Letters to the editor - Spring 2024

Sue Franke

Jenelle and I met at Roseworthy Agricultural College in 1983. Two scared and nervous 17-year-olds knowing no other students, leaving our families and friends behind in Adelaide. We found each other cowering in the TV room debating with ourselves whether we were brave enough to venture to the dining room for dinner, we eventually did it together. Her discipline was agriculture, mine wine, but we still stuck together. Coincidently when we were meeting at RAC, our parents by chance met at the caravan and camping show, talking about their daughters who had just started at the college, totally unknown to each other. We were destined to meet. We have now been besties for 41 years, she was a bridesmaid in my wedding, I’m godmother to her two gorgeous now adult children, we have travelled together, laughed and cried and just had the greatest friendship over this time.

Ass Dip Wine Mkt, 1985, B Ag Sc (Oen) (Hons), 2000

Ambika Khatiwada, Nepal

I met my best friend while doing my degree. We met during a practical session and from there we became best friends. We spent nights discussing the tutorials and assignments and plans after study. We enjoyed eating crispy fries and chai latte in the University cafe on the ground floor during our break. We now invite each other to family functions, and we have become family more than friends which we cherish deeply.

M Clin Nursing, 2022

Middleback Field Centre 

I am sure there are many past students who attended the Middleback Field Centre at Whyalla, under the guidance of Dr Bob Lange and Dr Des Coleman, who may be interested and saddened to see what has happened to it with the Nicholsons moving off the site and the army taking over. 

I have had a very long association with the site, being involved with many of the camps held there as a technical officer between Roseworthy and the University of Adelaide during my 27-year employment. This long association was the reason I recently made a trip to see how it had fared. 

I found that the army (I presume) had completely cleared the site (it was taken over to extend their land holdings for tank trainings). 

For many years it was used to study rangeland ecology, natural resource management and terrestrial ecology.

Keith Cowley, Gawler

Ben Turner - Winner

Five engineers, five friends and five very different careers. Yet we’ve stayed in touch, supported each other in our chosen fields, attended weddings, travelled as a group, celebrated births, and laughed a lot! We’ve experienced the good and the bad together. None of this would have been possible if we hadn’t met while studying engineering. We bonded over late night assignments, study sessions at home, and exam preparation in the library. I am forever grateful we met and remain friends. None of it would have been possible without the University of Adelaide.

B E (Mechatronic), 2004, M Proj Mgmt, 2013 

Truong Nhat Vy Nguyen 

The Covid-19 pandemic locked me out of Adelaide Uni's halls, but it unlocked a virtual friendship with my bestie Andrea (and many others!). Texts became our lifeline, fuelling late-night Zoom study sessions. Social life unfolded over shared memes. We dissected lectures, celebrated milestones (virtually then in real life!), and discovered a mutual love for statistics, reading, gardening and DIY. Distance couldn't weaken our bond – every message made it stronger. Proof that friendship can bloom anywhere – especially in the University of Adelaide, even between a data science student like me and a future science teacher like Andrea!

B Ma and Comp Sc, 2022

Ellen Hood - Winner

In the busy clinics of the University of Adelaide Dental School, I stumbled upon friendships that have stood the test of time. Among them, my friendship from the 2017 graduation class shines brightest. We clicked during our whirlwind placement in Whyalla, bonding over shared accommodations and our mutual love for adventure. One standout memory? Gliding alongside dolphins during a kayaking escapade that felt straight out of a postcard. Fast forward to today, and we're still meeting up for coffee, swapping work anecdotes, and reminiscing about those crazy Uni days. It's amazing how those experiences shape you, even as we navigate the professional world eight years later. In the close-knit dental community of Adelaide, our friendship serves as a steadfast reminder of the enduring connections forged through shared experiences and mutual respect.

B Oral Health, 2017, Grad Cert Oral Health Sc, 2019

Barry and Deidre Wilmot, NSW

We met in 1962 in first year pharmacy – a very challenging course academically and financially, with second year being the most difficult, working in the pharmacy on Tuesday and Thursdays for eight hours and then attending night lectures from 7pm to 10pm. University fees were paid up front per semester in the 1960s. 

Graduating from the University, Barry was called up for National Service in February 1967 and, as a Second Lieutenant, was posted as an army pharmacist in Perth. 

The day after leaving the army, in January 1969, we married, and had distinguished careers in the pharmacy profession in Adelaide until our retirement in 2008. 

It has been a wonderful life journey together, and our two children, Peter and Sarah, are also University of Adelaide graduates who have gone on to establish excellent careers. 

The University of Adelaide has had a remarkable influence on our family’s lives for more than 60 years.

Both Barry and Deidre graduated Dip Pharm 1967

James Davidson - Winner

After arriving late to an Organisational Behaviour tutorial, I caught the eye of a particularly attention grabbing colleague. When we were asked to form groups she turned around and motioned for me to join the group. As it turned out we had multiple lectures together, needless to say my voluntary class attendance improved drastically. After the first class we walked back to the train-station together, catching the same train, to the same station, walking to the same side of the tracks, where our cars were parked together. The same thing happened the next week at the Target carpark, we had even driven different cars so there was no way of knowing! Almost 10 years later we still have a habit of parking our cars next to each other, at our home, where we have lived since getting married in 2022. UofA, Seek Light? No, Seek Spouse!

B Com (Mkt), 2017

Charles Mullighan - Winner

I met Tom in our first biology practical in first year medical school in 1987 where we bonded over dissecting a frog. The breadth of information to be amassed in first year was daunting, and we helped each other learn, and had a similar sense of humor to cope with the stress in that year and beyond. After medical school we shared our first internship rotation in general medicine and infectious disease - a true baptism of fire. Our professional paths diverged: Tom’s rural general practice; mine academic hematology, but we had the common intense focus on our respective field, scientific curiosity, and the importance of compassion, a sense of humour, and the importance of striving to use the gift of our University education for a greater good. “What would Tom do” crosses my mind at least weekly!

MBBS, 1993, MD, 1998

Taylor Smith 

In my first week at UofA, in a new state where I didn't know anyone, I attended a physics tutorial one morning where I found another student in my veterinary bioscience degree. We decided to sit together that class and leaving that tutorial we decided to stick together the whole day, and we stayed that way through the whole six-year degree. I now consider them a lifelong friend. (And it so happened that the other friend in our lifelong trio in the veterinary degree also attended that same physics tutorial.) One physics tutorial decided my fate at UofA in the best way.

D Vet Med, 2021

Donna Beaty - Winner

I was studying science in the mid-1990s and would often meet up with classmates at the Uni cafe between lectures. We’d all gather round in a big group socialising and meeting new people. One day, a classmate invited a guy she worked with to join us. He was studying anthropology and we started chatting and got along well. Before long, he became a regular in our group. 

Little did I know - but this man would go on to become my best friend of over 30 years! 

We’ve shared houses together, had holidays together... and we often can tell what the other is thinking. 

While we live in different states now and have our own lives and partners - the friendship has stayed strong. 

Meeting my best friend at Adelaide Uni was a pivotal moment of my life.

BSc, 1998 

David (Matthew) Linn OAM

60 years after we met at an SCM state conference held at Zinc Corp campsite, Largs Bay, she's sitting by my side as I write. She, a trainee teacher, me in fourth year engineering, we have travelled the world, raised two kids, now with six of their own, it can only be said to be a successful chance meeting, long ago. We keep in touch with many of our UofA contemporaries which helps us stay young.

Michael Page

The best part about my long association at UofA is my continuous affiliation with AU Boat Club since 1968. I am still an active Masters competitor and my friends there are both family and ‘returned veterans’. A great group of people.

B Ag Sc, 1989

Sarantuya Tumurtogoo, Mongolia

I’m alumna of 2013-1015 and made many friends.

M Ed, 2015

Claire Hale - Winner

After losing close touch while pursuing our specialist qualifications and raising our families, five of us from Medical School (1968 -1973) have now been meeting for regular dinner dates for 16 years. Enjoying fine wines and supporting various Adelaide eateries is a shared joy. Celebrating special birthdays together actually dates back to our twenty-first birthdays when we were students together - the friendships are warm and enduring despite those years when we were following individual paths, and now the birthdays remind us that regardless of how many years have passed and how few may remain, we will always be “there” for each other. Reunions with the class cohort have been organised on a five-yearly basis since 1978 and last year we celebrated 50 years since our final year at school. We call ourselves Arcadians after the ground floor common room in the old Medical School building.

MBBS, 1974, Dip Psych, 1983

Kelsi Carman

On the first week of lectures I met this girl who was sitting next to me and we started talking. She mentioned she was not into coffee but was willing to try it. I took her to the coffee shop on campus, as the HUB was not built yet and told her to try a mocha. From there we decided to try the wedges at Unibar and every week after a lecture together we catch up for lunch and wedges. After 12 years I was one of her bridesmaids and now she is going to be mine later this year. An amazing friendship which started with a simple conversation about coffee.

BSc Biochem Micro & Immun, 2013

Linda Shearwin - Winner

Chance events. In 1992 Keith Shearwin, working as a post-doc in Boston, was looking for a job back in his native Australia. Browsing through a copy of Nature, he spotted an advertisement for a post-doc position with Professor Barry Egan in the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Adelaide. The application deadline had passed but he thought he’d contact the Professor just in case. Ultimately, Keith was offered the position in the Egan laboratory and moved to Adelaide in 1993. We met soon thereafter while I was undertaking a PhD in the same department. We were married five years later. Keith, now an Associate Professor, continues the research and teaching program as laboratory head, while I’m a post-doc in the same department and we have been married for 27 years and have two children.

B Sc (Hons), 1992, PhD (Sc), 1997

Kathy Thompson - Winner

Geography camp 1970… 

We were put into groups of three for fieldwork at Clarendon. I was put with two guys whom I did not know at the time and the next year I ended up marrying one of them!

We both continued on to do a major in geography as part of our BA. studying part-time, attending evening lectures and tutorials while also teaching full time. We thoroughly enjoyed our time at the University of Adelaide and also the friends we made.

Our two daughters followed in our footsteps gaining degrees at Adelaide Uni which holds a special place in our hearts after 54 years!

BA, 1981