Alumni in the UK
by Michéle Nardelli
The London-based association of SA uni alumni is going with the flow of its members.
The notion of the old alma mater is a little foreign to university students in a country as young as Australia and one in which very few graduates actually leave their own home or suburb to study for their degrees.
But take graduates away from all things familiar and put them in a different place and it is surprising how university networks take on a new significance.
South Australians are on the move again – there has been an increase in people moving interstate and indeed overseas to work and gain highly-prized international experience and it is then that an alumni network can become a handy asset.
Chairman of what must be one of the most unusual Australian alumni chapters – Adelaide Universities Alumni UK – Dennis Muirhead says a joint approach to establishing the South Australian network in the UK and Europe has been an elegant solution to what would clearly have been a problem of size.
"If each of SA’s universities had tried to establish an independent alumni association in London, I think they would simply have been lost – the only viable way to build the chapter and benefit the state was to work together," Muirhead says.
"It gives us critical mass, so that we can work on a viable basis."
And as Adelaide evolves as Australia’s affordable "Education City", you might very well be an alumnus of the Adelaide UK chapter and have never studied at an Australian university – graduates of the US education giant, Carnegie Mellon, are also given a warm welcome if they have studied at that university’s Adelaide campus.
Muirhead, an Adelaide University law graduate, says while the network is managed as a part-time prospect by its 12-member volunteer committee (representing UniSA, Adelaide and Flinders) growth is very much on the agenda. None of the committee members knew each other in Adelaide.
Despite living and working in the UK for more than 20 years as a lawyer, mediator, artist and record producer manager, and more recently as a founding director of the premium online video network t5m.com, Muirhead says encouraging graduates to take their talents back to South Australia is one of his goals for the chapter.
"We live in an increasingly international society where it is perfectly feasible to leave South Australia, but bring those talents back to the state either by returning with new international experience and contacts or by establishing the kind of business networks that will strengthen SA into the future," he says.
"The alumni chapter is about building a rich community engagement here in the UK and Europe that has important roots back home."
And the committee works hard to make it worthwhile – with three large events each year – and a series of opportunities to meet up at some of London’s lovely pubs just for some socialising. Muirhead says he has been especially pleased with the strong support UniSA continues to give the chapter and its committee.
"Our big challenge is to bring in new young members – and to deal with the fact that we have a flow of people coming in and out of the chapter – as they arrive or move back to Australia or other parts. Managing the database is interesting!" he says.
At any one time the chapter has over 300 members across a wide array of industries.
"We have lawyers and doctors, artists and architects, teachers and nurses, accountants, psychologists and everything in-between. It is an amazing group of exciting South Australians."
Muirhead says it was the influence of the late Maurice de Rohan AO OBE, Agent General for South Australia for eight years and founder of Kinhill Engineers, that inspired his involvement in the chapter.
"Maurice understood how collaboration and networking could benefit South Australia internationally and he was a great supporter of this cooperative approach in the UK chapter," Muirhead says.
"We want to take those principles further and ensure that we tap into other important networks for UK-based South Australians by working with the SA Agent General’s office, the Australian High Commission, SA Great, and the SA Business Ambassadors Network."
On a larger scale, Muirhead has helped to form the National Australian Alumni network, so that there are increasingly broad benefits for members of the Adelaide UniversitiesAlumni UK chapter.
The Adelaide Universities Alumni UK Chapter held its first combined event with the Australian Universities Alumni network in September with more than 80 people attending the Rebecca Hossack Gallery in London. The exhibition and cocktail event featured Torres Strait Islander artist Alick Tipoti, recipient of the prestigious Lin Onus prize at the National Indigenous Heritage Art Awards in 1998.
Upcoming events in London
November 18 2008, 6pm
Adelaide Alumni UK Christmas Drinks
Rebecca Hossack Art Gallery
exhibiting SA artist David Bromley
March 5 2009
Inaugural Adelaide Universities UK annual lecture featuring chapter
Patron, Baroness Susan Greenfield CBE Director of the Royal
Institution, London and Adelaide and twice Adelaide Thinker in
Residence
May 2009
Reception for the Premier of South Australia Mike Rann at Australia
House
More details about events and joining the chapter can be found at www.adelaidealumniuk.eu/