Deborah Terry: Champion of the universal value of universities

Universities need to avoid the ivory tower says the vice-chancellor who has been given Australia’s highest civil honour.

University of Queensland vice-chancellor Deborah Terry has been awarded an AC in the Australia Day honours: Picture: John Gass

University of Queensland vice-chancellor Deborah Terry, who received the nation’s highest civil award in the Australia Day honours list, said she and other higher education leaders know they need to avoid the ivory tower and help the public understand what universities do.

Professor Terry, who was awarded the Companion of the Order of Australia, said she believed universities were trusted in the community “at a high level”.

“But we need to be constantly working to ensure that the community broadly understands the contributions that universities do make,” she said.

Professor Terry said universities also realised they needed to listen and ensure they were “absolutely attuned to some of the concerns that different parts of the community may have”.

“Universities understand that they do need to be responsive to the issues of the day, that they do need to be accessible and that they aren’t in the ivory towers that sit so separate from the rest of ­society,” she said.

Professor Terry – who started her academic career at the University of Queensland in 1990 after completing a doctorate in ­social psychology – said she was “deeply humbled” by the award which recognised her “for eminent service to tertiary education as an institutional leader and academic, to the strengthening of higher education through collaboration and innovation, and to the community”.

“For me, it’s been a huge privilege to be able to work all of my ­career in the higher education sector, which is so critical for the strength and future prosperity, both economically and socially, of our nation,” she said.

Professor Terry has spent nearly her whole career at the University of Queensland, only leaving to lead Curtin University in Western Australia as its vice-chancellor from 2014 to 2020.

She was the chair of national body Universities Australia from 2019 to 2021.

She said it was critical for universities to work in collaboration with others, particularly with industry and government. “We will have an impact if we are able to build those trusted, mutually beneficial relationships,” she said.

Professor Terry said a successful example was her university’s Queensland Alliance for Agriculture and Food Innovation, a world-leading research institute which is backed by industry and the Queensland government.

It unites animal science, crop science, horticultural science, and nutrition and uses new technologies to produce nutritious food at scale in a sustainable way.