Interviewee background

I spent most of my life, well, spent most of my adult working life in universities, but in and out of universities. I did a PhD in the US at the University of Illinois, labour economics, economics of education. From the University of Illinois, I went to Cornell [University], was on the faculty there for four years or so. Then my wife and I decided to come back to Australia to the ANU [Australian National University] for a year or two, and then I got a full chair at the University of New South Wales. I was the foundation professor of industrial relations which was a major public policy area in the 1970s. I moved on up through the university ladders and spent some time as the head of the School of Economics, dean of the Faculty of Commerce and then on to vice-chancellorship. But along the way I took time out; I did a lot of consulting work in organisational change at the workplace level. I was particularly interested in enterprise bargaining, collective bargaining, which was quite a foreign concept in Australia, but is now essentially the standard approach. I spent a period away from the university on leave to head up the Environment Protection Authority. And I went in and out of various other things. Along the way, I spent time as the head of the academic trade union in Australia. Then I spent time as the head of the vice-chancellors in Australia, so I have been on both sides of that particular equation. I came along to SMU as you say in about 2000, I think it was.