'The protests against the Vietnam War were reaching their peak in 1970, a turbulent year for Australian universities. Students were finding a new, more creative voice which was not always well received in the hitherto sleepy groves of academe. The University of Queensland had, perhaps, awakened a bit sooner than most with the appointment of a relatively young and dynamic vice-chancellor, Zelman Cowan, and it had the added zest of confronting a deeply conservative state government committed to censorship and the elimination of dissent.' (Introduction 73)