HASS Head of School, Professor Alistair Noble, is on leave. This month’s contribution comes from guest columnist, Associate Professor Elizabeth Hale.

In my study sits a painting by a former student.  It is called The Guardian of Academia: it depicts a red-gold dragon in flight, a scroll in its claws. The seal of the scroll says ‘UNE’.  As I’ve been thinking about what to write for this column, that painting comes to mind.  Given the buffeting we’ve all received over the past few years, it might seem we need a dragon or two to look after us.  Academia, after all, is a treasure worth preserving: knowledge, tradition, education.  

I see these treasures in literal form: books that line the walls of meeting rooms throughout the Arts Building; the maps in the GeoPlan Map Library; the harpsichord that Alistair is caretaking in his office … these are treasures from the past life of the university: the material objects that supported learning in our ‘unconventional, exciting and vibrant’ university (to quote our new Vice-Chancellor’s message of last week.)   

Some of these treasures need dragons to guard them.  But dragons, to survive, need to learn to share.  So, how to share the treasures of academia?  I’ve been inspired recently by the recordings of local Indigenous language in the Bill Hoddinott Collection (discussed here on the ABC); and learning about the UNE Museum of Antiquity’s Globe Theatre Project, which digitises a teaching model of Shakespeare’s Globe.  HASS staff involvement in initiatives like the Sustainable Living Armidale project is another example: sharing treasures of knowledge and care.   

Less literally, but no less importantly, we all share the treasure of learning.  It doesn’t always feel that way, especially at the start of a trimester, but by now, the treasures will have emerged.  Dynamic tutorial discussions, exciting student projects, seeing students get to know one another—moments to delight in.  I hope you are having many such moments, and encourage you to share them.  And I’d like to thank the Professional Staff of HASS, for making this treasure available for all through their expertise and hard work. 

In the fantasy literature unit I’m teaching this trimester, we have discussed Smaug, the wicked dragon in The Hobbit, whose greed ultimately destroys him.  He has laid waste to the countryside around his treasure hoard, which he guards obsessively.  The moral is obvious: to do good, treasure needs to be shared.  That spirit, I think, infuses our work, and means we have the potential to be good dragons—guardians of academia whose work has benefits and impacts to the greater community.