Home and away

GLOBAL NETWORKING
In 2017 we hosted alumni at receptions in Wollongong, Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Malaysia, Canada, Thailand, China, Hong Kong, the United States, London and Singapore. These were great opportunities for alumni to meet old uni friends and form new connections.

UOW Brand Ambassador Adam Gilchrist was a special guest at the New York event.

NEW EVENTS

This year, our events program featured new offerings including our first family event at the Science Centre and Planetarium in March which was a big hit.

Our first family event was held at the Science Centre and Planetarium.

We also launched the UOW Knowledge Series in April with our inaugural lecture from Dr Jen Roberts on the Anzac legend. The series also included talks from Associate Professor Robert Gorkin who explained Project Geldom; Google’s Brendan Castle who discussed leadership and talent-spotting at our New York event; Professor Bert Roberts who spoke about the epic human and natural history of Australia; and Professor Glenn Salkeld discussed cross-cultural learning at our Bangkok event.

This was the first year the Alumni Relations Team had a marquee at the UOW Open Day. We met lots of prospective students and their families, chatted to alumni about the benefits of staying in touch with us and gave away lots of lollies and UOW Outlook Magazines.

ALUMNI GIVING BACK

We were excited to see alumni who came back to the University to give back and share their skills and expertise with students. Alumni conducted speed interviews with students to help them improve their interviewing techniques at a Networking After 5 event; mentored students living in UOW residences; tutored Indigenous students; volunteered in the second-hand bookshop; and acted as patients to help medical students hone their bedside manner.

Melissa Abu-Gazaleh came back on campus to give a UOWx Interactive Seminar on communicating with confidence. UOW was the venue for the boot camp phase of the Prince of York’s Pitch@Palace entrepreneur mentoring program and some of our alumni lent their expertise to the event.

More than 2500 alumni answered the call from current students during the annual phone appeal in July to support Learning and Development Scholarships. About 360 alumni chose to support students in need to reach their full potential. Thank you!

GRADUATIONS
As always, we love welcoming new alumni to the fold and this year we attended graduation events in Wollongong, Shoalhaven, Malaysia, Singapore and Hong Kong. We are proud of all our alumni, no matter what they studied or where. They expand and enrich our global alumni community. We also welcomed new honorary members including honorary doctorate recipients David Gruen (Doctor of Science), Kathy Lette (Doctor of Letters) and Adi Paterson(Doctor of Science). Emeritus Professorship recipients were also named at graduation ceremonies including Gerald Nanson and Janice Wright. 

The 2017 Fellowship recipients were Dr Ian Brown, Sandra McCarthy, Dr Paul Sharrad and Christine Thompson.

Dr Ian Brown, Christine Thompson, Dr Paul Sharrad and Sandra McCarthy

REUNIONS
We are always thrilled to hear about alumni gathering together to reconnect and reminisce about their experiences with UOW.

In January, graduates of an offshore Master of Engineering program offered by the University in partnership with Krakatau Steel in Cilegon, Indonesia came together to celebrate and farewell retired UOW Professor Nick Standish who skilfully managed and coordinated the program in country over many years.

This important education and research program involved the delivery of master of engineering practice coursework programs in metallurgy to more than 100 engineering staff with little or no formal exposure to materials science and engineering, as well as the completion of 21 Master of Engineering (Honours) and PhD research projects. The reunion was cause for celebration and reflection for this group.

Participants of the UOW-Krakatau Steel Cilegon program

Retired UOW Professor Nick Standish and former PT Krakatau Steel President Mr Djoko Subagyo pictured with their gifts of recognition presented by the group.