Vale Alan Gilbert

Volume 6 Number 8 August 9 - September 12 2010

The University of Melbourne’s former Vice-Chancellor, Professor Alan Gilbert, has passed away in England after a long illness.

Acting Vice-Chancellor Professor John Dewar says Professor Gilbert, who recently retired as the inaugural Vice-Chancellor of the University of Manchester, was an innovative and visionary leader.

He says Professor Gilbert’s time with the University of Melbourne was during a period of great change in Australian higher education, and Melbourne was fortunate to have a leader of such quality to guide it through.

Professor Dewar says Professor Gilbert encouraged one of Australia's oldest universities to extend beyond its physical and figurative boundaries to become a truly global institution, welcoming a steadily growing number of international students, extending enrolment capacities to accommodate a new and diverse student population, and setting a research agenda that would reinforce and further promote it as a high ranking international institution.