The Diary Of A Vice-Chancellor

Raymond Priestley was the first salaried Vice-Chancellor of the University of Melbourne. It was a time of great upheaval, as Australian universities reshaped and reasserted themselves after the Great Depression. Priestley was an energetic, innovative man with a colourful background in Antarctic exploration. He held strongly to the view that the university is a community of scholars. Priestley studded his diary with anecdotes about meetings with interesting people, including R. G. Menzies, Joseph Lyons and Rupert Hamer. He recounts in absorbing detail his relationship with the University Council, his continuing conflicts with the Chancellor, Sir James Barrett, and his eventual resignation. Ronald Ridley has judiciously distilled and edited Priestley's voluminous diary, and has included a selection of his public speeches. Readers who care about tertiary education in Australia, and the University of Melbourne in particular, will find it absorbing and thought-provoking. And one question they might well ask themselves is whether any such frank and revealing account is likely to be available to scholars looking back at today's universities.