Tom Calma

Chancellor, University of Canberra

Previously Counsellor (Education and Training) Australian Embassy, Hanoi 1998-Jan 2002

“A take a lot of pride in that I had a small part to play in in my short time that I was in Vietnam, but I learned more than I actually taught”.

The early 1990s saw the first group of Vietnamese students going to study in Australia and then returning back, so when Tom Calma first went to Vietnam in 1998 he said he “saw the value of things like education agents and also of alumni and what sort of role alumni could have. I worked with a number of people in Vietnam to resurrect the alumni group.”

“We energised and developed up the Vietnam Graduates from Australia Club (VGAC). But what we did was something that's different to other alumni associations around the world is that instead of being the alumni for one university, we created an alumni group for all universities” - Tom said. So everybody who studied in Australia came back and became a member of VGAC.

Tom started to run annual events where he got universities from Australia to donate money so that the club could have official functions. They started off in Hanoi and then expanded to Danang and then all over Vietnam. And as we know, the Australian alumni have served as a bridge connecting the two countries in every fields. VGCA “is still recognized as a very, very good alumni group - it’s very proud of that” - Tom said.

With the support from the then Ambassador Michael Mann, Tom Calma and his staff also worked hard with the ministries in Vietnam to get them to enable better partnerships with Australian institutions who wanted to work in Vietnam.

Tom and his staff were asked to do a feasibility study for RMIT to open abranch in Vietnam. Chuck Fenney (US based philanthropist at the time) shared RMIT’s vision and funded the establishment of a facility in Ho Chi Minh City, which is now very big across Vietnam.

“We just loved working in Vietnam, and wanted to create opportunities where we could” - Tom said. “We got Australian institutions to come and work in and understand the education sector in Vietnam, making sure that they respected the culture and people. And when students came to Australia they were supported. So it was a good relationship”.

Not only had Tom devoted his term to push education cooperation between Australia and Vietnam, but he maintains profound feelings to the country. “I talk about Vietnam with a great deal of affection and love for people that we met there”

As an Indigenous Australian he found a lot of affinity between the two countries with the ethnic and cultural diversity in Vietnam. He also found it important to understand the culture and the history of Vietnam.

“It was a really great opportunity for my family to experience another culture. And I must say that we're very warmly embraced by both Vietnamese people and people at the embassy” - Tom said.

In the short time he was in Vietnam, Tom witnessed massive changes happening such as Vietnam’s entry in the WTO or reforms in the commercial sector... “That was a pretty exciting time, there was a really strong interest in learning about how other parts of the world operate, but not to compromise on the values of Vietnam and the lifestyle and culture”.

Since leaving Vietnam, Tom always tries to keep involved with the country. He is usually invited to the Vietnam Embassy in Canberra events. He has hundreds of students from Vietnam enrolling in the University of Canberra which he believes to be a strong connection between the two countries.