Chris Duke, 04/10/1938- 22/06/2023, an Obituary

As the debate of the proposal for the inclusion of the Voice into the Australian Constitution has advanced, the dignity and grace of so many indigenous leaders who advocate for their people to be heard has been in striking contrast with the negativity of those who campaign for the ‘No’ vote. This is not a surprise. Indigenous leaders have learned and earned these qualities through many long and difficult years of leading their people towards the preparation of the Uluru Statement. The Uluru Statement from the Heart is a simple yet eloquent document which emerged itself from three years, and so many more, of intense consultation and exchange in indigenous communities across the nation. The depth of engagement and the confidence that this reflects offers encouragement and conviction to many of us to believe that this is the moment for change.

Of course, across 235 years of colonial suppression, there have been so many other moments which have also contributed to the experience and learning, to the depth of knowledge and understanding which underpins the proposal that the Voice is a necessary step to changing the place of indigenous people in this country, and improving their living circumstances. One small such moment was a workshop for indigenous leaders on Culture and Identity facilitated by Chris Duke in Canberra back in 1972. 

Chris Duke grew up on a farm in Kent under the shadow of World War II. The son of Congregational and Quaker parents committed to peace and democratic accountability, he nevertheless had direct contact with the war through German prisoners of war who came to work on the farm. From humble origins, he then advanced through selective schooling and scholarships to complete a history degree at Cambridge. This provided a platform for him to work in English higher and adult education for a decade, quickly seeing the importance of connecting the local with the regional, national and international. He was active in the National Institute for Adult and Continuing Education (NIACE) various international adult learning and university associations, becoming Editor of the International Congress of University Adult Education Journal, a position he held for 20 years.

In this time, he stepped also into the world of international organisations, particularly the OECD, UNESCO Paris and the Hamburg Institute for Lifelong Learning. These provided opportunities for learning, engagement and leadership to which Chris contributed for most of the next 50 years. Through consulting, facilitating, rapporteuring and editing, he developed an extraordinary worldwide network of colleagues committed to adult education, and its civilising and democratising purposes.

In 1967, he became the foundation director of the Centre for Continuing Education at the Australian National University. Under his leadership, it became a dynamic lighthouse of innovation, both in the topics  covered and in the modes of learning  supported. This encompassed search conferences which brought together federal politicians, senior public servants, academics and others in dialogue on contemporary and emergent social issues: Sharing Out the Work; Participatory Democracy in the Workplace; Australia and the South Pacific; and Parenting After Separation, just some examples.

It also encompassed very grounded, participatory learning with small groups, not least the workshop for indigenous leaders in 1972. It was in this work that he met his partner and collaborator of 50 years, Liz Sommerlad. Liz herself already had respectful relationships with indigenous communities and emergent Aboriginal  led organisations, and was central in broadening the adult learning engagement which Chris had with these communities.  Their research and advocacy  in  the policy arena over  more than a decade challenged bureaucratic modes of administration, proposed new models of delivering technical education to remote communities and outstations, and called for more direct forms of democracy and answerability.

1972 was an important year for Chris in many ways. It was the year of the ground-breaking UNESCO report by Faure, Learning to Be, presented at CONFINTEA III in Tokyo, which prompted sustained international debate and initiative on adult education, debate to which Chris contributed actively. It was also the year in which he assumed the additional role of Secretary-General of ASPBAE, then the Asia South Pacific Bureau for Adult Education. Struggling at the time, Chris steered ASPBAE into an era when, according to Maria Khan, a subsequent dynamic leader for ASPBAE and international lifelong learning, ASPBAE "Dared to Grow". National adult education associations were formed and thrived, in India, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Sri Lanka, and Korea: Chris was ‘a towering figure in the adult education movement’. 

Part of this was fostering successfully a partnership between ASPBAE and DVV International, the international arm of the German Adult Education Association, forging a lifelong friendship and collaboration with Dr Heribert Hinzen. Together, they developed (in Chris’s words) ‘ enduring South-South links and an abiding non-colonist partnership between Germany’s DVV and ASPBAE in the new Asia’.

1972 was also the year that he assumed another voluntary leadership role in the newly formed International Council of Adult Education. One small anecdote here points to the depth and nature of Chris’s influence: as an academic at ANU, he supervised doctoral candidates, one of whom was Helen Hill, who went on to a broad range of activist and academic roles in development in the Asia-Pacific region. One of Helen’s subsequent positions was at Victoria University in Melbourne, where she supervised a young Robbie Guevera, a Filipino community educator and environmental activist, in his doctoral work. Robbie is now a professor at RMIT and President of the International Council of Adult Education, himself continuing to promote learning for all, understanding its power to change lives and communities.

1972 was only the beginning. In 1982, Chris led the first adult education team to visit the People’s Republic of China, to facilitate China’s membership of the International Council of Adult Education and its participation in the wider adult education community. He also led an internationally supported project in the Sudan.

Between 1985 and 1996, Chris returned to England to take up the position of Pro Vice Chancellor and Director of Continuing Education at the University of Warwick, itself a ‘new’ university committed to enterprise and to engagement. Chris continued his national and international activities encompassing shared projects, writing, rapporteuring and editing journals. Within Warwick, there were new educational activities and programs to enable adults to return to learning and to reposition themselves in their working lives.

The time based in England also enabled Chris and Liz to begin a new phase of ‘international’ experience as they developed their twin homes in Leamington Spa and in a mill in Ozenay, near Tournus in France. Renowned for their gardening wherever they were, Chris and Liz threw themselves into these projects, dividing their time between England and France. This experience prompted a new sense of ambiguity and tension for Chris, torn between his identity as a man of the world, yet with roots in both Europe and in England. This became immensely frustrating for him when the Brexit referendum result was announced in 2016.

Well before then, Chris and Liz returned to Australia for him to take up the position of President of Nepean and DVC in the then federated University of Western Sydney. Chris and his deputy, Jim Falk, initiated a deeply consultative change process, resulting in a flat and relatively democratic structure with programs attuned to local student needs and interdisciplinary challenges. Together with architect and planner, Kevin Snell, the site of the old female orphanage at Parramatta was transformed and repurposed as a new campus, later opened by the Governor-General. After four years at the helm, change in leadership at UWS with a new vice-chancellor and the unification of the former tri-partite University, along with a spill of all senior management positions, saw the overturn of many of the reforms Chris had initiated. 

Chris’s final institutional years were at RMIT as Director and PVC for community and regional partnerships and for organisational change. These positions provided an opportunity not only for him to continue to support lifelong learning at community, national and international level, but also to prompt the formation of a new international network, PASCAL (Place and Social Capital and Learning). PASCAL grew from an OECD conference hosted by RMIT with Chris as its founding (honorary) Secretary-General, and RMIT and the University of Glasgow as two key ‘nodes’. With Jarl Bengtsson, former Director of the Centre for Educational Research and Innovation at OECD, as the Chair of its Board, PASCAL begun another new round of intense networking and publishing, led by Chris. With financial support from Kent County Council, the Victorian Government and the Scottish Executive, ‘Hot topics’ targeted knowledgeable writers to produce thoughtful and extended essays on challenging issues of the day; conferences allowed for international networking of government officials, academics and activists to explore these issues with an applied focus; and a major project, led by Chris, focused on bringing cutting edge knowledge to regional governments. 

The Global Financial Crisis caused a sharp interruption to this work, so Chris then sought to extend PASCAL’s influence through a new network, the PASCAL International Members Association (PIMA), which is now known for ‘Promoting, Interrogating and Mobilising Adult Learning and Education’. Building on Chris’s own network across the world, and then drawing in others, PIMA produces a regular Bulletin (Chris edited and developed the first 45 of these, over six or seven years) and online seminars covering a range of adult learning and education topics, not least linked with Climate Justice. The 47^th Bulletin is a remarkable volume, bringing together many notes, letters, poems and thoughts acknowledging people’s experience of Chris as a tireless advocate for a better world, a man of humility and an inspiration to others.

This summary of Chris’s biography and of his key partnerships offers an insight to the story of an extraordinary man who had direct impact on five continents and developed an amazing network of colleagues and friendships that lasted for decades. Universities were at the heart of that work, and became better places for his influence. At the same time, they were frustrating for him, and often suffered from barbed critiques when he called out their preoccupation with status, with competitive practices, with business dealings, and ultimately, their corporatisation. That said, he never lost faith in their capacity to support learning for all, nor his efforts to promote those opportunities.

His personal output was so prolific that I doubt that any of us could produce an accurate list even of the books, monographs, journal articles that he has written, let alone edited, let alone the reviews, notes, reports, letters and other documentation that has been published one way or the other. Much of it was intended to establish the field of adult learning and education as a legitimate and important arena of scholarship and intellectual engagement. However, so much more was directed at the practice itself, at promoting lifelong learning in practice, and as a deeply enrichening experience for individuals and communities. It’s no surprise that he was inducted into the Adult Education Hall of Fame.

His last public activity before his death was to attend, with Liz, a U3A meeting in Bowral, NSW, on the Voice, and why it matters for indigenous people in Australia. As a participant, and in a wheelchair, he was deeply interested in the views portrayed, and in the apparent momentum in favour of supporting the ‘Yes’ vote for the Voice in the forthcoming referendum. Were he alive right now, he would be disappointed, even angry, at the views being put forward by the No campaign. However, even this would not affect his underlying faith that inevitably, indigenous people will have rightful recognition in the Australian Constitution and in its political life.

While less visible than his public work, Chris was deeply committed to his family and kept in touch through high and low moments, and despite distance and the stretch from Canberra highlands to Thailand, and to England. The family across the generations came together to bid him farewell, in sadness and in celebration. Wrapping him in a shawl made together from botanicals, painted silk and bush flowers, it reflected his values and drew into a single piece threads from all parts of his experience and relationships across the world.

This is the story of a profound life. However, it barely begins to touch the depth of emotion which surrounded people’s relationships with Chris, and with Liz, and with the impact which they have had on people’s lives. Khau Huu Phuoc, from SEAMEO CELL, described Chris as ‘a friend and thinker with a heart full of love. A character that inspires you to strive for the realization of education for all. and a thirst for knowledge that never ceases. That is why I love Chris.’

So many people remark on his energy, his sharp intellect, his and Liz’s passion for learning themselves, his care and attentiveness to colleagues, friends and to people he encountered along the way. He was a scholar, a manager, an innovator, a writer, a communicator, gardener, bird watcher, a friend and partner. He was English, but also European,  and Australian - indeed a man of the world. He believed in education and wanted everybody to benefit from it. At his core, he was an optimist: as he would often say, ‘keep purposeful and happy!’.