Esplanade seat dedicated to memory of educator

A public bench seat overlooking the water at Scarness has been installed to commemorate the life of former University of Southern Queensland lecturer Dr Ralph Clark.

A plaque on the back of the seat calls on passers-by to ‘come sit and have a yarn with me’.

Dr Clark had spent his life helping people of all ages and backgrounds achieve higher education qualifications.

Ironically he had been planning to spend more time relaxing and doing the things he loved when he passed away in March.

The 62-year-old had retired from his position at USQ Fraser Coast where he had headed up the University’s Professional Studies postgraduate program. His colleagues had held a farewell dinner for him the night before his sudden death, which occurred while riding his bicycle in Kawungan.

Friend and colleague Dr Patrick O’Brien said Dr Clark had been in fine form at the dinner.

'He gave each of us a book he’d chosen,” Dr O’Brien said. “He gave me Genius -100 Case Studies – just to prove I wasn’t in it.

'He had an incredible mind.

'But he was also a larrikin. He’d come into my office with some trivial snippet of information he’d found in the newspaper, and by the time he’d left he’d turned it into a world issue.'

Dr Clark entered the world of academia in the 1960s after working in the Canadian mines and railway.

He graduated from McMaster University, Canada, with a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in Sociology.

Seven years later he completed a Masters of Education in Higher Education Policies and Systems, and followed up with a PhD in Adult Education from the University of Toronto in 1986. After getting a taste of tertiary life he decided to stay in the field.

He moved to Australia in 1981 and worked at the University of New England where he taught Tertiary Education, Adult Teaching and post graduate courses as well as community outreach courses.

His career took a new direction when he was appointed as Assistant Director of the Bachelor Institute of Indigenous Tertiary Education in the Northern Territory.

Dr Clark was proud of the way the Institute operated on a ‘both ways’ philosophy which integrated western and Indigenous approaches to knowledge.

The job introduced him to the Australian outback and to a new position as foundation Managing Director of the Kimberley College of TAFE in Western Australia. When he commenced there was no TAFE in the Kimberley; by the time he left nine years later there were six campuses built and growing. The College had the largest number of Aboriginal students and staff in Australia at that time. Dr Clark had a reputation for finding ingenious ways to provide education programs which were more appropriate for Indigenous students despite bureaucratic restrictions.

Dr O’Brien said Dr Clark loved to travel.

'He was a tremendous traveller,” he said. “He’d been just about everywhere in Australia and worked in places like the Caribbean and Thailand.'

Last year Dr Clark and wife Jill Byrnes travelled to Eastern Europe, after having visited Egypt the previous year.

Dr Clark authored 19 publications and books throughout his career. He was planning to write a book about Australian ghost towns during his semi-retirement.