Last year was a milestone year for lots of reasons:
- COVID-19
- Vaccinations
- Decluttering and downsizing
- Tova's obtaining her first academic contract (not casual) job
- Me leaving Flinders University after 27 years and starting a new job at TechnologyOne
- Bugsy, our stumpy-tailed cattle dog, learning to sit and drop
Because leaving Flinders University after 27 years was such a huge milestone, I would like to reproduce the off-the-cuff speech I gave at my farewell morning tea. This won't be a faithful reproduction, undoubtably I will embellish some bits and forget others, but it will be the best I can recall.
But first, some background to explain what lead up to leaving. Flinders University restructured the Information and Digital Services area of the university at the beginning of last year. As part of this restructure, my substantive position as Manager, Student Systems, was disestablished and I was mapped to a new position at the same level, but without responsibility for supervising staff. Importantly, a new manager position was created for student and finance systems, but all the indications were that I would not be considered suitable for this position. My choice was to apply for the new mapped position, or apply for a voluntary redundancy. The voluntary redundancy provisions were very generous, but I still needed a job, as I was not yet close enough to retirement to be able to leave employment without another job on the horizon.
I did something I still cannot believe I pulled off. I worked my networks, and schlepped my CV around to organisations where I thought I had something to offer. This resulted in a couple of job offers just in the nick of time, including one from TechnologyOne.
So here's a version of the thoughts I gave at my farewell morning tea.
I started working at Flinders University on 4 January 1994, over 27 years ago. Just to remind you how long ago that was, especially younger colleagues who were born after 1994, Paul Keating was Prime Minister. John Dawkins had been the minister responsible for higher education, and had ushered in changes that saw Colleges of Advanced Education (CAEs) merged to create new universities, e.g. University of South Australia, and/or merged with existing universities. As part of these changes, Sturt CAE was merged with Flinders University. In 1994, this change was still fresh enough that staff based at Sturt referred to Flinders University as 'up-the-hill' as though it was a different institution. Who are we kidding? Academic staff from that era STILL refer to Flinders University as 'up-the-hill' as though it was a different institution.
Professor John Lovering was the Vice-Chancellor, and the job of Vice-Chancellor was not yet the hectic, political management job that it would later become. A colleague joked when I first started that the VC's executive officer needed to wake the VC up to get him to sign things. Professor Lovering had, however, managed the Dawkins reforms, the introduction of HECS and a university-wide restructure that saw the creation of a faculty structure that lasted well into the next century.
In 27 years, Flinders University has had five vice-chancellors:
- Professor John Lovering
- Professor Ian Chubb
- Professor Anne Edwards
- Professor Michael Barber
- Professor Colin Stirling
Prof Chubb was my favourite for no other reason that I saw him wandering the corridors of level 3 of the Student Centre with a blood-stained shirt and tie, poking his head into random offices to say hi. He had obviously had some kind of accident, which caused him to visit the nurses in Health and Counselling for first aid. Whilst there, he took the time to investigate who was working in the nearby offices.
During that time, I have had a number of different positions. However, it was a move to work in Student Systems in 2003 that set the course of my career for the next 18 years. With the exception of a brief period as Manager, Enrolment and Student Finance, I worked in systems-related areas for the remainder of my time at Flinders.
I was involved in two major system changes: the move from CS to Ci in 2007 to 2009, and the transition from an on-premise student system to a cloud-based student system in 2017 to 2018, plus lots of smaller release upgrades, including an upgrade comprising multiple releases in 2013. This period saw a proliferation of external systems and integration projects to connect these systems to the student system - CRM, timetabling system, examination system, HR system, curriculum management system, identity and access management systems. And let us never forget the C2R2 project in 2009 to 2010, where the university standardised topic unit values at 4.5 units, getting rid of 3, 6, 9 and 12 unit topics, reshaping the entire curriculum in the process.
Throughout this time, I worked with some fantastic people. A vey small number of genuinely evil people as well (no-one who attended my farewell morning tea), and a small number of plonkers (again no-one who attended my farewell morning tea), but these were outnumbered by far by fabulous folks, like:
- Marlene Pitman
- Stephen Jones
- Gayl O'Reilly
- Michelle Evans
- Anna Jessep
- Mark Materne
- Pamela Monk
- Barb Richards
- Jill Smith
- Jeff Turner
- Marianne Treffers
- Brendan White
- Cathryn Wyers
- Jerry Garnett (yes, even Jerry)
- and all the remaining Student Systems folks, especially Rebecca Baulch, Orenda Zhang and Qiuyu Zhang
However, when the university disestablishes your position, and gives you every indication that you would not be considered for the new senior position, so that your career progression has effectively come to an end, it is time to move on. I am fortunate to be able to take advantage of the university's voluntary redundancy provisions and move to a Business Consultant position at TechnologyOne.
I will miss the fabulous folks at Flinders and I am forever grateful that Marianne rescued the name plate from my old office in the basement of the Student Centre before this space was gutted. It was my absolute honour and privilege to have been Manager, Student Systems, for the best part of the past 10 years.
Working at TechnologyOne has been a change in some ways, and in other ways, it is more of the same. It seems clear that universities might not be employing staff, but still have capital funds for project expenditure. This is good news for folks like me in the consulting business. I have had exposure to new functionality and projects at other institutions that are both interesting and exciting to work on. No regrets so far.