAY 46 HONOURS

ALUMNI OF THE YEAR 2020 We were once again pleased to announce our alumni of the year in recognition of their achievements in 2019.

BILL COWAN ALUM OF THE YEAR (RESIDENTIAL COLLEGE)

FS ALUM OF THE YEAR (FOUNDATION STUDIES)

RONA GLYNN-McDONALD (TC 2014)

DR MICHELLE H LIM (TCFS 1997)

Rona is a proud Kaytetye woman and a leading voice in Australian society, drawing attention to First Nations peoples and the importance of sharing and celebrating their culture, knowledge and stories. She is the founder of Aboriginal-led organisation Common Ground and a director at YLab.

Michelle is a practicing clinical psychologist and researcher who is known as one of the world’s leading experts on loneliness. She is the Chair of the Australian Coalition to End Loneliness and regularly appears in national media as a subject-matter expert.

Watch the virtual award ceremony

Read more about Rona

THE HONOURS ROLL 2020 As always, we were delighted to see members of the Trinity College community honoured this year for their significant contributions to society.

QUEEN’S BIRTHDAY HONOURS OFFICER OF THE ORDER OF AUSTRALIA (AO) IN THE GENERAL DIVISION Prof Marcia Langton AM (Fellow) For distinguished service to tertiary education, and as an advocate for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

AUSTRALIA DAY HONOURS MEMBER (AM) IN THE GENERAL DIVISION OF THE ORDER OF AUSTRALIA Emeritus Prof Richard Broome (TC 1974) For significant service to education in the field of history, and to historical groups.

Associate Prof Alison Inglis (TC 1977, Fellow) For significant service to education, and to the museum and galleries sector.

The Revd Canon Dr John Morgan (TC 1961) For significant service to education, and to the Anglican Church of Australia.

Emeritus Prof Warren Bebbington (past resident tutor) For significant service to education, particularly to the study of music.

Prof Karen Day (past resident tutor) For significant service to science education, and to global public health.

MEMBER OF THE ORDER OF AUSTRALIA (AM) IN THE GENERAL DIVISION The Revd Dr Elizabeth Smith (TCTS 1982) For significant service to the Anglican Church of Australia, and to liturgical scholarship.

MEDAL OF THE ORDER OF AUSTRALIA (OAM) IN THE GENERAL DIVISION Caroline Downer (TC non-res 1988, past chorister) For service to the visual and performing arts through a range of roles.

Prof Peter Tregear (former Dean, TC 2006, past resident tutor) For service to music education, and to professional organisations.

Janine Sargeant (benefactor) For significant service to medical administration through a range of roles.

MEDAL (OAM) OF THE ORDER OF AUSTRALIA IN THE GENERAL DIVISION Robert Coffey (TC 1973) For service to the community of Warrnambool.

Associate Prof Jane Freemantle (Trinity College Council member) For service to medical research, particularly to population health.

PUBLIC SERVICE MEDAL (PSM) Prof Stephen Cordner AM (TC 1971) For outstanding public service to forensic medical and scientific services, training and research in Victoria.

WHAT A YEAR

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