Making a Difference: Fifty Years of Indigenous Programs at Monash University, 1964–2014

Abstract

During a lunch time speech to Monash University students made in the early 2000s, the renowned Aboriginal activist and scholar Gary Foley told his audience that today Monash is a good university but in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s it was a great one. Making a Difference: Fifty Years of Indigenous Programs at Monash University, 1964–2014 would seem to confirm his candid assessment in respect to Monash University engagements with Aboriginal peoples and their communities. Commissioned by Monash University to document the story of Indigenous programs over a five-decade period, author Rani Kerin constructs an account of the past that is primarily focused on the personalities, achievements, agendas, and reflective insights of the leaders who shaped the university's teaching, research, and support engagements with Indigenous peoples. Drawing on a wealth of archival material, this approach has allowed Kerin to document the achievements made by successive program directors in much detail.The portrait of the first to lead Indigenous programs at Monash, Professor Colin Tatz, succeeds in reminding readers that in the early 1960s Monash University was front and center of progressive politics in Australia. As a recently arrived outsider, Tatz quickly came to realize the many parallels that existed between the situation experienced by blacks in the country of his birth, South Africa, and the situation Aboriginal peoples faced in Australia. Shortly after completing a Ph.D. that focused on Aborigines policy in the Northern Territory at the ANU, Tatz was appointed lecturer in the Faculty of Economics and Politics at Monash on 1 April 1964. Less than a month later, Tatz had written to the vice chancellor, J. A. L. Matheson, requesting that Monash establish a Bureau of Aboriginal Affairs. Like C. D. Rowley, Tatz anticipated the need for Australian universities to engage with the issues and experiences that impacted on the lives of Aboriginal peoples in contemporary Australian society. Significantly, Tatz's agenda sought a deep engagement with members of the Victorian Aboriginal community, including the growing numbers of Aboriginal people who lived in metropolitan Melbourne.As Kerin notes, the “exceedingly self-assured” Tatz had by December 1964 successfully cajoled Matheson into approving the establishment of the Centre for Research into Aboriginal Affairs (CRAA), a research center that would address issues impacting on Aboriginal people. The CRAA's commitment to an agenda of action research came to define its work from the very start. A small grant was won allowing Tatz to return to the Northern Territory to investigate Aboriginal employment on cattle stations. Building on this work, in May 1966, Tatz organized a groundbreaking residential seminar on “The Problem of Aboriginal Employment, Wages, and Training.” Sponsored by the vice chancellor, the seminar reflected Tatz's belief in promoting inclusivity. It is significant that the invited participants included not only academics but also representative of state and federal government, the mining and pastoral industries, trade unionists, missionaries, and, most significantly, Aboriginal peoples themselves. According to Kerin, “The highlight for Tatz was watching Aboriginal leaders – Jacob Abednego, Joe McGinness, Kath Walker, Charles Perkins, Bert Groves and John Moriarty – talk with people ‘whom they had hitherto known [only] as names on paper’. The outcome was the creation of ‘a bridge of communication between parties’ who typically ignored or ‘publically [condemned] the action or point of view of the other’” (10). In 1967, a second seminar, on Aboriginal education, was held, and this too broke new ground. The CRAA publications generated from these events arguably placed Monash as the leading institution of higher education in respect to a research agenda inclusive of Aboriginal peoples and the place they had come to occupy in contemporary Australian society.The action research approach established under the leadership of Tatz was enhanced and strengthened by his successor Elizabeth Eggleston. Whereas Tatz created a highly innovative and forward-thinking vision of how research with Aboriginal peoples should take place, Eggleston brought superior administrative skills to the role, skills that enabled her to secure the longer-term future of Aboriginal-focused research and teaching at Monash University. Eggleston focused on building an organizational structure that would ensure the CRAA developed a brand, culture, and purpose that would transcend the personality and longevity of all future directors and their staff. Importantly, Eggleston also proved particularly adept in the management of finances, successfully attracting large amounts of external funding that helped the consolidation and future growth of the center. Perhaps the most important legacy of Eggleston's directorship was her vision to expand the scope of the CRAA to include a teaching program called Black Australian Studies.Following the tragic death of Eggleston in 1976, the first Aboriginal director, former school principal Colin Bourke was appointed to the role. This period was marked by the goal of Aboriginalization, which although supported by his predecessors became the hallmark of Bourke's time as director. As Kerin notes in Making a Difference, the emphasis Bourke placed on the Aboriginalization of the workforce once more positioned Monash University at the vanguard of Aboriginal affairs. Bourke rightly believed that Aboriginal people should be more than the mere objects of research and teaching activity; they should determine the nature of their relationship with the Western academy. In other words, Bourke believed in what might be termed a scholarship of engagement in which research and teaching can be applied as tools of Aboriginal social and political activism. Bourke employed several Aboriginal people who would later assume important leadership roles in the Aboriginal community of Victoria. These included the Boon Wurrung Elder Aunty Carolyn Briggs and Yorta Yorta man Wayne Atkinson, who later gained a Ph.D. and became one of few Aboriginal academics to teach history at The University of Melbourne. The renowned playwright and poet Kevin Gilbert was also employed for a short-term project. For his efforts in providing leadership and support to Aboriginal welfare, Bourke was awarded an M.B.E in 1978.The history of Indigenous programs at Monash University that Kerin recalls in Making a Difference confirms that the organization has been blessed by a succession of exceptional leaders whose commitment to Indigenous-focused research and teaching was matched by an equally strong conviction that these activities must deliver outcomes that improve the lives of Aboriginal people in meaningful ways. With their emphasis on action research, engagement, collaboration with living contemporary Aboriginal peoples and their communities, and the Aboriginalization of the workforce, Tatz, Eggleston, and Bourke established a set of core values that would direct Indigenous programs at Monash to the end of the twentieth century.The center has undergone several name changes since its founding in 1964, with the research (and teaching) functions becoming the Aboriginal Research Centre (ARC) in 1979 and then the Koorie Research Centre (KRC) in 1981. The name changes made during this period emphasized a commitment to further Aboriginalization, which continued most notably through the expansion of Indigenous programs to include the proactive recruitment, support, and mentoring of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students. Expansion into student support functions was facilitated by the establishment of the highly regarded MOSA (Monash Orientation Scheme for Aborigines) in 1984. As Kerin points out, it was the innovation of MOSA that maintained the national profile of Indigenous programs at Monash from the mid-1980s to the end of the 1990s. MOSA flourished under the leadership of Associate Professor Isaac Brown. Brown made a difference as an exceptional Aboriginal leader who worked hard to build a strong sense of Aboriginal community at Monash. With the success of MOSA, Monash University quickly gained a reputation as one of few institutions of higher education where Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples felt safe to pursue higher learning in Australia's system of education. Bernadette Atkinson, Aunty Diane Singh, Angela and Meena Singh, Brendan Loizou, Irene O'Loughlin, and Richard Jameson OAM are but a few of the MOSA graduates who achieved later academic and career success because of the study opportunities created by MOSA.A merger between Monash University and the Gippsland Institute of Advanced Education in 1990 added another teaching program, Koorie Studies Gippsland (later Centre for Koorie Studies Gippsland [CKSG]), which left Indigenous programs across the university now dispersed across three separate organizational units. Despite the committed leadership of individuals such as Dr. Eve Fesl, Associate Professor Isaac Brown, Associate Professor Marlene Drysdale, and Ms. Helen Curzon-Siggers, as the 1990s progressed Monash University increasingly came to lose its way. In an era characterized by increased competition for both Indigenous students and Indigenous-focused research funding, Monash University—once a national leader in Indigenous programs—quickly found itself a marginal player. As Kerin puts it, “No longer a lone voice…. Poorly resourced, Monash's Indigenous programs got left behind. By the mid 1990s, the KRC profile had shrunk to such an extent that even Monash's own undergraduates were unaware of its existence” (119).To reverse this loss of relevancy, the university commissioned Colin Bourke (then professor and dean of the Faculty of Aboriginal and Islander Studies at the University of South Australia) and his wife and colleague Associate Professor Eleanor Bourke (then director of the Aboriginal Research Institute at the University of South Australia) to undertake a review of Monash Indigenous programs in 1997. The Bourke Report that emerged recommenced a consolidation of research and teaching roles. This led to the merger of the KRC and CKSG and the formation of the Centre for Australian Indigenous Studies (CAIS) in 1999. The Bourke Report had also recommended that a modified and rebadged form of the MOSA program continue, but falling interest led to the disestablishment of targeted Indigenous recruitment at Monash in the same year that CAIS became operational. As noted in Making a Difference, the Bourkes' purpose was to “provide advice which would enable the programs to achieve their potential in the future,” thereby helping Monash “regain a reputation for being the leading Australian university” in Indigenous education and research (121).Making a Difference: Fifty Years of Indigenous Programs at Monash University, 1964–2014 tells us much about the historical development of Indigenous-focused research, teaching, and student support programs in the Australian higher education from the mid-twentieth century to the recent past. The decision of author Rani Kerin to build a historical narrative around the personalities, agendas, and achievements of the individuals who led Indigenous programs at Monash is symptomatic of much that is wrong with how the Australian higher education sector chooses to engage with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Australian universities are notorious for relying on high profiled Indigenous leaders to solve the myriad of issues that impact on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples both within higher education and beyond. The “cult of personality” or the “cult of the great leader” has proven extremely resilient as a narrative that has currency in Australian higher education, so much so that Indigenous programs at many Australian universities have become so entangled with the character, personality, and professional and personal agendas of those who lead them that the programs and the individual leaders become indistinguishable. In focusing on the significant achievements of Tatz, Eggleston, Bourke, and their successors, Kerin does little more than confirm these well-established narratives of “the great leader” that continue to direct the structures of power and allocation of resources to Indigenous programs across the higher education sector. The failure of Kerin to document the contribution, commitment, and dedication of Indigenous students, other members of the Aboriginal community, and program staff in supporting Monash Indigenous programs makes the story outlined in Making a Difference far less compelling that it might otherwise have been. Such omissions severely limit the richness of the story Kerin presents in Making a Difference, with the diversity of voices and perspectives lost to the narrative she weaves. Possibilities for robust critical analysis are also squandered as questions concerning the seeming inability of an Australian university to build an effective critical mass of Indigenous research and teaching academics across half a century of effort are excluded.In conclusion, Making a Difference: Fifty Years of Indigenous Programs at Monash University, 1964–2014 and the version of history it constructs is highly problematic. Much has been written in the field of Australian Indigenous studies in recent years that questions the viability of history, as an academic discipline, to tell stories that belong largely to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Among those most critical of the discipline was the late historian Patrick Wolfe, who believed his discipline played a leading role in the settler-colonial drive to eliminate the natives. Kerin, perhaps blinded by her focus on leadership, does much in Making a Difference to confirm the dangers of history that Wolfe alerts us to. The fact that so many Indigenous people—whether they be activists, Elders, students, or members of staff—are excluded from the story of Indigenous programs at Monash as told by Kerin makes the value of this book highly questionable. Indeed, Making a Difference: Fifty Years of Indigenous Programs at Monash University, 1964–2014 confirms that Monash University has much more organizational soul searching to undergo before it can begin to reclaim the preeminent standing it once held in the research and teaching of Indigenous focused issues.