Rod Rhodes
Professor of Government in the School of Government at the University of Tasmania, distinguished Professor of Political Science at the Australian National University, and Emeritus Professor of the University of Newcastle, Rod Rhodes, studied HNC in Business Studies at Bradford Technical College from 1962 to 1964.
Rod is the author or editor of 25 books; most recently,
The Oxford Handbook of Political Institutions (joint editor, 2006), and Governance Stories (with
Mark Bevir, 2006). He has been editor of Public
Administration since 1986. He is Treasurer of the
Australasian Political Studies Association, life Vice-President of the Political Studies Association of the
United Kingdom, and a Fellow of the Academy of
Social Sciences in both Australia and Britain.
“I worked as a clerk for Power Petroleum in Leeds. I got
the Number 72 bus to Leeds at 7.25 and started work
at 8.15. I was allowed to leave work ‘early’ at 5 pm
so I could get the bus home in time for night school
at the Tech. The drop out rate was horrendous. It was
hardly surprising – 3 hours a night, 3 nights a week
after a full working day. We were the survivors, and
thought about it like that. I particularly recall walking
from the Tech to Forster Square to get my bus home, I
always went past a snooker club. The sounds of Love
Me Do floated out from its juke box. It was the first
time I heard The Beatles. I did not know that at the
time – not until I heard them on the radio.
When I passed my HNC, I expected to be promoted
at work. They promoted an older colleague who had
failed his second year and would have to re-sit some
courses. They also gave him time off for the resits! I
remained a clerk. I saw the personnel manager and
swore at him because I was so upset at the iniquity of
it all. I was sent to see the Regional Manager. I was in
deep trouble. White collar workers did not use the ‘f
word’ to their boss. The Regional Manager was nice!
He said: ‘If I was your father, I would tell you to get
out of this dead end job and go to University’. Until
then I had wanted to be a salesman with a company
car - my horizons were limited!
Now a fellow student, John Munro, had always
wanted to go to University and applied on the
strength of his HNC. At that time, about 1 in 7 of the
age group went. It was an elite system. There was an
aura about going to University. I thought ‘bugger
it’, if John can get in, so can I. My parents agreed to
give me free B&B but I had to work for my spending
money – clothes, books, beer. So, I applied to the
new Business School at the then Bradford Institute
of Advanced Technology. Tom Kempner interviewed
me. I remember him being amused. No doubt I was
gauche, revealing with every sentence how little I
knew about universities. But he accepted me, signed
the forms to get me a student grant, and took an
amiable interest in my doings for the next 3 years. So,
the HNC was my passport out of Power Petroleum,
Bradford and a career as a petroleum salesman.”
Photograph supplied by Rod Rhodes