Colleagues farewell Pickford
The ANU's Community Relations Manager, Giles Pickford, was farewelled with a celebration at Old Canberra House recently. Mr Pickford took up his position in the Public Affairs Division in 1988 and said that, of the four other universities he had worked in, none compared with the ANU. "In fact, inside Australia, the ANU can only be compared with itself," Mr Pickford said. "So when people say, as I have heard from time to time, that the ANU is declining, they must mean that it is declining in comparison with the ANU of old. In comparison with other Australian universities it is probably advancing." He said that while the ANU had many problems, most of which were not of the University's making, he believed they could be overcome if the ANU acted more often as a single entity, rather than as separated compartments. "This idea is embedded throughout the recent Karmel Report," he said. "If we see ourselves as a whole, like a family sees itself, then the strong help the weak through the bad patches. If we see ourselves as 78 warring kingdoms (which is the current situation more often than not), then the weak can expect no mercy and no prisoners will taken by the surviving compartments of the ANU. Let us act more as a family and see if things get better. "A time will come when the MBA is returning a handsome profit and the Faculty of Arts is solvent. Basically both of then only need time and imaginative, problem-solving teamwork. When that time comes there may be another compartment in the University which is in trouble. For instance, students may eventually recognise the utter futility of reading Law. "One cannot foresee the swings and round-abouts, at some point everyone is potentially vulnerable. It is my view that not one of us gains by another one failing." Mr Pickford said his retirement would not end his association with the ANU. "I will be working with the Patrons and Friends of the Drill Hall Gallery, the ANU Arts Centre Angels, the Friends of the ANU Classics Museum, the Senior Common Room of John XXIII College, the ANU Cricket Club, and the Meningans. I have volunteered to assist Peter Scardoni in his duties as Secretary of the Canberra Branch of the Association for Tertiary Education Management." He will also attend annual events including the Town v Gown Cricket Match, the ANU Chess Festival, the Lions Student Oratory Contest, the ANU Poets' Lunch and the ANU Kids Christmas Party. "Finally, I will attempt to serve the ANU by submitting myself to the Convocation voters when they next elect their representatives on the ANU Council in September 1999," he said.