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Message
The affiliation of any chapter is an exciting and special occasion. It is testament to the support and commitment of the alumni in that geographic area, or area of interest. What made this particular affiliation even more exciting was the listing of the inaugural President of the Chapter as Yang Amat Berhormat Datuk Patinggi Tan Sri (Dr) Haji Abdul Taib Mahmud, Chief Minister of Sarawak. At the February 13 Board meeting of the Alumni Association, the members voted unanimously to affiliate the Sarawak Alumni of the University of Adelaide. The addition of this new Chapter means that alumni living on either the East Island or the Peninsula can be active in a chapter of the Alumni Association. It seems highly appropriate that a region that supplies the University with so many students and so much culture should be so well-serviced through the Alumni Association. We hope that our relationships with our alumni and friends will be a lifetime one, extending far beyond the three or more years graduates spent with us as students. We hope to keep in touch with our alumni and friends, to hear about careers and personal and professional achievements and to let our alumni and friends know what is happening here. We look forward to welcoming our alumni and friends back to the University throughout their lives to attend events and activities or to simply keep in touch. We also hope that we will receive the benefits of their support and wisdom in future years. You, our alumni and friends, are now, and will continue to be, a part of our alumni network of students, graduates, staff, former staff and friends. "Education has always been a source of social vitality and the more people we can include in the community of learning, whether in further or higher education, the greater the benefits to us all. The very process involves interaction between people; it is the means by which the values and wisdom of a society are shared and transmitted across the generations. Education strengthens the ties that bind people, takes the fear out of difference and encourages tolerance. It helps people see what makes the world tick and the ways in which they, individually and together, can make a difference." (Baroness Helen Kennedy QC, Chair of the British Council and Chancellor of Oxford Brookes University). Let us as alumni resolve to keep our University strong in spirit, steeped in learning and confidently able to serve the broad spectrum of students from our region of the world in the same way that it served each of us. Congratulations on your affiliation as the fifth international chapter and eighteenth chapter overall. We welcome you warmly into our alumni community and look forward to an exciting future.
GREG CRAFTER |