Archive for April, 2008

More than 80 student residents of Earle Page College at the University of New England are about to become fashion models for an evening for the benefit of children’s medical research.

This year’s Fashion Extravaganza, one of the main events in Earle Page College’s annual “Coast Run” fund-raising program, will be at Armidale Ex-Services Memorial Club on Saturday 3 May, beginning at 7.30 pm.

The students will be joined on the catwalk by the Master of Earle Page College, David Ward, Mr Ward’s wife Brigitte and their son Fletcher, and Armidale Dumaresq Mayor Peter Ducat and his wife Colleen.

The “Coast Run” fund-raising program, now in its 29^th year, raises money for the Children’s Medical Research Institute. Last year’s Fashion Extravaganza contributed $8,000 to the $30,000 raised throughout the year. The program culminates in the annual Armidale to Coffs Harbour Coast Run in September.

Local fashion outlets lend the clothes modelled in the Extravaganza, and the students choreograph their own routines. The “bridal routine” is the traditional highlight of the show, which draws its audience from both the University and the wider Armidale community.

Some of the students will be participating in the show for the first time, and others will be repeating the experience. Myee Gregory, now a student resident of Earle Page and a member of the organising committee, began modelling in the Extravaganza at the age of four under the guidance of her college-affiliated parents.

Tickets for the Extravaganza cost $20 for students, $25 for adults, and $10 for children under 15. They are available from the Earle Page College office on 6773 5300.

“It’s one of the biggest events in the College calendar,” said Cassie Banks, the coordinator of this year’s event. Cassie has been organising the Extravaganza – the clothing, the models and the venue – since November last year and, with the goal now in sight, she added confidently: “It’ll work. It’ll be an excellent night.”

An innovative project being launched this week aims at helping to avoid, mitigate or resolve environmental disputes.

“SpeakSoftly” – a joint venture between the University of New England’s Centre for Environmental Dispute Resolution (CEDR) and the Border Rivers-Gwydir Catchment Management Authority (BRGCMA) – is one of the first conflict-resolution projects undertaken by any Catchment Management Authority.

Initially, “SpeakSoftly” is offering free online training in environmental negotiation – using slides, video, simulations and short quizzes – for anyone around the world. This training, available now, is at www.speaksoftly.info. The next stage – in late May or early June – will be face-to-face training during a two-day workshop in Moree for about 15 people who have completed the online training. The workshop will focus on developing consensus-building skills among those with an interest in the management of the Gwydir Wetlands.

UNE Senior Lecturer Julian Prior (pictured here), the Director of CEDR, has conducted research with 11 Regional Vegetation Management and Water Management Committees (eight of them in the BRGCMA area) that, he said, “clearly demonstrated that training in negotiation, conflict resolution and consensus building would have greatly benefited the reaching of agreement within these committees”.

“Since 1999, stakeholders in regional NSW, including those in the Gwydir Wetlands, have been involved in a series of negotiations on water allocation and native vegetation,” Mr Prior said. “Some of those negotiations continued for up to five years, and a few ended up in court. In many cases, in the absence of skills in negotiation and consensus building, such disputes can be highly adversarial and confrontational – each party taking up an inflexible position rather than negotiating on the basis of their best interests. And court decisions tend to be based on points of law and legal precedent, not necessarily the best environmental outcomes.”

“In the current climate we can expect such disputes to continue,” he said. “This project aims at preparing stakeholders – including farmers, members of community groups, and employees of natural resource management agencies – to enter a negotiation with the understanding that a successful outcome need not be in the interests of just one of the parties, and the skills to work towards an outcome that incorporates all parties’ interests. At the moment, 80 per cent of people assume that environmental negotiations are a ‘win-lose’ process. If we can raise the capacity of the community to understand that this need not be so, we can reduce conflict.”

Mr Prior said that UNE’s involvement in the “SpeakSoftly” project reflected the University’s commitment to community engagement and regional development, and that the BRGCMA was undertaking the project in accordance with its roles in both community capacity building and providing support for sustainable wetland management.

Monitoring and assessment of this initial online and face-to-face “SpeakSoftly” training will be used in the development of further training.

THE PHOTOGRAPH of Julian Prior expands to show a computer screen displaying the “SpeakSoftly” Web site.

With the help of a Hyman Scholarship for Rural Medicine at the University of New England, ten young Australians are working towards their dream of becoming a country doctor.

They are members of a group of 61 students who are the first to enter the Bachelor of Medicine degree program in UNE’s new School of Rural Medicine.

The scholarships – like the School of Rural Medicine itself – recognise the importance of preparing medical students for work in regional as well as metropolitan centres.

The scholarship holders are all looking forward to at least two years’ employment in rural, regional or remote areas of NSW after graduating five years from now. Their training will prepare them for this, providing them – over the five years – with a wealth of clinical experience throughout the New England region and beyond.

“UNE’s School of Rural Medicine recognises the important contribution of the community to its development,” said the Head of the School, Dr John Fraser. “Students who study in rural areas are 2.5 times more likely to remain in country locations during their careers. The Hyman Scholarship for Rural Medicine recognises and supports these students, who often face considerable barriers – including financial concerns and relocation from family.”

Professor Victor Minichiello, Pro Vice-Chancellor and Dean of UNE’s Faculty of The Professions, said: “The scholarship shows the importance that rural communities place on ensuring that we have high-quality doctors and other health professionals working in rural Australia, and the support they are willing to provide to the University in achieving that objective.”

The ten holders of the inaugural Hyman Scholarships come from urban and regional areas of NSW, Queensland, and South Australia. They were awarded the scholarships on the basis of their performance in last year’s NSW Higher School Certificate examinations (or their equivalent in other States), their involvement in leadership and community activities, and their commitment to rural medicine. Throughout their degree program they will report on their experiences in regional clinical placements.

Each scholarship is worth $10,000 a year for the five years of the program. The recipients live in one or other of UNE’s residential colleges for at least the first year of their course, enabling them to take full advantage of the special tutorials and other aspects of academic support offered on the campus and in its colleges.

One of the scholarship recipients, Patrick Laws, comes from a rural property not far from Toowoomba in Queensland. “The scholarship has come as a relief for my parents as well as for me,” Patrick said, “as it goes towards paying off HECS and residential college fees.”

Patrick applied for a place in the UNE Bachelor of Medicine program because of a specific interest in country medical practice. “Ultimately, I’d like to live and work in a regional centre and travel regularly to more remote areas,” he said.

Enthusiastic about the course as a whole, he said he particularly enjoyed working in a group of students towards the solution of a real-life medical problem, and the availability of practical experience and expert guidance in the study of anatomy.

The degree is offered through the Joint Medical Program, which is an expansion of the highly successful University of Newcastle medical program in partnership with the University of New England, Hunter New England Health and Northern Sydney Central Coast Health.

THE PHOTOGRAPH displayed here shows Patrick Laws and Professor Minichiello. It expands to include the other nine Hyman Scholarship holders and Professor Pettigrew. From left: Riarne Smith, Samira Bhuiyan, Emily Lewis, Etienne Musumeci, Professor Alan Pettigrew, Jodie Parker, Patrick Laws, Professor Victor Minichiello, Eric Donaldson, Roger Luo, Bernadette Nolan and Rebecca Hogbin.

A four-day international seminar at the University of New England is nurturing professional links between teacher educators from 26 countries.

“It’s a kind of renewal,” said one of the keynote speakers, Professor Hsun-Fung Kitty Kao from Tamkang University in Taiwan, pointing out that the unconventional structure of the seminar encouraged “collegiality and professional contact”.

The 28^th Annual Seminar of the International Society for Teacher Education (ISTE) began on the evening of Sunday 20 April with a dinner at which UNE’s Vice-Chancellor, Professor Alan Pettigrew, welcomed the 130 participants to the University, and it will continue until this evening (Thursday 24 April). The countries represented by the participants include Uganda, Kiribati, Bhutan, Kuwait, East Timor, Brazil, Chile, South Africa and the United States.

Following the unconventional format of the ISTE seminar, each of the participants comes armed with a short paper on their own research, and discusses the paper with a group of about 12 fellow participants who have all read and reflected on it before the discussion. “This approach facilitates mutual academic support, networking, and the international sharing of ideas and projects,” said John Maurer, an Adjunct Senior Lecturer at UNE and a co-convener of the seminar. “While the papers cover a wide range of research projects and reflect a wide range of educational and cultural settings, they are all aimed at improving teacher education,” said the other co-convener, Warren Halloway – an Honorary Fellow in UNE’s School of Education.

Professor Kao said that the basic issues facing teacher educators were common to all countries, and concerned not only the preparation of high-quality teachers, but the government and community support of those teachers – and their professional development – throughout their careers.

Among the participants are nine fourth-year education students at UNE who have worked throughout their undergraduate program towards this opportunity to present a research paper in an international forum, and who are now interested in the possibility of a postgraduate research degree.

Eighteen of the overseas participants – six from Bhutan, six from Vietnam, four from Papua New Guinea and two from East Timor – are teacher educators who are visiting UNE for a month as recipients of Australian Leadership Awards (ALA) Scholarships sponsored by AusAID. Their seminar papers concern projects that they have developed during their time at UNE, and that they will put into practice in their workplaces after their return home.

Professor Kao is one of three keynote speakers at the seminar; the other two are Professor Jim Greenberg from the University of Maryland, USA, and Associate Professor Debra Panizzon from Flinders University in South Australia. Dr Panizzon discussed the results of several research projects conducted by UNE’s School of Education and the UNE-based National Centre of Science, ICT and Mathematics Education for Rural and Regional Australia (SiMERR) during her time as a UNE academic and Deputy Director of SiMERR. She explained that the findings had been used to identify a number of issues and challenges facing teacher educators in ensuring that their programs meet the needs of future teachers. One of these issues, for example, was the need for teachers of the middle years in secondary schools to have a proper balance of teaching skills and subject knowledge in order to give students the best possible grounding for their senior years of schooling.

The ISTE Seminars for 2009, 2010 and 2011 will be in Utah (USA), Brazil and Norway respectively.

THE PHOTOGRAPH of Warren Halloway and Associate Professor Debra Panizzon displayed here expands to include John Maurer.

The University of New England is working with the Mount Thorley Warkworth mine in the Hunter Valley, managed by Coal & Allied, to rehabilitate former farm and quarry lands now owned by the mine.

The five-year, $1.5 million research project will reintroduce local plant species to hundreds of hectares of Hunter Valley land that have been degraded by grazing and land clearance.

For the first time in Australia, scientists will deliberately reintroduce some plants that require bees and other fauna to pollinate their flowers, to test whether the new plant community has become self-sufficient.

Part of the study will include identifying and incorporating plants that rely on pollinators to set seed, as these will be important indicators of whether reproductive processes are being maintained in the vegetation.

UNE’s Associate Professor Caroline Gross said the research was the first time such a project had been tried in an area having the unique sand features that typify Warkworth, as it was unusual to find wooded sand so far inland.

“This is an exciting opportunity for the researchers involved,” Dr Gross said, “and the students who will take part will have the opportunity to develop their research and environmental management skills.”

“Many will go on to take up environmental positions with mining companies,” she added.

The researchers aim to recover native seeds buried in the existing soil and replant species (such as Grevillea montana, pictured here) that characterised the natural landscape.

“Many mining operations in the district have been rehabilitated back to pastures,” Dr Gross said. “This research will provide best practice techniques to demonstrate how mines can also be rehabilitated back to native vegetation.”

The research project has been required as part of an earlier approval obtained to extend open-cut mining operations at the Mount Thorley Warkworth mine.

Coal & Allied’s General Manager of Health, Safety and Environment, Rory Gordon, said the research would involve monitoring areas that were currently in good condition and promoting growth in areas that had been degraded through past agricultural and quarrying activities.

“This research will help to improve the available knowledge about rehabilitating native vegetation, and will help us and other mining companies in the future to improve our ability to leave behind thriving native ecosystems,” Mr Gordon said. “We are looking forward to watching and learning from the results.”

The University of New England and the New England Institute of TAFE have entered a new phase of collaboration that will further enhance the range of educational opportunities for people in the region.

The Vice-Chancellor of UNE, Professor Alan Pettigrew, and the Director of TAFE’s New England Institute, Gary Pollock, signed a new Memorandum of Understanding last week – the latest in a series of MOUs that have facilitated UNE-TAFE collaboration over the past 12 years.

One important aspect of this collaboration has been the development of educational pathways from TAFE to UNE. “Articulation between TAFE and university qualifications has enormous potential,” Mr Pollock said, “especially since there’s a thrust in education towards higher-level qualifications.” He mentioned nursing, film and television, and children’s services as areas that were already benefiting from such pathways.

“Getting the whole of the New England Institute aligned with the University really opens our horizons,” Professor Pettigrew said, “particularly as government policy encourages greater collaboration between different sectors of education.”

In recent years, collaboration between the two educational institutions and the local Area Health Service has enabled the establishment – with Commonwealth Government funding – of a broadband network integrating and enhancing education and health communications throughout the New England region.

The broadband network links UNE’s eight Regional Access Centres – all on local TAFE campuses – with each other and the University’s Armidale campus and Tamworth Centre, helping students overcome the disadvantages of isolation. Professor Pettigrew and Mr Pollock agreed that the use of the Access Centres would continue to grow throughout the three-year life of the new MOU – particularly when students from UNE’s new School of Rural Medicine begin their clinical placements in regional centres.

The sharing of facilities and services between UNE and TAFE will soon be extended by an agreement to allow reciprocal library borrowing rights to the students of both institutions.

Mr Pollock and the Assistant Director of the Institute’s Educational Development Unit, Pam Morgan, visited UNE on Thursday 10 April to sign the MOU with Professor Pettigrew and UNE’s newly-appointed Pro Vice-Chancellor (Academic), Eve Woodberry.

The image displayed here expands to show (from left) Professor Alan Pettigrew, Pam Morgan, Eve Woodberry and Gary Pollock at the signing of the MOU.

The University of New England is participating in a Commonwealth Government AusAID program that is fostering leadership in the developing countries of the South Asia region.

Eighteen leaders or potential leaders in the field of teacher education are on a four-week visit to UNE funded by Australian Leadership Awards (ALA) Scholarships. Six of them are from Bhutan, six from Vietnam, four from Papua New Guinea, and two from East Timor.

The ALA Fellows, all from tertiary-education institutions or government departments in their respective countries, are working within UNE’s School of Education on the development of projects they will implement in their own workplaces after their return home. They will have a chance to discuss their projects with representatives of the international education community when each of them presents a paper on their project at the International Society for Teacher Education conference to be held at UNE next week.

Although this is UNE’s first involvement in the ALA Scholarship program, the University has strong links with education programs in all four of the countries represented by the Fellows. In welcoming them to UNE last week, Professor Victor Minichiello, Pro Vice-Chancellor and Dean of the Faculty of The Professions, outlined those links, while the Vice-Chancellor, Professor Alan Pettigrew, emphasised the University’s objective “to engage with our colleagues in other nations who have to deliver education programs to far-distant places”.

“We look forward to learning from you as well as having you learn from us,” Professor Pettigrew told the Fellows.

Ms Minh Hang Nguyen (pictured here) from the Centre for Educational Research, Faculty of Education, at Vietnam National University, Hanoi, responded on behalf of the Fellows, saying they were confident of success in the ALA program because of UNE’s strong support.

Another of the Fellows, Ms Phintsho Choeden from the Royal University of Bhutan, said they were “honoured and happy” to be at UNE as part of such a highly-regarded award program. Referring to UNE’s long and fruitful association with the Bhutanese Ministry of Education – and now also with the Royal University of Bhutan – she said they were “happy to be here to help make the bond even stronger”.

Associate Professor Tom Maxwell, the Director of the ALA program at UNE, said that the program would benefit both the University and the Fellows on a number of levels. The Fellows would be able to see the publication – as well as the implementation – of their project plans, he said, and the University could look forward to deepening relationships with them and their institutions.

“For everyone involved, there’s an important element of ‘networking’,” he said. “As a whole, the program is a catalyst for future development.”

THE PHOTOGRAPH of Ms Minh Hang Nguyen displayed here expands to show all 18 of the ALA Fellows with several of their UNE hosts.

Rosa Pinniger wants to know if people can Tango their way out of depression.

Ms Pinniger, an Honours student in psychology at the University of New England, is organising a “Tango trial” to help her find out.

She’s inviting people with depression to take part in an experiment in which a third of the participants will get six free, weekly Tango lessons. At the same time, another third will attend free meditation classes (a widely-recognised alternative therapy for depression), and the rest (the “controls”) will do neither. The “controls” will get free lessons – their choice of either Tango or meditation – after the end of the trial.

Rosa Pinniger comes from Barcelona in Spain and lives in Sydney, where the “Tango trial” will begin next week. Not a Tango dancer herself, she was taken by surprise when she was invited to a Tango session in Sydney and realised that it was “just the thing” for her study of alternative therapies for depression.

“In learning Tango movements you have to focus your attention and be completely in the present moment,” she explained. “You need to be constantly aware of – and connect with – your partner, and so you can’t have extraneous thoughts. In other dances you can still have thoughts – but not in Tango.”

Such “mindfulness”, she believes, can “switch off the automatic negative thought patterns that contribute to anxiety and depression”. “I believe that if people can experience freedom from their negative thoughts for just the three minutes of a Tango dance, they’ll realise that such freedom is possible,” she said.

“While we already know that meditation can be helpful in the treatment of depression, not everyone can meditate. But everyone who can walk can Tango. It doesn’t matter whether you’re graceful or not; it’s all mindfulness and connecting with another person.”

Although she’s from Spain, she did not consider Flamenco as a candidate for depression therapy. “In Flamenco you’re very self-conscious,” she said – “aware of your own posture and the impression you’re making on others. In Tango you’re not concerned with that. Also, the music of Tango is not intimidating.”

The Tango lessons – each one-and-a-half hours long – will begin on Tuesday 22 April, and the meditation lessons on Monday 21 April. Both will be at an address in Cleveland Street, Surry Hills, not far from Central Station. Ms Pinniger needs at least 90 participants for the trial and, although more than 70 have already signed up, she’s keen to hear from anyone in Sydney who might be interested. “You have to be aged 18 or older, and to have felt sad or depressed recently,” she said. “There is no cost associated with participation, all information is kept strictly confidential, and you can withdraw from the trial at any time.” She can be contacted by phone on (02) 9554 3557 or 0450 166 572, or by e-mail: rpinnige@une.edu.au.

Both the Tango teacher and the meditation teacher are so interested in the project that they are volunteering their time to help.

For the future, Ms Pinniger would like to extend her interest in Tango therapy to help hospital patients suffering from chronic illness.

A public lecture at the University of New England this week will explain the need to take account of “supernatural values” in the heritage conservation of objects and places that have local significance in the context of popular religion.

The visiting lecturer, Dr Denis Byrne, will focus on South-east Asia – and Thailand in particular – where official policy has sought to exclude consideration of what it regards as “superstition” from heritage conservation programs modelled on those of the West.

“Popular religion, with its emphasis on the magical-supernatural, is a key factor in the way that archaeological objects and sites are contextualised within contemporary local culture in Thailand – as elsewhere in South-east Asia,” Dr Byrne said. (A Thai shrine to a local spirit is pictured here.)

“Popular religion invests the material past with a supernatural agency whose effects lend a peculiar intimacy to the relationship local people have with old objects and places,” he continued. “The failure of most heritage practitioners (either local or international) to acknowledge this reality disenfranchises the majority of the population from having a meaningful voice in heritage conservation and is a major obstacle to conservation policies having real traction at a local level.”

Dr Byrne, Research Manager for the Cultural Heritage Division of the NSW Department of Environment and Climate Change, is the author of Surface Collection (2007), a set of archaeological travel essays set in South-east Asia. His lecture at UNE – the John Ferry Heritage Lecture – will be titled “Divine heritage: the place of the supernatural in the popular valuation and conservation of Thailand’s religious heritage”. It will be at 5.30 pm on Thursday 17 April in Lecture Theatre A2 on the ground floor of UNE’s Arts Building.

The annual John Ferry Heritage Lecture, organised by UNE’s Heritage Futures Research Centre (HFRC), honours the memory and work of the UNE-based historian Dr John Ferry (1949-2004). Dr Andrew Piper, Coordinator of the HFRC, said: “The mixing of history and heritage, of people and the built environment, of analysis and description were key elements of Dr Ferry’s scholarship and practice as an historian. He also believed in the important contributions made by family and community members, and the need to ensure their ownership of their history and heritage.”

For more information on Thursday’s lecture, contact Dr Piper in UNE’s School of Humanities on (02) 6773 2764 (e-mail HFRC@une.edu.au).

The University of New England is participating in an international, community-based movement that is helping teenagers stay away from antisocial behaviour.

An Armidale tournament of Midnight Basketball will begin at Sport UNE on Saturday 3 May.

Midnight Basketball was established in the United States in 1986 to provide an alternative activity for teenagers at that time of night when they are most likely to be engaged in (or victims of) antisocial behaviour. It now operates in about 100 locations in the United States and the UK and, after coming to Australia in 2006, staged 15 tournaments around the country last year.

The program, held on successive Saturday nights over a nine-week period, combines basketball games with life-skills workshops on topics such as drug and alcohol awareness, sex education, nutrition and health, anger management, and financial literacy. The organisation’s slogan, “No Workshop, No Jump Shot”, emphasises the rule that participation in a workshop on each evening is a prerequisite for playing in that evening’s basketball games.

Participants are boys and girls aged between 12 and 18. They will be picked up by bus at 7 pm and travel to Sport UNE, where dinner will be served at 7.30. The program of workshops and basketball games then continues till midnight, when the teenagers will return home by bus.

Sport UNE’s Angela Collongues, the manager of the Armidale tournament, said that she and her colleagues were in the process of visiting all Armidale high schools to recruit participants. “Registration for the players is free,” she said, “and we’re hoping to involve about 60 teenagers. We’ll also need about 25 volunteers a night to help us run the program: people to travel with the participants on the buses, to help with the catering, and team leaders for the games and workshops. The volunteers can be students, parents, or other members of the community, and it’s vital for the success of the program that we find enough of them. Anyone interested in volunteering can contact the local office of the NSW Department of Premier and Cabinet on (02) 6771 5781.”

“As the teams will not be divided up by schools, this will be a great opportunity for students from different schools to interact,” Ms Collongues added. “And, as each team will include players of different ages, the older kids will have a chance to act as mentors to the younger ones.”

It was through the Premier’s Department and the local group EACH (Eastern Action Community Health) that an application was made to Midnight Basketball Australia which resulted in the planning of the Armidale tournament, and the appointment of Ms Collongues as its manager. The Commonwealth Bank is a major sponsor of Midnight Basketball Australia.

There will be a second Armidale tournament later in the year.

THE PHOTOGRAPH displayed here shows, in the foreground, Sport UNE’s Angela Collongues, the manager of the Armidale Midnight Basketball tournament. It expands to include (from left) John Kauter (Marketing and Public Affairs, UNE), Maureen Chapman (NSW Department of Premier and Cabinet), Rob Lasker (Youth and Family Services NSW), and Tracy Wright (Operations Manager, Sport UNE).