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60 Years in Conversation
Sixty years ago, Union College began as a small cluster of buildings at Spring Hill. Since then, thousands of students have passed through its rooms, lecture halls, dining tables, and oval.
To mark its 60th anniversary, Union College chose to listen.
In partnership with Talking Stories, the College recorded a series of conversations with alumni and current residents across generations. The aim was to preserving the voices, values, and lived memories that shaped six decades of student life.
The Impact of Union College
Across these conversations, a clear picture emerges. Each conversation below captures a different chapter of Union’s story - from Spring Hill’s wooden verandahs to present day Red Week traditions.
Union was a transition space from adolescence to adulthood, from regional Queensland to metropolitan life, from uncertainty to professional identity.
Culture
From the disciplined corridors of Spring Hill under Warden Max Hickey, to structured academic support in St Lucia, Union built a reputation for being a place where study mattered. Residents speak of quiet spaces, firm expectations, and the sense that learning came first.
Access
Many alumni arrived from North Queensland, state schools, farming towns, and first-in-family backgrounds. Union became a bridge offering structure, community, and proximity to opportunity.
Egalitarian
Union was the first co-educational college in Queensland. It resisted fresher hazing culture. It welcomed Colombo Plan students when that was still rare. Its residents speak repeatedly of maturity, mutual respect, and cultural openness. The stories describe adulthood with humour, mischief, debate, and growth.
Community
Spouses met. Rugby finals were contested. Friendships lasted decades. Alumni returned as donors, board members, and parents of new residents.
One conversation brings a mother and daughter together. Two generations shaped by the same place, thirty years apart.
Charlie Schild & Tenae Ghelfi
Residents, friends
Charlie and Tenae remember the first week of college life. The chaos of move-in day, meeting strangers who’d soon feel like family, and finding their place in a building that would become home for a few years.
For best experience, watch in 1080p or higher
Cecilie Lander & Mervyn Lander
Past residents, partners
Cecilie and Mervyn revisit the 1960s, when Union College was still half-built and full of promise. Their conversation rediscovers their beginnings of a lifelong partnership that started at Union College.
For best experience, watch in 1080p or higher
How the Talking Stories Studio Worked
To capture these conversations, Talking Stories established a temporary recording studio at the college's Max Hickey library on the day of the 60th anniversary celebrations.
Each conversation was guided, unscripted, by an experienced interviewer. Participants spoke in their own words, and the recordings were lightly edited, removing only pauses and repetition while preserving the integrity and cadence of the exchange.
From each interview emerged a layered archive of media assets: long-form audio for a podcast, short-form video vignettes, portrait photography, a co-branded digital webpage, and podcast-ready distribution.
The Talking Stories expertise lowered the barrier to participation while retaining depth. Union College leadership did not narrate the story from above; instead they sat within it.
Union College now holds a recorded cultural foundation, a repeatable alumni engagement tool, recruitment storytelling grounded in lived experience, and a body of material future leaders can inherit and build upon.