We chat with last year’s Faculty of Arts Learning and Teaching Awards winner, Julian Dight, about his love of law, travel and many other interests.

Work stuff
I’ve been at Macquarie for…
Ten years.

In a nutshell, my job is to…
Teach law to students in the Law School and in the Faculty of Finance, Business and Economics. I started teaching Business and Corporations’ law in FBE and after 10 years, I am still loving it! I also teach a range of subjects in the Law School, which is also great fun. I like the variety of engaging in the different areas of the law, which is a great form of professional development.

The question I hear most often in my work is…
“How do you juggle your teaching load and the preparation that goes with it when assignments are due?”

The top three things on my to-do list today are…
1) Record a lecture in the studio for Intellectual Property Law in the morning with a coffee in hand.
2) Teach three tutorials for Administrative Law in the afternoon with a salad in hand.
3) Teach a three-hour class on Corporations Law in the evening with the thought of dinner to come!

If I could do any other job at Macquarie (with instant qualifications/knowledge) it would be…
To work in Learning and Teaching at Macquarie.

A Macquarie staff member who impressed me last week…
Pierre Bleiker is a Digital Recording Administrator and he organises the recording of lectures in one of the University’s studios and each week he has it all prepared and ready to go. I am always impressed with his level of efficiency and courteousness.

I get my campus coffee fix from…
The staff café. Ask Beth to make it for you and you will get a very fine brew.

If you were given $50 million to create or build something at Macquarie, what would you do with it?
An Arts Hub with a theatre for plays and musicals, a dance studio for staff and students, an art gallery for up and coming artists to display their work with a studio attached, and an industrial-style café, bar and restaurant where some of this art can be displayed.

Personal life
Outside work you’ll find me…
Power walking around Canada Bay, writing restaurant reviews for Google reviews and catching all the latest trip reports, car reviews and recipes on YouTube. I also like to relax with the SMH on Saturdays with a coffee and croissant.

I’m really looking forward to…
A trip to Italy, Croatia, and Berlin. I am taking long service leave over the Christmas break and hope to travel to Europe in January but may also go the US in December.

The most amazing place I’ve ever visited is…
The Boeing factory in Seattle Washington. The place is absolutely huge and can be seen from outer space. I was there when the first batch of 787’s were coming off the production line. It was a great experience. One of the interesting things about Boeing is that it has the highest staff retention rate for a company in the world.

If I could have dinner with anyone (living or dead) it would be…
Barack Obama. A former law professor who would have some interesting views on the current political situation in the US and on other regions around the globe.

The last great book I read was…
QF32 by Richard De Crespigny. This is a great book about how a flight deck with five pilots managed to land an A380 after several flight systems failed mid-air! The captain, Richard De Crespigny had to remain calm and sift through a raft of data the cockpit was feeding him. He had to calculate whether the runway was long enough to land the plane as the brakes and flaps were not functioning properly after one of the engines exploded mid-flight. The plane came in too fast and the on-board computer calculated the aircraft had just enough runway to land safely. Phew!