Page 8 - Luce 2023

I nterview

as Professor Emeritus in the Department of English Studies
at Durham University, and is currently hard at work on new
edited volumes for Penguin and Oxford University Press.
We have a four-year-old son, Wolfe (known as Wolfie), who
has astonished us with his resilience and adaptability in these
last few months. He loves his new kindergarten, riding his
scooter around Royal Park, sea swimming at St Kilda Beach,
and trying new foods at the Night Markets, and ensures that
we are getting excellent value for money from our annual
passes to the zoo, museum, and aquarium! Melbourne is a
fantastic place to live, work, and raise a child, and we’re all so
glad that we had the opportunity to move here.

What were your first impressions of JCH and Melbourne
University? Are there key differences and similarities
between JCH and St Chad’s?

The University of Melbourne, with around 54,000 students
(only 2600 of whom are members of a college), is a lot larger
than Durham University which has only 20,000, all of whom
are either residential or non-residential members of one of
seventeen colleges. As such, the collegiate structure is the
unique selling point of Durham University, and Heads of
College are an influential collective, taking an active role in
the University’s strategic planning and policy making. Whilst
only a small proportion of the University of Melbourne’s
students are members of a college, I’m keen to ensure St Chad’s College, Durham University
that as Heads of College, my colleagues and I can actively
support the University in ensuring that as many students I’m also exploring opportunities for the College to work in
as possible are able to benefit from the ‘gold standard’ of a partnership with organisations like Skyline Foundation and
residential collegiate experience, regardless of their financial Western Chances to help us reach the most economically and
circumstances and socioeconomic background. socially disadvantaged young people in the greater Melbourne
area. I am aiming to ensure that every academically gifted
St Chad’s is in many ways like JCH, in that it is a purposefully young person in Australia should at least be aware of the
small and academically ambitious community, committed opportunities for intellectual and personal growth offered by
to rigorous but gracious intellectual debate, which values association with JCH.
each and every student as an individual. St Chad’s, with
its history as an Anglican theological training college for Of course, there is little point in reaching out to regional and
young men from impecunious backgrounds, also has a remote communities if we are not able to maintain our proud
strong commitment to social justice and fair access to higher tradition of offering financial support to deserving students.
education. I certainly benefited from being a part of that My ambition is for the College to be in a position to run
family-sized, intentional community. a needs-blind admission process for Australian applicants
(in which an institution does not consider an applicant’s
It was immediately apparent to me when I arrived for my financial situation when deciding admission and instead
familiarisation visit to the College in April 2022 that JCH makes decisions solely on merit and potential) by 2030. This
is a community of considerable intellectual ambition and will require us to grow the College’s endowment in the years
achievement, but also one of warmth, rare authenticity, and to come, and I’m looking forward to talking to our alumni
friendliness. I was made to feel so welcome by staff and and supporters about how they can help us fulfil this sector-
students alike and left Melbourne after only six days already leading ambition.
feeling like a true JCHer!
Poetry is clearly a great passion for you. I read recently that
I understand that broadening access for deserving students, Pulitzer prize-winning Australian author Geraldine Brooks
regardless of their financial circumstances, is important to describes poets as ‘the Olympic gymnasts of writing’. What
you as it certainly is for JCH. Do you have any thoughts do you make of that description?
at this early stage about future directions or strategies to
further that objective? What other objectives are likely to be I like this quotation because it speaks to the effort – the
your focus? sheer hard graft – of writing poetry. Some of the best known
quotations about poetry (William Wordsworth’s suggestion
One of the things I’m really excited about for the next that ‘Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings’,
academic year is the opportunity to get out into regional and for example, or John Keats’ admonition, ‘If poetry comes not
remote Victorian schools and also travel to select interstate as naturally as the leaves to a tree it had better not come at
locations to strategically raise the profile of JCH, forging long- all’) seem to suggest that a poem is an almost accidental, or
term relationships with head teachers and careers advisors to unconscious thing; something that doesn’t need to be, or,
ensure that application rates remain high. indeed, should not be, worked at, and that the poet is merely
a passive conduit for some divine inspiration.

8 LUCE Number 21 2022