Associate Professor Jane Mills quickly got the audiences’ full attention when she delivered the Occasional Address at the Charles Sturt University (CSU) Faculty of Arts graduation ceremony on Friday 8 May when she urged graduates to ‘break rules’.

 

Dr Mills, who is Associate Professor (Teaching and Research) at the School of Communication at Bathurst, defended the necessity for scholarly rigour but said her message was ‘Now is the time for you to break rules’. 

 

“I’m not talking about all rules,” Professor Mills said. “Just those rules which keep people ignorant. Rules which encourage passivity and servility in the name of law and order. Rules, I regret to say, that are often endorsed by the very media, communication and education industries you’re about to enter.

 

“These are rules which exist to keep people from asking questions. Which prevent the less educated, the less privileged, the disabled – all those who are demeaned, diminished and discriminated against – from speaking out, from having a voice, from being heard.”

 

Professor Mills prefaced her remarks by noting that the graduation address has become a battleground on a world-wide scale following comments last year by Harry Potter creator, J.K. Rowling, when she gave the Graduation Address at Harvard University in the USA.(1) Ms Rowling remarked that ‘most of us remember who gave the address at our graduation. But no-one ever remembers a single word they said’.

 

“This sparked the war,” Professor Mills joked, “with each one of us wanting to be the first one to be remembered for what we say, not who we are. Chancellors and Vice-Chancellors the world over are getting anxious as each graduation speech-maker aims to be more outrageously memorable than the last.”

 

Professor Mills explained she sought no unique distinction for herself, but rather that the graduates need to understand that they are graduating at a uniquely important time in the history of the world, because the rules that created the present mould have resulted in a planet Earth which needs to change – and change fast if it is to survive.

 

“Yes, I’m talking abut the environment,” she said. “I’m also talking about the wars, the human misery, the broken promises, and the inhumanity. The discord that results from people failing to talk to each other, failing to hear each other - in short, the failure to communicate effectively.

 

“This is a fabulously important time in the history of the world to be graduating with a degree in communication. You are the next generation of media warriors. And you’re armed. No, not with weapons that kill, maim and silence. Your arms – and indeed your armour – consist of your knowledge and communication skills. You graduates are about to enter the very professions that need to be at the forefront of change and rule-breaking. With your knowledge of theory and practice you can create new rules. You can insist upon ethical rules.

 

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