Eric Peter Bachelard - Emeritus Professor, tree physiologist

Abstract

This audio interview with Eric Bachelard, previously Professor of Forestry, is part of the ANU Emeritus Faculty's Oral History Program, involving retired staff members who were part of the university in its earlier life. The Oral History Program was initiated and developed by ANU Emeritus Faculty as a contribution to university and community understanding of the beginnings and development of ANU over the past six decades. Emeritus Faculty has a special interest in this period, since the Faculty's membership includes many of the people who helped shape the university in its early days, to make it the pre-eminent institution it is today.

Eric Peter Bachelard was born in Melbourne in 1931, the younger of two sons. He attended state primary schools, then Trinity Grammar in Melbourne on a scholarship.

Eric completed an associate diploma at Creswick School of Forestry in 1952, which led to employment with the Victorian Forestry Commission. From here he returned to training to complete a degree in forestry at Melbourne University in 1958, followed by a masters degree and PhD at Yale University, USA. He returned to the Victorian Forestry Commission in 1962, then a year later was back on the US east coast as Instructor in Biology at Harvard University for 12 months.

In 1965, after a further year in the Forestry Commission, Eric applied successfully for a lectureship in the ANU's newly formed Department of Forestry in the faculty of Science, under the headship of Professor Derek Ovington, where he helped with the development of the new teaching and research programs, including his own specialty of tree physiology.

In 1969 Eric was promoted to Senior Lecturer, and later to Professor of Forestry in 1978. From 1980 to 1983 he was Dean of Science, then from 1986 to 1989 Chairman of the Board of the Faculties [the undergraduate arm of the ANU]. He served as Acting Deputy Vice Chancellor on occasion. From 1992 to 1996 he was Head of the School of Forestry, from which position he retired from the university. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Foresters of Australia.

Eric Bachelard has served on many professional and advisory committees and boards both inside and outside the ANU, and was editor of Australian Forestry for five years in the 1970s.

He has assisted professional forestry organisations in Papua New Guinea.

From 1992 to 2002, Eric was a member of the Board of the Canberra Church of England Girls' Grammar School. In 2008 he was inducted by his old school Trinity Grammar in Melbourne into their Gallery of Achievement.