People/gillardgarry.html
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Garry Gillard
Garry Gillard was born in 1943 in Maylands, a then unfashionable suburb of Perth, Western Australia. He gained an entrance to Perth Modern School - to his surprise, knowing nothing about it. After an unremarkable first degree (BA), failing his last unit (Greek 1B) because he was more interested in the activities of the University Dramatic Society than the aorist tense, he entered into the career of a schoolteacher, it being the only job he'd ever seen anyone do. After persevering for ten years in WA/England/WA (ending up teaching at Christ Church Grammar School, notable for being the most costly school in the state), he escaped with a scholarship to pursue research for an MPhil (in African Literature) at the brand-new Murdoch University (which in 1974 had no buildings of its own) on the basis of scraping through a second BA, this time with Honours (2A) in English.
His first job at a university - Deakin, in Geelong - was as a 'course developer' (an academic position involving doing a lot of photocopying). After five years there he escaped again to the glorious position of Coordinator of Course Development at the University of the South Pacific, theoretically controlling the distance education of people in twelve (12) countries, from Vanuatu in the west to the Cook Islands in the east - including a couple you might never have heard of.
He returned, in 1985, to the lowly rank of course developer, but this time back home at Murdoch University, where distance educators were also expected to teach in their 'field'. He did get one shot at teaching EngLit for a couple of years while the professor was on sabbatical, but found himself teaching Communication and Cultural Studies, including cinema, television, and even something called Language Culture and the Unconscious, which led to a PhD dissertation.
In 1995 the External Studies Unit was closed and he was transferred to the School of Humanities, as a lecturer - and eventually senior lecturer. His final 'field', before retiring end 2008, was Australian Cinema, on which he wrote an unpublished book.
After retirement he turned to writing websites: one, predictably, on Australian Cinema, but the other on history and heritage of Fremantle - because he happens to live there.
References, Links, Qualifications
Garry Gillard PhD MPhil BAHons DipEd TC GDDE CDE AMusA (failed)
This page incorporates material from Garry Gillard's Freotopia website, that he started in 2014 and the contents of which he donated to Wikimedia Australia in 2024. The content was originally created on 4 July, 2021 and hosted at freotopia.org/people/gillardgarry.html (it was last updated on 25 February, 2024). The donated data is also preserved in the Internet Archive's collection.