Alumni Profile: Dr Patrick McCaughey
Degree: Bachelor of Arts (Honours) 1966
Current Position: Director of University of Melbourne's Festival of Ideas, freelance writer
“WRITE whatever you like about me – as long as it’s not boring,” Festival of Ideas Director Dr Patrick McCaughey warns with a smile, as our interview comes to an end. But boring isn’t a word that springs to mind where the renowned former art critic and gallery director is concerned.
Dr McCaughey (BA(Hons)1966) has been recognised as a colourful and creative force since he first emerged in the public eye in his early 20s, as a tongue-in-cheek art critic for The Age. This was the start of a stellar career in the arts. He climbed the ranks in the Melbourne art scene to take up the directorship of the National Gallery of Victoria from 1981 to 1987, then at America’s oldest art museum, Wadsworth Athenaeum, from 1988 to 1996. He became director of the Centre for British Art at Yale University in 1996, before leaving to become a freelance writer in 2001.
The strong passion and critical-mind that Dr McCaughey brought to each of these roles may in fact be among the reasons he was carefully selected to spearhead the University of Melbourne’s inaugural Festival of Ideas, which is set to light up the Parkville campus from 15 – 20 June.
Dr McCaughey has worked tirelessly to bring together a smorgasbord of speakers including academics, lawyers, scientists, social scientists, journalists, musicians and writers to debate key issues around his chosen theme for the Festival: climate change, cultural change, and how the two intersect. To Dr McCaughey, it seemed only natural that the festival focussed on climate change, given Melbourne’s heightened awareness of such issues. After living in the USA for more than 20 years, he has noticed a stark contrast between Melbourne and United States when it comes to climate change awareness.
“I come back and forth a lot and it has struck me how much it’s on everyone’s minds over here,” he says. “Climate change for most people in the States is ‘Oh, it’s going to be a tough summer for the polar bears’,
“Melbourne is the only city I know that puts the extent of the water in their dam on the front page of the paper. A good day in Melbourne is a rainy day.”
But hand in hand with the environmental impacts of climate change will come cultural changes. Dr McCaughey wants people to consider the impact of climate change on society, our cities, our behaviours and ways of thinking.
“How will climate change affect our food supplies? How will it change our cities?” he asks. “The Murray Darling Basin is in shambles, how are we going to change our ways to accommodate?”
Though he warns Festival-goers may hear many “terrifying, fascinating and alarming things” coming from scientists’ mouths, it won’t all be doom and gloom.
“The University is here to shed light, not bring gloom,” Dr McCaughey says.
“We don’t want all panellists to come and agree – we want them to disagree and debate what the problems are.”
Directing the Festival has given Dr McCaughey the chance to return to the place where he experienced the most “exciting period of my life”.
“I was a disgraceful student, but I always loved being an undergrad at Melbourne,” he says.
“I wish I had gone to more lectures and handed assignments in on time. A good friend of mine, Jon Dawson, used to say to go to a lecture in first semester ‘looks as though you are intellectually insecure’.
“But I was taught by two terrific departments, English and Fine Arts.
“In the English Department, I was taught by poets - people who cared about literature and wanted you to be able to think coherently about it.”
Dr McCaughey believes the Festival of Ideas will also draw other alumni back to the campus.
“Melbourne alumni constitute one of the most alert and interested audiences out there, playing in all professions… and the arts. I’d be more than happy if this had particular appeal to that audience.”
