STEPS - Library - Central Queensland University

Part Four: Student transformations
Lynne Campbell taught us maths, social maths I recall, not that I’ve ever
discussed maths at any social event I’ve since attended. In my years as an
undergraduate and postgraduate student, I did everything humanly possible
to avoid maths completely. This subject proved the most taxing for some of
the class long since out of school. It was definitely the more serious of our
classes, and we all worked harder and quieter. It couldn’t have been easy
for Lynne, digging deep into the recesses of our brains to find where we
had buried our algebraic equations. And geometry! I’d almost forgotten the
joy in parallelograms and equilateral triangles, transposing x’s and y’s and
other consonants into a column on the far side of the page, and staring
blankly waiting for an answer or something to appear. I do hope Lynne
reads this and is happy that I’ve remembered.
And with all the hours of work, study and searching, we all came through
— graduated and relieved. What an achievement! I have wondered at times
where people went to next, and what things have happened in their lives.
Some of us stayed and started our first year of a tertiary degree in the same
little old building that was given university status. I left at the end of year
one for Brisbane, and in the huge and often overwhelming campus of St
Lucia, thought of the little group I started with, and how we had helped
each other in a friendly and nurturing way.
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