VC voice

Professor Ian O'Connor

In preparing this final column for 2007, I cast my mind back over the year so far. Thinking of the many milestones, meetings and funding successes, my overwhelming sense was of how far we have come in the 30 or so years since the first students graced the Nathan campus with their presence.

One of the great markers for this year has been the success of Griffith graduates and community. We began the year with graduate Tania Major winning Young Australian of the Year and in June our Chancellor Leneen Forde was announced as a Queensland Great.

Toward the end of the year I hosted community cabinet on the Gold Coast campus and when I looked around the room at the government cabinet members it struck me that six of the ministers were our graduates and of course one of them, Andrew Fraser, recently went on to become our second youngest ever Treasurer.

Last month the Griffith Business School alumni dinner featured graduate Kylie Hargraves who has taken Austrade by storm while PhD student Kaylene Clayton recently received a Queensland Smart Women Award for her work and research in actively promoting ICT careers to young women.

These individual achievements are outstanding and show the increasing sphere of influence enjoyed by our university. Just as important is how we, as a university, use our scholarly research and expertise to benefit communities way beyond the doors of our university, whether that be here in Australia or even overseas.

Two great examples this year are our roles in the ARC Centre of Excellence in Policing and Security and in the Co-operative Research Centre for Cancer Therapeutics. The former is a first for Australia that will draw together world class scholars and industry partners to conduct high quality research on security that will have a direct impact on the safety of communities nationally. The latter sees Griffith University as the only Queensland partner in a seven-year project that aims to identify new treatments to halt the development and spread of cancer. The results of this research could impact positively on countless individuals and their communities around the globe.

Of course it is the whole community that is Griffith - staff, students, alumni and our community partners big and small - who have helped us achieve such outstanding results this year. Thank you one and all and I look forward to another great year in 2008.

For our students about to undergo final exams, good luck and we look forward to your continued involvement in the Griffith community as alumni.

In finishing, I wanted to let you know that in keeping with our long term commitment to reducing our carbon footprint, this will be our last paper issue of the Griffith Gazette. From next year, you will be seeing the Gazette online in a more frequent and accessible format. But for now I hope you enjoy this issue's bountiful information on community.