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Reflections

(page 3 of 7)

A research project analysing the living experiences of the Open University's first decade of PhD graduates

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Dr Don Aldiss
Name : Dr Don Aldiss
Dr Michael Baker
Name : Dr Michael Baker
Professor Oliver Boyd-Barrett
Name : Professor Oliver Boyd-Barrett

The Graduates

Dr Don Aldiss

Don was awarded his Geology PhD “Granite Rocks of Ophilites” in 1978. He grew up in South Oxfordshire, in a middle-class family where his siblings, and indeed his mother, had experienced higher education. At his grammar school it was fairly normal for pupils to go on to university and with fond memories of picking up rocks on coastal childhood holidays, he decided to study Geology at Birmingham University. He enjoyed studying and university life so much that further study through a PhD felt like a natural progression. A serendipitous coincidence influenced his choice of applying for a PhD at The OU. He had been given, as a 6th form Biology prize, a well-known textbook edited (with others) by Ian Gass, who was the Earth Sciences Professor at The OU, and who became Don’s research supervisor.

Don’s timing was extremely fortunate. He started his PhD looking at ophiolites at the time when the theory of plate tectonics was starting to revolutionise geology; he describes it as a paradigm shift in geological study. Although a coup d’état in Cyprus in 1974 initially delayed his fieldwork there, several weeks spent in the Troodos Massif were followed by studies in the Oman Mountains, the Sierra Nevada in northern California, and finally the slightly less glamorous, but nonetheless fascinating, Ayrshire coast. He also found time to help at OU summer schools.

As with others in this cohort, Don had started a job before submitting his PhD, in his case with the British Geological Survey, so did not attend a formal award ceremony. But he likes to think he has attended one in his position as an Extra in the graduation scene in the performance of “Ballad of Walton Hall”, put on by the OU operatic society in 1977.

Through a long career at the British Geological Survey where he travelled the world making geological maps, he credited his OU experience with giving him the skills needed to interpret complex rock formations, and to lead and develop geological projects, until his retirement in 2014.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dr Michael Baker

Michael’s Earth and Environmental Science PhD called “Geochronology & Volcanology of Upper Cenozoic Volcanic Activity in N. Chile” took him on an action-filled journey worthy of Indiana Jones.

He started life as an army child moving between London, Hong Kong, Colchester, West Lothian and finally to Heston, in time for him to attend grammar school with a special interest in chemistry. His elder sister, Pauline, ignited a spark in him for a lifetime’s love of Geology which he studied at Oxford University, graduating in 1973. He heard about the OU from Pauline who had been one of the OU’s first undergraduate students whilst she ran her home and family, and he answered an advert for a PhD looking at volcanoes in the Andes with Peter Francis at the OU and was awarded the studentship. This was the start of the journey of a lifetime. A military coup in Chile the week he started delayed the project by a few months but with a hand painted “Open University Andean Volcanoes Project” Land Rover as home and transport with donated detergent used as bartering currency, Michael, Peter and lecturer Richard Thorpe set off to traverse rough terrain and freezing temperatures with no thought to health and safety. The military in Chile were sometimes suspicious of them and often marked out fake minefields to deter Bolivian Guerillas. Michael describes a surreal experience of the Chilean military driving through a “minefield” to tell the party off for driving through a “minefield”!

After graduating with his PhD, Michael continued his adventurous life with a dangerous job on the Iranian/Pakistan border doing geological mapping. After making it home safely, Michael started on a project that set the direction of the rest of his career, doing a post doctorate at the OU to investigate the use of satellite imagery in geology. He then worked in this field in Australia for a mining company and in 1986 set up as in independent consultant in the field of satellite imagery. He looks back with affection at the time he had doing his PhD and post-doctorate at the OU as an era that will never be repeated, as modern safety policies would now prevent much of what he was able to do at the time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Professor Oliver Boyd-Barrett

Oliver graduated from the OU with his PhD “The World-wide News Agencies: Development Organization, Competition, Markets And Product. A Study of Agence France Presse, Associated Press, Reuters and United Press, to 1975.” in 1978 from the faculty of Social Science. This hard-won thesis formed the basis for his first of many books, “The International News Agencies (London: Constable)”, published in 1980 and proved ground-breaking. It is still one of the main reference works of its kind today, such that Oliver is still asked to give talks and write publications on the topic.

Coming from a middle-class Dublin-based family and the first of them to go onto higher education, he studied sociology and, although has a tinge of regret about not studying history, he graduated with a 2:1 from Exeter University. In 1971, he was appointed as a research officer at the, then brand-new, Open University working for renowned media sociologist and a founding academic of the OU, Jeremy Tunstall who encouraged Oliver to study for a PhD. Oliver credits the OU with giving him the opportunity and encouragement to do a PhD that he might not otherwise have had the confidence to undertake. After graduating, Oliver went on to work in the OU’s School of Education for over 20 years and it was this wealth of experience that led to him being invited to set up a distance learning MA at Leicester University in 1994. In 1998 he took up a position at the California State University (Pomona), moving to the Los Angeles area with his American wife, Leah and four children. From there he became Director for the School of Media and Communication at Bowling Green state University in Ohio in 2005. He is now retired and back living in California (Ojai) but continues to write highly respected books and academic papers on media and international relations.

Reflections (page 3 of 7)