UNE vice-chancellor Annabelle Duncan will leave next week after almost a decade's involvement with the institution.
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"It's been a wonderful journey," Professor Duncan said. "Armidale is a great community to live in, and UNE is a university with a very strong social conscience."
"I will miss UNE very much, but the time comes when you have to move onto the next stage," Professor Duncan said.
"It's a very full-on job, and it needs someone now who can come in with fresh enthusiasm and energy that maybe I'm running out of."
Professor Duncan has bought a house in Berry, on the south coast - halfway between Sydney, where she will chair the NSW Physical Sciences Fund, and Canberra, where she will sit on the board of the Regional Australia Institute.
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Professor Duncan thought she would only be in Armidale for three to five years; she stayed for nine.
She first came to UNE as Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research) in 2010, after executive positions at CSIRO, the University of Melbourne's Bio21 Institute, and the Centre for Agricultural Bioscence.
She was also a UN biological weapons inspector for 16 years - including in Iraq - and involved with weapons control negotiations in Paris and Geneva. The experience taught her much about people management, and how to be considerate, understanding, but tough - "good skills for leadership," she said.
She came to Armidale with a great deal of excitement and a bit of trepidation. Both her children were living at home in Melbourne, so going north meant splitting up the family home earlier than she'd expected.
"Now," she said, "I'm leaving with excitement for what the future brings, but also a great deal of regret at not being here to see the next three years."
Professor Duncan, then deputy vice-chancellor, replaced Jim Barber as vice-chancellor in 2014. At first, her position was only interim; she planned to hand over the reins to a permanent successor after six months. She discovered that she loved the job, applied for it, and was appointed.
The vice-chancellor is, Professor Duncan said, a varied role.
Much of her work is external: spreading education in the community, or lobbying government with other members of the Regional Universities Network.
A vice-chancellor's successes
Professor Duncan's biggest successes, she believes, are promoting the university's brand, and getting its quality recognised; developing its research strengths; and soft diplomacy with Asian nations.
When she came, she said, UNE research was not esteemed; while plenty of good research went on, it wasn't seen.
"We've come a long way," she said. "We are highly regarded for what we do; we are far better known than we were."
UNE was the first regional and distance education university - but, like many first movers, it had become complacent, Professor Duncan thought. "Other institutions recognised distance education was the way to go, and leapfrogged over UNE."
Just before she came to UNE, the federal government's national research evaluation framework, Excellence in Research for Australia, judged the university relatively mediocre. Almost a decade later, in 2018-19, nearly 20 criteria were excellent or world-class. This year, UNE was also assessed for the first time on the impact of its research - with high results. NSW chief scientist Hugh Durrant-Whyte also praised the university on his visit in May.
Professor Duncan believes that UNE's research should make a difference to the New England community. Its animal genetics and breeding programs have benefited the livestock export industry, while John Pegg's literacy and numeracy program enables participants to advance two years in six months.
She is proud, too, of the university's cross-cultural connections. Overseas, a large UNE agricultural project in Indonesia upskills young researchers to train the next group of agricultural scientists. It has also extended its length into Bhutan, where it has trained teachers for decades.
A university for the region
UNE's mission, Professor Duncan believes, is to bring education to people regardless of their personal circumstances or geography.
Some believe it should be a University of Sydney in the bush; she disagrees. Metropolitan universities like USyd take 18-year-olds from good city schools, and whose parents have tertiary degrees; UNE helps regional students (half as likely to go to university as their city counterparts), or adults who didn't aspire or didn't get into university.
Professor Duncan was herself the first person in her New Zealand family to go to university. She thought she would work in an office, but discovered science. She planned to study pharmacy at the NZ equivalent of TAFE, but her former headmaster advised her to get a tertiary degree.
At university, she discovered microbiology, and went on to a Master of Science at Otago University, and, later, a PhD at LaTrobe.
"As my eyes were opened to disciplines I'd never heard of, I found a lot of things out there were really a lot of fun - but I didn't know about them beforehand," she said.
In an age when life-long education is becoming the norm, Professor Duncan wants to give people the same opportunity to participate in education and improve their lives. Otherwise, she believes, regional disadvantage will get far worse.
To reach regional youths, the UNE's Discovery Voyager van promotes science and arts in schools, while the Boilerhouse will become a play-based Discovery Space for children.
The GRASS Program places senior students with agricultural or environmental science industries. Some, as the young Professor Duncan did, discover their passion lies in fields they never knew existed. One girl thought she wanted to be a vet - but discovered agronomy.
Three-quarters of UNE students are online; the average online student is a 32-year-old woman with two kids, balancing childcare and mortgage repayments.
The university, Professor Duncan said, is looking at ways to make studying easier for career changers who can't afford to take time off, such as offering nested or micro-qualifications in bite-size pieces.
One of Professor Duncan's pleasures is seeing students' determination pay off. At last year's graduation ceremony, one young woman, with a tiny baby on her hip, was crying, because she finally had her degree after years of hard work.
UNE's resolve to put student needs first has paid off. Under Professor Duncan and her predecessors, the university has received 5-star ratings for student satisfaction 13 years running, while this year a national student experience survey ranked it first among public universities.
This is due, the vice-chancellor said, to the dedication of her staff.
"I'm very proud of what we've done," she said. "I get to boast about it, but the staff do the hard work. They do a fabulous job, and make a real difference. It's been a privilege to work with them."
A vice-chancellor's challenges
As vice-chancellor, Professor Duncan has had to make difficult decisions - some of which were unpopular in the community.
She decided to demolish and rebuild historic Robb College for safety reasons, preserving the old dining hall. "Everyone wanted it open, but it was an easy decision from my point-of-view," she said. "It was dangerous, and I didn't feel I could leave students in a dangerous college."
In 2017, UNE gave up the trusteeship of the Old Teachers' College. In the short-term, Professor Duncan explained, it cost the university money; in the long-term, it would save money. The university, moreover, were trustees on the condition that they would use the college for teaching - which they weren't.
Some staff also objected to Professor Duncan's decision to restructure and consolidate 10 schools into three faculties, reversing a predecessor's decision. The old structure didn't really work, she thought, while the restructure brought more coherent management to the university.
"It helped us make changes to introduce different and better ways of teaching, and respond to students," she said.
Professor Duncan hopes people will say the last five and a half years have been relatively calm, but high-achieving in terms of teaching and research, and of the impact UNE has had on people's lives.
"There is so much that we can continue to do here at this university, working with the town to really put us on the map, and make a difference to people," she said.
"I look forward to watching what will happen over the next five years."