The Fay Gale Centre for Research on Gender

The mandate of the Fay Gale Centre is to develop, promote and expand the existing substantive concentration of research excellence in the field of Gender within the University of Adelaide, and to build on the University's commitment to promote social justice, equality and diversity in the community and its own workplace.

As a cross-disciplinary initiative, this University of Adelaide Centre involves researchers from the Humanities, Social Sciences, Health Sciences and the Professions, including Law. The Fay Gale Centre for Research on Gender aims to create productive dialogue across disciplinary and professional boundaries.  The Centre was launched in December 2009 and formally commenced from the beginning of the following year.

• Collaboration across several faculties, thus including both science and interpretive forms of knowledge
• Attending to gender equity concerns and initiatives across the University such as those arising from the recommendations of the Women and Research (2008) report commissioned by the Vice Chancellor, and from the Gender, Equity and Diversity Committee; and
• Pursuing national and international research linkages.

Fay Gale

Professor Emerita Fay Gale (1932-2008) was the first Honours graduate in Geography at the University of Adelaide and went on to become Pro-Vice Chancellor, the first woman in senior management at the University. She maintained strong links with Indigenous communities throughout her personal and working lives, and her work was influential in arguments for self-determination and recognition of the Stolen Generations.  As Vice Chancellor of the University of Western Australia she initiated a raft of programs to eliminate discrimination against women and was a pioneer in developing programs for equal opportunity and equity in the university sector.

Titles held by Fay Gale include: 

• Officer of the Order of Australia for her service to the social sciences in the fields of geography and Aboriginal studies.
• President of the Australian Vice Chancellors' Committee,
• President of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia
• President of the Association of Asian Social Science Research Councils.

Professor Emerita Gale's history of association with South Australia and the University of Adelaide, her commitment to genuine social change for women and Indigenous people, and her far-reaching impact on gender relations within the University sector make her a fine exemplar of all that the Centre hopes to achieve.

The Fay Gale centre would like to thank Professor Gale's family for permission to use her name, and are honoured to be able to do so.