QPAT chair speaks at UQ graduation

QPAT chair speaks at UQ graduation

Chair of the Queensland Performing Arts Trust Dr Marie Siganto will be guest speaker at a University of Queensland graduation ceremony at Mayne Hall, St Lucia on Tuesday, August 24.

Students from the Faculties of Arts and Social and Behavioural Sciences will receive their degrees at the 6pm ceremony.

Dr Siganto (telephone 07 3848 2580), a UQ graduate and Senator, was appointed Chair of the Queensland Performing Arts Trust in July 1998. After taking a Bachelor of Arts degree and Diploma in Education at the University of Queensland, she pursued a teaching career before retiring to raise a family of six children.

She returned to the University to take a Master of Arts degree and Doctorate of Philosophy and taught in the English Department. A long-time supporter of the arts in Queensland, she has taken a strong interest in arts administration since she retired from the University.

She has served on the Arts Advisory Committee, the Arts Accommodation Taskforce, the Board of Opera Queensland and has chaired the committee for the State Government's writing grants. Since 1994, she has been Patron of the Queensland Artworkers' Alliance.

She was appointed to the Senate Art Collections Committee of the University of Queensland in 1998 and is a government appointee to the present Senate.

Dr Siganto has taken an active interest as a director in family investment and property companies and is a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.

Graduands of interest at the ceremony include the first graduate of the University's Bachelor of Social Science degree, Amanda Bowden

Ms Bowden who gained first class honours majoring in cultural anthropology was awarded her undergraduate arts and social studies degree through LaTrobe University in Victoria.

Ms Bowden completed her honours year thesis at UQ specialising in studies of indigenous people and conservation discourse. "While travelling in Australia and overseas I have developed a fine appreciation of the values of different cultures," she said. I have witnessed poverty at first hand and have developed a strong sense of the injustice of other people's suffering."

Ms Bowden hopes to pursue a PhD furthering her studies of indigenous issues at the University of Queensland.

For more information, contact Graduations Officer Tim Tout (telephone 07 3365 9194).