The University of Tasmania has made outgoing VC Peter Rathjen a doctor of letters, an honour reserved, “for people who have given outstanding service to the state or the university.” Professor Rathjen has indeed done sterling service for the university, notably convincing decision makers and opinion shapers in the state that education is Tasmania’s best hope of ending Tasmania’s under-performing, under-employing economy. As Chancellor Michael Field puts it, Rathjen “built a coalition of the willing around the university.” And it was done without flattening Tasmanian cities, as that other coalition of the willing did in Iraq during the Second Gulf War.