Written by Adjunct Associate Professor Susan Feez and Adjunct Associate Professor Liz Ellis, Faculty of Humanities, Arts, Social Sciences and Education.

There will be many in the UNE and wider Armidale community, and among past UNE colleagues and alumni, who will be deeply saddened by the passing recently of Ruth Nicholls.

Ruth will be remembered by her colleagues and students for her unwavering commitment to the fields of Teaching of English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) and Languages Education. While Ruth’s contribution to these fields was emphatically multilingual and multicultural in orientation, it was also firmly based in Armidale, where her contribution to TESOL and Languages teacher education spanned the decades from 1976 to 2013, at both the Armidale College of Advanced Education (ACAE) and the University of New England (UNE).

When Ruth arrived at the ACAE in 1976, she joined the Centre for Multicultural Studies. The origin of this centre was a two-year part-time Diploma in Migrant Teaching first offered in 1973, an initiative of Dr Alan Kerr, a teacher of modern European languages who, ahead of his time, turned his attention to multicultural and Aboriginal education. With about 100 students enrolling in each intake, graduates of this diploma made a significant contribution to Australia leading the world in migrant education and settlement in the decades that followed.

By 1976, with the support of colleagues Mary Douglas and John Collerson, among others, Dr Kerr established the Centre for Multicultural Studies (later the Centre for Aboriginal and Multicultural Studies) offering courses in TESOL, as well as core units in multicultural education and Aboriginal studies undertaken by all student teachers at the College. Ruth not only contributed to the teaching in these fields at the ACAE, but she also taught Modern Languages and TESOL teaching methods in the UNE Graduate Diploma in Education. Susan Feez (Languages and Literacy, School of Education) remembers first meeting Ruth when she attended an intensive school while enrolled in a Dip Ed at the ACAE.

That we still know so much about the origins of TESOL, Languages and multicultural education in Armidale more than half a century ago is thanks to Ruth’s careful and detailed chronicling of how the two tertiary institutions in Armidale became early leaders in Australia, and arguably globally, in preparing educators to teach in multicultural settings. Ruth’s record of these years is now archived at the UNE Archive and Heritage Centre as part of the Alan Kerr Collection. Among colleagues at the two institutions whose contribution Ruth recorded were Helen Andreoni, Graham Patterson, Margaret Sharpe, Siri Gamage, Albert Chieng, Myra Dunn/Catchpole, and Glenda Kupczyk-Romanczuk.

The ACAE Graduate Diploma in Multicultural Education was the foundation for the Master of Education (TESOL) program offered during the 1980s and 1990s, first at the ACAE and then at UNE. The award attracted high student numbers spanning the period of amalgamation of the ACAE and UNE. While student numbers declined in the 1990s as more universities began offering courses in TESOL, the award continues to be offered by the School of Education at UNE, not least of all because of Ruth’s skill in adapting the program over more than two decades to meet the changing needs of teachers and the contexts in which they worked.

During the 2000s, Ruth and the School of Education TESOL team collaborated with colleagues in the School of Arts to add a TESOL specialisation to the Master of Applied Linguistics (MAAL), an innovation which proved popular with students from Australia and overseas, and also continues to be offered by the School of HASS at UNE.

Ruth Nicholls (right) with Glenda Kupczyk-Romanczuk (2002)

From 1976 until her retirement in 2013, Ruth continued to coordinate and teach the Languages Teaching curriculum units within initial teacher education degrees, both primary and secondary, at UNE. In this area too, through cross-school collaboration, Ruth contributed to the addition of a Languages Teaching specialisation within the Diploma in Modern Languages, which also continues to be offered by the School of HASS.

As Liz Ellis (Linguistics, HASS) recalled:

Ruth was a valued friend and colleague to staff in Linguistics. She shared their love of language learning and teaching, and collaborated in several fruitful projects, such as the development of the Master of Applied Linguistics (TESOL), drawing on units from Linguistics and Education.

When Ruth retired, the responsibility for leading the TESOL and Languages programs was handed over to Susan Feez, who discovered what big shoes she needed to fill! At the same time, Ruth’s gentle presence, advice and knowledge accumulated over so many decades left a large gap in the team.

The courses which Ruth helped to establish, and which continue to be offered at UNE, represent a fifty-year heritage of TESOL and Languages Education in Armidale. This heritage has been sustained in large part by Ruth’s steadfast commitment over many decades to the value of language learning and her awareness of the importance of students learning to participate ethically, professionally and effectively in intercultural settings.

As Ruth’s colleague, Helen Andreoni, recollects:

My lasting memories of Ruth are about her gentle kindness and generosity shown to her students, friends and colleagues. Unfailing. She was rigorous and thorough in anything she put her mind to. In teaching TESOL she was aware that a wholistic approach was essential. Her research skills were evident, for example, when she was gathering up material for the Alan Kerr archives.

Ruth’s legacy is not only felt at UNE but much more widely in Armidale. She is remembered by Dr Bruce Menzies, who regularly conducts the Fiori Musicali Armidale chamber choir, as ‘a long standing and committed member of Fiori for many years’. Robyn Bradley, singer and accompanist, also remembers Ruth in Fiori at the very start in the early 90s. She continues:

Armidale College of Advanced Education (ACAE) staff, December 1988
Dr Margaret Sharpe (2nd from left), Dr Alan Kerr (centre), Dr Christine Perrott (behind and to the right of Alan), Myra Catchpole/Dunn (in front of Christine), Ruth Nicholls, Priscilla Connor and Graham Patterson (on the stairs).

It was only two per part then and Ruth of course was an excellent alto for both reading the music and also pronouncing the text to perfection, no matter the language. I believe Ruth was also in the UNE Madrigal group before that.

For Liz Ellis, Ruth was not only a collaborator in the field of TESOL and Languages Education but they also shared a love of singing:

Ruth is remembered with great affection by the musical community of Armidale for her long membership of the vocal group Fiori Musicali, and before that the UNE Madrigal group. In its early incarnations, Fiori consisted of only 8 voices (2 per part), and performed a cappella repertoire in the gorgeous acoustics of the Ursuline Chapel. Ruth had a fine alto voice as well as excellent sight-reading and the ability to pronounce the lyrics perfectly in a number of languages.

Helen Andreoni reminds us that Ruth’s great loves were ‘her family, dear Jim and her beloved boys, as well as French, music and her beautiful home at Rocky River; all gave her much joy’.

Our thoughts are with Ruth’s family, her friends and colleagues, and all those in the Armidale community who remember her as fondly as we do.