Today we celebrated the official opening of our new academic home, the reconstructed earth studies building. We staged a large party addressed by the Dean, Margaret Sedgley and the VC, Alan Pettigrew, pictured in the centre.
In fact, this was a culmination of four years of effort on my part starting in early 2005 when, as the incoming head of school, I found that UNE's Council had funded our school $3 million for a new building. I quickly worked out with the head of Facilities Management, Mike Quinlan (in the blue shirt), that this sum would buy about half of our needs if we constructed anew and thta it would be better to spend the money on refurbishing an existing building. I soon found the heavily underutilised Geology building and proposed moving there to UNE's then business manager Graham Dennehy. UNE usually doesn't move fast, but on this occasion the message came back in 24 hours that I had a great idea.
A year of architectural work then ensued, whereby a user's group met with design and construction professionals to decide upon the building's optimal layout to fit us all in and conserve the necessary teaching and research spaces. This bought together staff from Geology, Geography and Planning, and Archaeology, as well as Facilities Management in an effective working group. The resultant plans were approved by the users and passed Armidale Council (the Mayor was there today also). The work was sufficiently complete for us to move in mid-2008 and we have spent the last 5 months fine-tuning our occupation.
The outcome is very good and my colleagues are happy. Today, I received a strong round of applause when the VC noted my driving role in making this outcome happen, and I basked in the warm glow of a job well done!
AS
1 comment:
Excellent work. You ought to have been part of the "A Team" whose key line was "its good when a job comes together".
Richard Snow.
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