Wise words imparted to graduates at Rocky graduation ceremonies

By Priscilla Roberts

A sea of beaming faces of family and friends could be seen across the CQUniversity Community Sports Centre auditorium this week as more than 520 graduates crossed the stage to receive their testamurs at two graduation ceremonies.

It was the culmination of years of hard work and dedication for the students, and an acknowledgement of what can be achieved if you just ‘start something’.

This message was echoed by graduation guest speaker Bevan Slattery who took to the stage to impart some encouraging words for the graduating cohort.

🎞️ Watch the Rockhampton Graduation 10am Ceremony

🎞️ Watch the Rockhampton Graduation 2pm Ceremony

He said he acknowledged that some graduates would have a clear career path in mind, while many still were unsure what direction to take.

“It doesn’t matter if you don’t know what you want to do right now, just start something,” he told the graduates.

“At the very least, you’ll find out what you don’t like.”

Wise words from the former Rockhampton City Council clerk trainee who used his inbuilt intuition and CQUniversity experience to later start an IT business, which snowballed into a list of national successes (and challenges). 

He now is one of Australia’s leading entrepreneurs, and founder and CEO of Soda, Australia’s launchpad for digital infrastructure, environmental and sustainability ventures.  

He has previously started and scaled some of the country’s leading digital infrastructure companies, including PIPE Networks, NEXTDC, Megaport, Superloop and SubPartners, and holds a record five companies on the Australian Stock Exchange.

🎧 Listen to CQU’s How to Change a Life podcast with Bevan Slattery

Graduates were also called to embrace the leadership skills that they had acquired during their time at CQUniversity by guest speaker, Professor Phillip Moulds OAM - Headmaster of The Rockhampton Grammar School.

“Leaders are made not born...and a leader is somebody that makes all the people around them better,” he explained.

“That person can be you,” he told graduates.

Amongst this year’s graduating cohort in Rockhampton were 100 nursing graduates and four PhD recipients including Shirley Ledger, Janice Mani, Rahul Sreekumar and Lance Rundle.

The late Dr Celeste Lawson was also honoured with a posthumous Emeritus Professor title during proceedings and the first cohort of Bachelor of Engineering (Resource Systems) Honours students celebrated the completion of their studies.

Mr Slattery and Patrice Brown were presented with their Alumni Awards – Outstanding Alumnus of the Year Award and Industry Excellence Award – respectively.

🎧 Listen to CQU’s How to Change a Life podcast with Patrice Brown

📷 Check out our photo album from this week’s Rockhampton ceremonies

In addition to the Rockhampton graduation ceremonies, CQUniversity hosted two other graduations over the past week including in Gladstone and Bundaberg. 

🎞️ Watch our coverage of the Gladstone ceremony 

📷 Check out our photo album from Gladstone's ceremony 

🎞️ Watch our coverage of the Bundaberg ceremony

📷 Check out our photo album from Bundaberg's ceremony