Lena Karmel

The rock that Flinders was built on

When Lena Karmel hears that she is considered an important part of the history of Flinders, she looks quizzical. “Whatever for?” she asks.

This is a woman who drove her licence-free husband and family wherever they needed to go, raised six children, set up the Ann Flinders Club for wives of Flinders staff members who had come to join the new university, and cooked countless dinners for engagements with staff, visiting ambassadors or even the Governor-General, long before corporate catering was even a phrase.

Irrespective of slogans of a great woman standing behind every high-achieving man, Mrs Karmel was inimitably frank and fearless. There wasn’t – and still isn’t – any suggestion that she should stand behind or in front of anyone; she nonetheless very happily recalls the partnership she had as the wife of Professor Peter Karmel, Flinders University’s first vice chancellor.

After marrying Peter in 1946, Mrs Karmel accompanied him to Cambridge where he completed a PhD. Peter rose swiftly through academic ranks, being appointed professor of economics and dean of the economic faculty at the University of Adelaide at the age of 27.

By the early 1960s it was clear South Australia required a second university and from 1961, Peter Karmel took on the role of planning the new university.

“We were driving past on South Road and I stopped the car and we walked over to the paddock. It was completely bare, just some sheep,” Mrs Karmel said.

Speaking a short time later at a public meeting, Professor Karmel said the new campus needed to bring a new approach to higher education in Adelaide, saying, “We need to experiment and experiment bravely.”

When asked whether she recalled the Flinders Opening Ceremony, conducted by the Queen Mother, Mrs Karmel chuckled and said, “Of course I do.”