Graduation ceremonies - Monday 13 December - Friday 17 December

Dec 10, 2004

The University of Wollongong will play host to about 10,000 graduands and their families and friends next week when the University conducts 10 summer graduation ceremonies.

From an eligible 3,086 graduands 2,549 graduands will be attending all the ceremonies beginning on Monday. **Note in the dot points listed below that Mrs June Hope, the wife of UOW's first Chancellor, Justice Robert Hope, will present the inaugural Chancellor Robert Hope Memorial Prize to Yayaa Tsamenyi on Friday afternoon.

Sample of possible photo/filming opportunities

* Margaret Emerton is the first Arts Honours student from the Bega Education Centre and she is to be awarded the University Medal at the 9.45am 13 December ceremony. She will graduate among a small cohort of other BA (Community and Environment) students travelling to Wollongong

*Shane Lauf will graduate on Monday morning as the first person in the country to undertake a double degree in Electrical Engineering and Japanese (and he is also receiving a Graduate Diploma in Arts). He was the joint runner-up for the recent Chancellor Robert Hope Memorial Prize (the most prestigious award UOW can make) and he will receive the University Medal (Informatics). Fluent in Japanese he will work for McKinsey and Company in Tokyo from April

*David Blackall will be awarded a PhD on Monday morning for his thesis on the painter, John Perceval. His thesis is based on the documentary "Delinquent Angel" which Blackall wrote, directed, produced and shot from 1994 to 2000

*Rodney Horan (former UOW Library staff member and publicised recently for his walk across Australia to raise funds for liver cancer research) will graduate at the Commerce ceremony

*Richard Irvine is graduating on Tuesday morning. He is the youngest of five children and his graduation marks the fact that all his siblings and his parents now have degrees from UOW - one of their daughters-in-law is also a graduate

*PhD student Saeud Soltanian will graduate at the science ceremony. He has contributed significantly to one of the holy grails in science - superconductivity

*Michael Harrison who is profoundly deaf will graduate on Wednesday morning having completed music teacher training

*Stephanie Snell is the inaugural recipient of the Illawarra Police Medal for Academic Excellence in Nursing. Her mother is coming out from the United States to attend the ceremony on Thursday morningo The first graduands from the Bachelor of Nursing program at the Bega Education Centre will graduate on 16 December

*Sarah Varley will be one of the students to graduate with a Bachelor of Science in Population Health on Thursday morning. Sarah left school early then went back to study to do her HSC and eventually on to university to do a double major in Nutrition and Population Health. She now works in the Community Services Section of Wollongong City Council. Liz Grigonis-Deane is also graduating with a Bachelor of Science (Population Health). She is married to Professor Frank Deane who is the Head of the Illawarra Institute of Mental Health

*The son of the Pro Vice-Chancellor (Operations) Professor John Patterson, will be graduating. Christopher Patterson will graduate with a Bachelor of Nursing at the Thursday morning ceremony

*Betty Koka is a PhD graduand receiving her degree on Thursday afternoon. She is from Papua New Guinea and has undertaken mental health services in PNG. Her family from PNG is expected to attend

*Co-graduation of a father and daughter at the Informatics/Law ceremony at the 2.30pm ceremony on Friday 17 December (Druce Dunne and his daughter, Clare)

*Andrew Kelly will receive a PhD at the law ceremony on Friday afternoon. He has done so against tremendous odds having been diagnosed with a brain tumour and told three years ago that people with his condition only had a 20 per cent chance of survival

*The Aboriginal Education Centre will host a graduation party at its headquarters for its Indigenous students who are graduating this session at 4pm on Friday 17 December

*Gareth Brisbane, a gifted student who was accepted as a young teenager into UOW, will receive a PhD in Informatics on Friday afternoon

*Yayaa Tsamenyi will be presented at the Friday afternoon ceremony with the Robert Hope Medal by June Hope, the wife of the University's first Chancellor, Justice Robert Hope, AC, CMG. Yayaa was recently announced as the inaugural winner of the $10,000 Chancellor Robert Hope Memorial Prize, an award of the Council of the University of Wollongong made on the recommendation of a committee chaired by the current Chancellor, Mr Michael Codd, AC.

*The goalkeeper for the Wollongong Wolves, Scott Whalan, will graduate with a Bachelor of Mathematics and Finance on Friday afternoon

Guest speakers

*13 December (morning ceremony) Ms Maxine McKew, a journalist with the ABC and The Bulletin;

*13 December (afternoon ceremony): Mr Bill Patterson (Ambassador-designate to Thailand);

*14 December (morning ceremony): Ms Sharon Bird, MP, (Federal Member for Cunningham);

*14 December (afternoon ceremony): Professor Bert Roberts (Faculty of Science, UOW);

*15 December (morning ceremony): Mr Ron Harvey (Vice-President of the Australian Olympic Committee, FIFA Vice-President Elect)

*15 December (afternoon ceremony): Mr Agu Kantsler (Director of Exploration Woodside Energy)

*16 December (morning ceremony): Dr James Greenstein (Member of the Human Research Ethics Committee, under the NHMRC; and specialist, Wollongong Hospital)

*16 December (afternoon ceremony): Mr Liam Forde (CEO, Baulderstone Hornibrook)

*17 December (morning ceremony): Dr Ian Watt (Secretary, Commonwealth Department of Finance and Administration)

*17 December (afternoon ceremony): Ms Fay Gurr (Principal, St Mary Star of the Sea College, Wollongong)

Fellowship Awards

*Actor and former Creative Arts academic, Mr Jeff Kevin

*Dr James Greenstein who will present the Occasional Address at the morning ceremony on 16 December

Venue: University Hall, UniCentre.

Further information: Vice-Chancellor, Professor Gerard Sutton, 4221 3909.

For more information, contact:

media@uow.edu.au
University of Wollongong
Ph: (02) 4221 5942; fax (02) 4221 3128