{"id":25,"date":"2020-06-11T15:01:50","date_gmt":"2020-06-11T05:31:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.flinders.edu.au\/vice-chancellor\/?p=25"},"modified":"2020-06-18T16:58:13","modified_gmt":"2020-06-18T07:28:13","slug":"alumni-awards-ceremony-2020","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.flinders.edu.au\/vice-chancellor\/2020\/06\/11\/alumni-awards-ceremony-2020\/","title":{"rendered":"Alumni Awards ceremony 2020"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Speech given by Professor Stirling on\u00a0 27 February 2020 at the Mortlock Chamber, State Library of South Australia<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m delighted to welcome our distinguished alumni, staff, students, and distinguished guests all to this celebration of excellence.<\/p>\n<p>I too wish to acknowledge that we are gathered on the traditional lands of the Kaurna people and pay my respects to their elders past and present.<\/p>\n<p>First, I\u2019d like to thank the Alumni Awards Selection Committee members, who have volunteered their time and expertise to a very challenging task. These are &#8211;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Flinders\u2019 Deputy Chancellor and Chair of the Alumni Awards Selection Committee, Liz Perry,<\/li>\n<li>Gosia (gozia) Hill<\/li>\n<li>Greg Mackie<\/li>\n<li>Anne Morris and<\/li>\n<li>Sam Taylor<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>We appreciate your efforts. Each year, this committee decides the winners of our Flinders University Alumni Awards, which include the Convocation Medal and Distinguished Alumni Awards. These are presented to outstanding members of our alumni community.<\/p>\n<p>The alumni we honour tonight have made an incredible impact in the world through highly successful careers and rich contributions to society.<\/p>\n<p>They have also contributed substantially to our university, for our alumni are the essence of our achievements and their success is instrumental to our growing reputation.<\/p>\n<p>Importantly, they represent the calibre of our graduates and showcase the mutual benefits of maintaining a strong connection with Flinders.<\/p>\n<p>So, while we take great pride in celebrating their achievements, we are also focused on nurturing and expanding our engagement with our alumni, for the benefit of all Flinders graduates.<\/p>\n<p>Of course, the reputation of our University is, in turn, important to those who have studied with us, as it enhances the value of their Flinders qualification.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m delighted to report that our strong underlying performance is reflected in our continuing rise in key university rankings, as we advance towards our goal of being a top one percent university in the world.<\/p>\n<p>The Times Higher Education rankings saw us lift 17 places to 271 last year, while we rose 54 positions in the QS rankings.<\/p>\n<p>And the influential Good Universities Guide places us number one in the state for undergraduate teaching quality, student support, student\/teacher ratio, student retention and starting salary, while our postgraduate students enjoy the strongest employment, overall study experience and highest wages.<\/p>\n<p>Last year we committed an additional $100 million research investment over five years, matched by an equal investment in teaching.<\/p>\n<p>We launched exciting new collaborative centres and institutes; national hubs that are consolidating the best talent and the best research from around the world.<\/p>\n<p>We announced the Flinders Village project, to create a thriving community here in the south of Adelaide accessible by the soon to be completed rail connection.<\/p>\n<p>From research facilities to caf\u00e9s, shops, accommodation and entertainment, Flinders Village will be a vibrant place to live, learn, work and enjoy.<\/p>\n<p>Our focus is carefully balanced on the present and the future, on research and teaching, on our people and wider communities.<\/p>\n<p>The people most relevant to our success are no doubt our alumni. Together with your achievements, we benefit from your expertise and industry networks that influence everything from student placements, to course design, research partnerships and more.<\/p>\n<p>This is perfectly illustrated by the distinguished alumni we are honouring today. You make us proud and keep us relevant. Thank you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Speech given by Professor Stirling on\u00a0 27 February 2020 at the Mortlock Chamber, State Library of South Australia I\u2019m delighted to welcome our distinguished alumni, staff, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1200,"featured_media":28,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-announcements"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.flinders.edu.au\/vice-chancellor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.flinders.edu.au\/vice-chancellor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.flinders.edu.au\/vice-chancellor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.flinders.edu.au\/vice-chancellor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1200"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.flinders.edu.au\/vice-chancellor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.flinders.edu.au\/vice-chancellor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.flinders.edu.au\/vice-chancellor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.flinders.edu.au\/vice-chancellor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.flinders.edu.au\/vice-chancellor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.flinders.edu.au\/vice-chancellor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}