I WOULD like to take issue with Professor Blake’s assertion (Letters, January 10) that the use of “Charles Sturt” as the name for the university is appropriate because it unifies the area serviced by the multiple campuses of the institution.
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Charles Sturt was an English soldier/adventurer/colonialist who, by ‘discovering’ vast tracts of the Murray/Darling basin, rendered it prone to annexation and occupation – hardly unifying!
Surely the name suggested by Joe Williams is more fitting – Wiradjuri University.
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The footprint of the campuses roughly aligns with the area of the Wiradjuri Nation, one of the largest in eastern Australia, an area unified by language, culture and traditions as well as a spirituality that bonded the people to the land.
It symbolises inclusion, strength, unity and longevity.
And, as the first university to adopt a First Nations identity, a precedent would be established which follows the increasingly common practice of renaming (or dual naming) places with an indigenous name, in respect to the traditional owners of the land – Uluru, Wahluu, etc.
