Transcript: Prof Iain Martin, VC Deakin University, on Reimagining HE

This is Reimagining The Future of Higher Education from Studiosity. Your go-to podcast with remarkable education leaders, sharing personal stories from their experience in and around the sector, including reflection and evidence for progress in the sector. With your host, Professor Judyth Sachs, former DVC Learning and Teaching at the University of Sydney, Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Provost Macquarie University and Special Advisor in Higher Education at KPMG and now Chief Academic Officer at Studiosity. 

Prof Iain Martin:
Welcome, Judyth.

Prof Judyth Sachs:
Nice to see you.

Prof Iain Martin:
Good to see you.

Prof Judyth Sachs:
And as far as I'm concerned, you are just a legend - and I like your Gloria Petyarre - Is that a Gloria Petyarre behind you?

Prof Iain Martin:
No. It's a young Indigenous artist. Grew up in Alice Springs. Now lives near Geelong. And this is very much his totem is the emu feathers and this one's got colour, but he's done others with gold and silver. And I just love it.

Prof Judyth Sachs:
That's gorgeous. It's gorgeous.

Prof Iain Martin:
Great conversation piece, that's for certain.

Prof Judyth Sachs:
Yeah, I've got quite a few Indigenous paintings as well, so I've got to Gloria Petyarre. So I look at them with, with great joy and just you can get lost in them.

Prof Iain Martin:
Yeah, I just love it and it's just as I say, this one they, they chose for me knowing what I like. It's great.

Prof Judyth Sachs:
Thank you. Professor Martin, for agreeing to talk to me today. When I look at your career, you've actually had a very varied and interesting career. You grew up in South Wales and then you spent your childhood in Hampshire and then you went to Leeds and did your surgical training and you did your practice as a surgeon in Leeds as well.

Prof Judyth Sachs:
But then in 1998 you took the great, the great challenge to move to New Zealand. So hopefully we can talk about some of those things as well. And then from New Zealand, you came to year where you and I first met each other when you were Deputy Vice-Chancellor. Then you had a great adventure going back to the UK to be vice chancellor of Anglia Ruskin and fortunately we were able to get you back to Australia to lead - I think -one of Australia's most innovative and interesting universities. And you came to Deakin University in 2019. So thank you for talking to us because you actually have had a remarkable career and you know a lot about leadership, but also you have lots of views about learning.

So when we had our conversation, I asked you to bring an object that represented your journey as a leader, but more importantly, some of the things that have shaped you as a learner and as an educator.

So, Iain, what have you what have you brought?

"I asked you to bring an object that represented your journey as a leader, but more importantly, some of the things that have shaped you as a learner and as an educator. So, Iain, what have you what have you brought?"

Now, you might say, why on earth would an academic who is an ex surgeon have that as the thing I wanted to bring in? Well, there's multiple reasons. I'll start with the gut feeling emotional, and that is the sound of two Rolls-Royce engines going full tilt - is one of the most amazing noises that you can ever hear.

"It is a model of de Havilland DH 98 mosquito. Now, you might say, why on earth would an academic who is an ex surgeon have that as the thing I wanted to bring in? Well, there's multiple reasons."

But that's not really the reason why I brought it in. This plane was designed by Geoffrey de Havilland and he basically did a couple of things. One, he didn't like the government brief, so he completely ignored it and came up with something that he felt was actually needed and use his expertise to do that.

And I quite like that sort of sense of go with what you believe is right. Secondly, the plane was basically built out of wood and it was built out of wood largely because there was almost no spare aluminium when they were producing these things. And the country in the UK in the late thirties, early forties had lots and lots of carpenters and not many people who could work with wood, build it out of wood, great expertise, do something mate made, but in a different way.

And the final thing was, which I think is the most relevant thing perhaps to leadership, is this plane had almost no natural armour, but it was so successful because it was fast and agile. And I think there's a lesson in there as well. So I love it.

"This plane had almost no natural armour, but it was so successful because it was fast and agile. And I think there's a lesson in there as well. So I love it."

It reminds me of a few other things which perhaps if we've got time, I'll just add in.

The two other things are when I was going through school in the UK and I went to state school and then a state sixth form college, the most influential and inspirational teachers I had in the 1970s were nearly all World War Two veterans who said: ‘Our contribution back after the five worst years of our lives is to do something with education because we believe it's so powerful.’

And I think that was really important. And the second thing is a very local connection to my time in New Zealand. So when I lived in New Zealand there was a little general aviation airdrome just down the road and there were a bunch of aviation enthusiasts who brought the mosquito back to the air. They actually said, We can bring these back.

At that point in the 1990 and 2000, none of these things were left flying because the glue that they used to make, the things was degenerated in wet weather and none of that. So they built it using their technology. And to see the first mosquito take to the air just down the road for me, given my love of that, flying was pretty special.

So lots of reasons why I chose it, but mainly because of what it represents in terms of going with your guts and not being too fazed by what other people might say about you.

"So lots of reasons why I chose it, but mainly because of what it represents in terms of going with your guts and not being too fazed by what other people might say about you."

Prof Judyth Sachs:
So could you give another example - in terms of your professional career, either as a clinician surgeon or as a vice chancellor - that represents that ‘going with your gut’ and not being afraid of what people say about you.

Prof Iain Martin:
I mean, I think in many ways, my own career, when I made a move to move away from surgery, to spend the rest of my career in the university system, it had never been quite as binary as that because I'd always had jobs that straddled both. But the decision to stop one and continue completely with another was there was lots of people who rolled their eyes and said, sort of: What on earth did you do that for?

But my gut said, That's what I'm going to enjoy most for the next 2025 years of my life. And it's not for me too far wrong. And I think the other thing is I've been at a number of universities now and it is very, very tempting often to be blown around by whatever might be the favourable approach of the time, either government policy, what's out there.

But the leaders I most admired were those who said, no, this is what we want for our university. We're going to stick with it and push through. And I've had some great leaders who I admired at the University of Auckland, the University of New South Wales, and all of them, I think, to a greater or lesser extent had that characteristic, which was, yeah, we're going to get a bit of criticism for this, but we're going to do it because we think it's right.

"We're going to get a bit of criticism for this, but we're going to do it because we think it's right."

And that struck a chord with me.

Prof Judyth Sachs:
Were there any occasions that you've spoken of where it worked, or were rare occasions where it went belly up?

Prof Iain Martin:
I think anybody who's got a leadership career of any size, scale or length has times where they wish they'd done things differently, either picking the wrong project or perhaps more importantly, picking the wrong approach to get where you want to go to. And I think probably the thing I had to learn, Judyth, was even if you're pretty confident, things are right, if you can't bring those around you with you, they might as well not be right because and sometimes you've got to circle right back, back to the beginning again and start again knowing that where you want to get to.

But actually the pathway you took and certainly early on in my career as Dean and a few others. Absolutely that happened. You sort of go in with a level of enthusiasm and passion, believing everybody else is going to see it. Absolutely. As you see it, it doesn't always work like that. And I think what did I learn was, yeah, you can let the words for a while.

But actually the most successful thing is, is to go back round if you convinced it right. Figure out what you did wrong and circle back around. And if you're not convinced it's right that plenty of other challenges drop it, move on.

Prof Judyth Sachs:
So can you talk to us a little bit about your own experience as a student at Leeds, both as an undergraduate student, but then when you did some postgraduate work as well?

Prof Iain Martin:
Yeah. So as you said, I was born in South Wales but spent most of my childhood in Hampshire. I went to – with all due respect - a fairly ordinary state comprehensive school. My salvation was the sixth form college I went to. I was distinctly an indifferent student at school, but the sixth Form College had a pretty flexible attitude to learning and teaching, and they gave you the space to experiment.

And it challenged me. It stimulated me because I could do stuff that wasn't necessarily constrained by a tight school curriculum. And I did much better there than I ever, ever, ever did at school. And if it wasn't for that, I certainly wouldn't have had the career I had. There are a few somewhat unkind comments in the report book which sort of say lines to the effect that 'we'd like to get cross with him for not following stuff, but he's doing all right at the moment, so we let him get away with it.' Which is but I think there is a lesson in there, which is both for individuals and teachers, that finding a space for individuals to flourish is often not quite where you would expect it to be. So I didn't quite know what I wanted to do at 17 and for a pathway that I still can't quite figure out how I ended up there. I decided I want to have a go at medicine and it wasn't easy. That's no family history. Zero.

It wasn't that I knew lots of people who were doctors. Zero But there was something in there and I set my mind to it. And I applied to a range of medical schools across the country and Leeds was one. There wasn't a particular reason why Leeds you were allowed to choose five and I just chose a geographical varied five on the basis that it might increase.

You're lucky if you're not all clustered in one area. It wasn't a great scientific decision. So in 1982 I arrived as a first year student at the University of Leeds.

To say I was overwhelmed was probably an understatement. I'd come from a relatively small town. I hadn't really travelled much at that point, and here you were thrown into seems luxurious. Now a class of 105 medical students, most of whom had had a very different educational pathway to me, I think it probably took a while for me to figure out which way was up.

It certainly wasn't what I was expecting. The medical education at that point was pretty brutal. It was pass or you're out and it was very public. So it was the days when every result was put up on the notice board. Every progression was put up on the notice board. No sense of privacy about your own results. It was listed there and if you were below the cup, everybody knew you of Labour Cup, which I wouldn't recommend.

But it certainly was quite good at growing a sense of camaraderie with your colleagues around it because it was it was brutal. It wasn't quite the most brutal experience of education, which was undoubtedly while standing on the steps of the College of Surgeons, where the porter came out and read the names of the successful and unsuccessful candidates, and those who were successful were invited in, and those who were unsuccessful were told to go away.

"The porter came out and read the names of the successful and unsuccessful candidates, and those who were successful were invited in, and those who were unsuccessful were told to go away."

And that was truly, truly awful. You remember it, but certainly, again, wouldn't want to. What did I enjoy? I think the thing I enjoyed the most was, again, the opportunity to have your mind stretched a little bit, pushed in different directions. And there were a few people who you truly admired. And for most people your career goes with the truly admired.

And there was a professor of surgery who interestingly, his first career had been in the humanities, and he'd done humanities in university. Initially, he was a scholar but an educator, and really valued that breadth and depth of thinking outside the immediate. And that was exciting. That one person is almost certainly why I ended up in surgery. It wasn't so much surgery, it was the influence of that one.

And I think again, we often forget it. But whether it's a classroom teacher at school or an inspirational person at university, one or two people can change careers for reasons they probably never noticed that that was the reason why, but it was so complete in my medical degree and then moved in effectively almost immediately into a hybrid life between the university and clinical practice.

I've never really worked - apart from a couple of years during general surgical training - outside of a shared university clinical role. I did that and was working in those roles and got asked and I can't even remember quite why this happened. I think someone went on leave and I was almost the last man standing at that point to take on an educational role within the School of Medicine.

I did it and I thought, I'm actually quite enjoying this, but I decided that if I'm going to be serious about this, I probably needed to get a bit of a formal pedigree under my belt. So I did a part time master's in post compulsory education and training, long mouthful, but it was basically a part time cohort of about 30 of us who were involved in the educational professionals outside of a traditional school environment.

So we had police, educators, firemen, educators, all sorts in the room, people from universities, people from industry. And what was most stimulating about that was actually everybody was grappling with the same challenges, just in slightly different environments, and it was actually a very enjoyable group to work in and that sowed the seeds for enthusiasm for what I was doing.

And then we come into the late 1990s and at that point I'd been heading for 18 years at the University of Leeds as a staff member and a student and I sort of was thinking, well, if I don't do something different soon, I'm going to sort of effectively career wise live before and live and die within one university system, although thought was probably not what I had in mind.

And we got offered a role, I got offered a role in New Zealand and our girls at that point were three and six and we sort of had a conversation with my wife and said, Well, we'll go. The kids are young enough. We'll go three or four years, maybe five, come back, never look. It's a great time in their education to get a bit of brass and it's not really going to impact them because they'll pre secondary school anyway.

Life didn't quite work like that and 13 years later I was still in New Zealand and then I went to the University of New South Wales. So a lots happened. The New Zealand journey was fascinating. I got more and more sucked into the broader university life and a couple of key mentors. One was John Hird, who was the then Vice-Chancellor at Auckland who went on to Oxford.

And John absolutely was one of the people who is responsible for me sitting in this chair now. John said, Try a leadership role, you'll enjoy it. And it wasn't much more of a conversation than that, but it was very much the validation that this was something to explore. And then the second person was Stuart McCutcheon, who was based at Auckland for 14, 15 years.

I do owe a huge debt of gratitude because he mentored, support. He guided me, it gave me the space to develop my career and again the space to try things which was really good. And there were a few things where we tried and it didn't quite work, but there were lots where we tried and did work. We pushed boundaries. This school of medicine I want to do at times both, mostly for the good.

I remember one time getting summoned to the office of the Registrar, who was the senior legal officer at the university, saying, I understand your reason for declaring the medical faculty in the medical campus. non-smoking, but you really, really should have taken to that to the university before you put the signs up. But yeah, it was all taken in good faith.

"I understand your reason for declaring the medical faculty in the medical campus non-smoking, but you really, really should have taken to that to the university before you put the signs up."

But yeah, I had a great time there. And then in 2011 12, Fred Hilmer rang me and said, Are you interested in coming to NSW? I initially said no, and then he rang me again and said, Are you sure? And I came and I had a wonderful time. Probably set more of the ability to think about hold of university during that time than almost any other five year period in my career.

So yeah, to that point it was interesting and fascinating journey. And then in 2016 I went back to the UK and like many families who've spent their lives sort of between continents, between countries, Fiona and I weren't quite sure what part of the world was home, the opportunity to work with a really quite young university with ambition, and particularly their ambition to get to medical school over the line was interesting.

I went back thinking that this might be permanent and I worked really hard. We got the medical school over the line, very, very successful in that and the Deakin opportunity came up.

I think the combination of taken and a recognition that probably Australia was our home in so many different ways, said will come back and I'm here now. I'm sitting in this chair on water, on country, looking out over Corio Bay and I couldn't be in a better VC chair in Australia. I think.

Prof Judyth Sachs:
Thank you for that. That overview of your history and what's what shape to what's important for you as an educator. What drives you when you're sitting in the Vice-Chancellor’s chair, the chief Officer of the university, what's important for you as an educator in this role?

Prof Iain Martin:
I think there's obviously the very personal thing that I owe absolutely everything to my time as an undergraduate at the University of Leeds. My career would have gone in a very, very different way, I think, if I hadn't have had that opportunity. And it's thinking actually, it really makes a difference.

The thing I love more than anything else in doing this role is that I get to see the breadth of what goes on across a large university, and that is both challenging but immensely stimulating to be able to think about the difference an engineering qualification makes in the morning with a theoretical conversation about philosophy and then creative industries in the afternoon or whatever it happens to be. That sense of the breadth, the and space to give students the opportunity to explore that knowledge just makes it so worthwhile. And giving our students the opportunity to have the basis to take their careers. You can only go so far, but you can give that space, that experience, those tools. And I think that's why I do it.

"That sense of the breadth, the and space to give students the opportunity to explore that knowledge just makes it so worthwhile. And giving our students the opportunity to have the basis to take their careers. You can only go so far, but you can give that space, that experience, those tools."

That's why I love it. But the most important thing is that breadth it. For me, that's what makes this job so exciting, is recognising that both society and our university community made that breadth to function well and playing a part in that.

Prof Judyth Sachs:
You spoke about the rather traumatic public opportunity for failure or success during your medical training. Have there been elements of your own education that you have decided not to have as part of your leadership and your education role within the institutions you've led?

Prof Iain Martin:
This is always difficult because you have to ask other people what they think of what you bring and what you do and what you don't do. So you feel sort of nervous that you're about to say something. Of course you do that. But I think allowing people to take pride in their own achievements, the best leaders that I've seen and hopefully I do this, provide an environment for people to flourish, but don't take pride for what other people have - that they're proud that the organisation has delivered.

But it's a vicarious pride as far as they're concerned. And I think the leaders I've admired have been so good at doing that, and hopefully I continue to do that as well. The most important thing that I can do is to create an environment where others can succeed. Now, that's always really challenging because whatever you do in a large organisation, some will fail.

You've got the balance wrong in the way you've prioritised investment, time, opportunity, but certainly for me, prioritising those things that I think are going to give people the best long-term chance to succeed is really important. And as I say, it was what drove so many of my mentors over the years.

I think the other thing that I've seen that's really important is I hopefully I do this as well, is that in many ways, recognising that the chair I'm sitting in is very transient in the timeline for the universities, and there is very much pressure of managing for the now, but there is also very much a commitment that to set up those who are going to come behind because universities are absolutely. Well, shouldn't be short term spaces. Yep, we want short term wins, but within the framework of long term commitment to make a difference through our education, our research, and that third pillar of community engagement.

"...the chair I'm sitting in is very transient in the timeline for universities, and there is very much pressure of managing it for the now, but there is also very much a commitment that to set up those who are going to come behind..."

Prof Judyth Sachs:
The appointment or the election of a new Government will bring a different set of priorities and approaches. When you think about your career as sitting at the big table, either as a Deputy Vice Chancellor or as a Vice Chancellor, what are the challenges being both institute personally and educationally? And what do you see the future looking like?

Prof Iain Martin:
I think it's quite hard to separate just at the moment the challenges of the last two and a half years. I mean, they have been profound. I mean, COVID has disrupted so much in our communities. Yeah, universities have had a difficult time, but there are many, many sectors of our community that have had equally or far more difficult times.

And I think a lot of my last two and a half years has been dealing with the now all those acute challenges. But I think when you step back from those and you look forward five years, ten years, 15 years, whatever is what's going to continue to matter? Well, the education mission of the university is going to still continue to be there.

We will have generations of young inspired school leavers alongside those later in that career, returning for postgraduate or short course or whatever it happens to be at the time. That's not going to go away. What we're focusing on might change how we deliver. It might change, but it's not going to go away. And again, similarly, the research innovation mission is not going to go away.

The sense that we will continue to push boundaries, challenge both technologically and society wise is really important. I mean, universities - and it doesn't always feel like this - actually occupy a very privileged point in society. We are public but not traditional public organisations. We are large organisations, but we are not businesses in the traditional sense of the word. We have a whole lot of accountabilities, but far more autonomy than many big equivalent organisation have.

"The sense that we will continue to push boundaries, challenge both technologically and society wise is really important. I mean, universities - and it doesn't always feel like this - actually occupy a very privileged point in society. We are public but not traditional public organisations. We are large organisations, but we are not businesses in the traditional sense of the word. We have a whole lot of accountabilities, but far more autonomy than many big equivalent organisation have."

Why have universities kept going with that broad model? What I think for them to function well, they need those characteristics. And I think my role is to make sure we keep enough of those going to ensure that we can continue to do that. And to remind myself and others that, yeah, it's tough going at times, but we really are privileged in terms of what we are able to do, the people we are able to work with and the students we have around us.

There are few sectors I think offer that balance of those attributes. I mean, I've got friends working in local governments, in the health service, in big companies, all of whom have opportunities. But I don't think any area has quite that unique mix that universities have. And that's very special. And again, I have to step back and think at times.

Just remember it is a privilege to do these jobs. We only hold them for a little while, make the most of it.

Prof Judyth Sachs:
So what sort of experience do you think students can expect? Because, you know, we've got school leavers, we've got mature learners, we've got postgraduate, we've got research students. What should I expect the university to offer them?

Prof Iain Martin:
But I think in asking the question, you've partially answered it in that actually there is no one to answer to this. What's an 18 year old student coming from regional Victoria needs in their first year university is very different to a 35 year old student coming back to do a part time MBA. And I think in that lies the answer, which is and this is challenging is to actually offer a range of experiences that suit those individual cardboards.

So it's that sense of personalisation, the challenge for Australian universities, which are large, is then how do you personalise that scale? Maybe come back to that in a minute, what are we going to offer? So let's talk about those school leavers. What do they want? They want to have an opportunity to learn about a subject they care deeply and passionately about.

They want to have a chance to grow a network of peers, be exposed to new life circumstances. And I would argue in 2022, they almost certainly want an educational experience that blends the very best of the digital and the very best of the physical together seamlessly. They don't want to come to campus if it's something they don't need to be off campus school.

"They want to have a chance to grow a network of peers, be exposed to new life circumstances. And I would argue in 2022, they almost certainly want an educational experience that blends the very best of the digital and the very best of the physical together seamlessly. They don't want to come to campus if it's something they don't need to be off campus school."

They're very smart. They will be strategic about that. If campus adds value, they'll be there. If online earns value, they'll do it that way and ideally jump between the two. And I think the challenge for educators is to get that mix right. It's also important to remember that an awful lot of what happens is value on campus for that cohort of students has almost nothing to do with what happens in the classroom and an awful lot more about what happens with peer networks, socially, otherwise, and to try and find ways of supporting that.

And I think we've learned a lot about how we think about our digital education and how that links with what must happen on campus with COVID. But I think it has come at a little bit of a cost just at the moment in that quite a lot of this has become good but transactional. That is to say, the students come, they get a great classroom experience, lab experience, whatever it happens to be.

But just at the moment, they're not hanging around the campus. They're not doing that extra stuff that used to happen. Now, there's a whole variety of reasons for that, but I think we've got to work hard on how do we get that mix back, particularly for those school leaver students who are coming away from home to study for the first time.

For those coming back, I think the flexibility, the ability to study at a time that suits in a way that suits far more important the other stuff around the campus, it's important, but it probably matters a whole lot less in terms of that value proposition. So it is about how do we fix it all together? I think there are lots of things that as educators we're going to have to think about.

"For those coming back, I think the flexibility, the ability to study at a time that suits in a way that suits far more important the other stuff around the campus, it's important, but it probably matters a whole lot less in terms of that value proposition."

So how do we think about timetabling? I think we're going to have to be more strategic about timetabling so that we're actually encouraging. I was going to say forcing and forcing strong but encouraging students to come to campus for significant blocks of time. You talk to the student cohort a couple of hours on a Monday, 2 hours on a Wednesday and some time on a Friday doesn't really encourage them to engage.

But if you can condense the time that they're into slightly more longer periods in two or three days, I think we could start to do a little bit more. It's different from the way we used to approach it, but probably not right. Thinking about how we put together first year curriculum. Most of the last 20 years is about being empowering students, giving them lots of choice, the ability to really cross their own way through.

I think that's great. But I almost wonder whether we've gone too far, because what's happened is very few groups of students have identical study timetables anymore, which means that natural cohort of 110 medical students I had when I started at university, most of our students don't get that experience. You don't get to know a group of students through that study period.

So how can we work, particularly in our large, more general degrees? Think about growing some coherent groups of students studying together, and I think it's going to be a bit of a balance between choice and trying to engineer cohorts who know each other a little bit better. And I think we've got some we've certainly had lots of conversations here at Deakin about that, and I think we will continue to do so.

I haven't quite got the right answers, but I think coming out of COVID, it's one of the things I think is going to be really important.

Prof Judyth Sachs:
What would you say to your younger self in terms of shaping your career? But also what would what advice would you give to aspirant leaders?

Prof Iain Martin:
And don't overthink it. Almost every one of the opportunities I've had has not come because I sat down and said, This is what I want to do next. It's come from an opportunity that was seized. Secondly, believe in yourself that don't be too pushed by those outside of your immediate group. Don't come to the peer pressure. And I think finally and this is probably the most important thing is do what you love, not what you think other people think you should love.

And as dean of medicine for seven years, I saw not a large number, but a significant number of students who were academically incredibly gifted, who had been told by parents, careers, advisers, wow, you're absolutely great at this. Medicine should be your aspiration. And I saw them and I saw them and they were successful. But you also got this strong sense, actually, it wasn't whether genuine heart was their passion was elsewhere, their abilities were elsewhere, but they just felt that they had to do it because other people thought they should love it.

That should be what they wanted because of their innate academic ability. And I sort of thought that's really as an educator, we should be encouraging people to go where their passion is, not necessarily where a particular item or set of A-level grades indicates where those around you think you should go. And I think that would be the bit of advice, and I think the final bit of advice I would give myself, which I'm probably at risk of being sort of kettle calling.

"We should be encouraging people to go where their passion is, not necessarily where a particular item or set of A-level grades indicates where those around you think you should go."

The problem is make sure that you don't get too sucked into the leadership roles, that you maintain a sense of identity outside of your professional role. One of my best ever mentors was in New Zealand, who was an individual who had run many companies, done all sorts of stuff, had come back into the university world in the business school and postgraduate sense, said, whatever else you do, make sure you separate out you the person from you, the role, they overlap, but they are not the same.

And I think that was the one bit of advice I've carried with me. And at times I have to go back and remind myself when you have to make. And every leadership roles got difficult, unpopular decisions that sometimes you have to make. If you take the criticism as you the person all the time, you go crazy. So you've just got to have that ability to separate - it ain't easy, but I think that will be a bit of advice probably my earlier self should have adopted earlier on in.

Prof Judyth Sachs:
Thank you for giving half an hour of your time this afternoon. Just one last question. Just does the Vice Chancellor's role have the number one membership ticket for Geelong now?

Prof Iain Martin:
It doesn't. So for those of you who know anything about the city of Geelong, if you have a leadership role here and support anybody else, then life is not easy. I was lucky in that I came to Deakin from an absolutely non-AFL past, neither New Zealand nor New South Wales nor anywhere. So I was left in little choice that given me the membership.

Prof Iain Martin:
It was empty that could only be one entry and it's become a part of our lives. But now I don't hold the number one ticket.

Prof Judyth Sachs:
Well, your team is doing very well. It's on the top of the ladder. So I see.

Prof Iain Martin:
So if indeed and I was flying back from UA conference on Thursday night thinking why on earth didn't I get an early flight?

Prof Judyth Sachs:
Well look and I hope our paths cross again, the two conversations that we've had to me have been an absolute delight and joy. So I wish you well in your future challenges as a Vice-Chancellor, but also in the joy you get in living in what I think is one of the most liveable areas of Australia, that Geelong region.

Prof Iain Martin:
Thank you very much indeed. It is, as always, a pleasure to talk.

Prof Judyth Sachs:
Thank you.

Prof Iain Martin:
Bye.

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