Archive for July, 2008

The University of New England hosted a three-day workshop last week as part of a government-funded initiative that is enhancing the teaching of Indonesian at several Australian universities.

Lecturers in Indonesian from UNE – the leader of the Regional Universities’ Indonesian Language Initiative (RUILI) – were joined by their counterparts from the three other universities collaborating in the project: the University of the Sunshine Coast, the University of Tasmania, and Charles Darwin University.

The aim of the project is to develop and deliver Indonesian language programs based on common curricula, and including advanced units that can draw on the individual expertise of academics from any of the four universities.

Last week’s workshop, on the 10^th, 11^th and 12^th of July, was the third since the project was launched at the beginning of last year with a grant of $369,000 from the Australian Government. The workshop participants discussed the curriculum materials they have created together so far, and future developments.

“The project has enabled us to develop new online materials by collaborating creatively,” said UNE’s Stephen Miller, the RUILI Project Coordinator and convener of the workshop. “Working towards common, standardised curricula has proved incredibly productive.”

Also at the workshop were two academics from Mataram University on the island of Lombok – the Indonesian university that provides in-country language tuition for students from the four Australian universities. Their presence enabled the strengthening of links with their Australian colleagues, and the discussion of initiatives such as professional development for the Indonesian language teachers employed on Lombok as part of the project.

In officially opening the workshop, UNE’s Acting Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academic Services), Eve Woodberry, said that the study of Indonesian was “critical” for Australia – particularly considering the important trade and tourism links between the two countries. She said that projects such as RUILI were “wonderful for the sharing of information and knowledge, and the consequent development of products that are more widely accepted”.

The project is establishing an “open” Web site that will enable Indonesian-teaching universities anywhere in the world to contribute to this collaborative development of teaching materials. The Web site will be launched at the biennial conference of the Australian Society of Indonesian Language Educators next year. There is also scope within the RUILI project for the delivery of the new, collaborative Indonesian language programs – using UNE’s highly successful “Blended Model” – to universities other than the four participants.

“The RUILI project has established the network we need,” Mr Miller said. “While it wouldn’t have happened without the current government funding, which ends in May next year, our collaboration will continue into the future.”

A PHOTOGRAPH of participants in the RUILI workshop can be seen by clicking on the image displayed here. Stephen Miller is second from right. The photograph, taken at the official opening, also includes Eve Woodberry (third from right) and Associate Professor Herman Beyersdorf (right), Acting Transitional Head of the School of Arts.

The Australian Poultry Cooperative Research Centre (Poultry CRC) based at the University of New England has won a major international award from the World’s Poultry Science Association (WPSA).

The Association’s Industry/Organisation Award was presented to the Poultry CRC’s Chairman, Dr Jeff Fairbrother, and Chief Executive Officer, Professor Mingan Choct, during the closing ceremony of the 23^rd World’s Poultry Congress in Brisbane earlier this month. The award, presented every four years at the Congress, was in recognition of “an outstanding contribution to the development of the poultry industry”.

Dr Roel Mulder, General Secretary of the WPSA, said there were many organisations throughout the world doing great work in advancing poultry science, but the Poultry CRC was “well ahead of its nearest rival for the award”.

Twenty researchers and staff members from the Poultry CRC’s headquarters and from UNE’s Poultry Research and Teaching Unit attended the Congress at the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre, which ran from the 30^th of June till the 4^th of July and brought together about 2,500 leading poultry scientists from around the world. It was the first time that the event has been held in Australia.

“This award, and the CRC’s role in this preeminent gathering of the world’s poultry researchers, acknowledges the work of the CRC to date,” Dr Fairbrother said, “and should deliver confidence to producers and Australian governments that a top research organisation has the Australian poultry industry’s future in hand.” Professor Choct said the award was “truly an honour for the CRC and all its participants”.

The Poultry CRC is a joint venture between numerous academic, industry and government institutions, designed to perform research (often collaboratively) and to use the results to enhance the competitiveness, vitality and sustainability of the Australian egg and chicken meat industries. Its researchers have made important advances at local, national and international levels.

Professor Choct said that this major award, and the fact that 33 of the CRC’s researchers had given presentations at the Congress – many of them by invitation – demonstrated the respect that the CRC and its researchers had earned around the world.

Earlier this year Professor Choct was awarded the international poultry industry’s Gordon Medal when he presented the 25^th Annual Robert Fraser Gordon Memorial Lecture at the 2008 conference of the British Society of Animal Science in Scarborough, UK. The Gordon Lecture is organised by the R.F. Gordon Memorial Trust in association with the UK Branch of the WPSA. (See the posting on this Web site for Wednesday 14 May.)

THE PHOTOGRAPH displayed here shows Dr Jeff Fairbrother (left) and Professor Mingan Choct after receiving the award for the Poultry CRC.

St Albert’s College at the University of New England was a temporary home for more than 240 young people from Belgium, Germany and The Philippines last week before they dispersed to billets throughout the Armidale Diocese.

The young people – pilgrims on their way to this week’s World Youth Day celebrations in Sydney – spent several days at St Albert’s, where they had a chance to meet each other and gain their first experiences of Australia. They saw kangaroos in the University’s deer park, marvelled at the flocks of colourful parrots that visit the campus, and toured University facilities such as Sport UNE.

“It’s our part of World Youth Day,” said the Master of St Albert’s College, Geoff Johnston. “In this – ‘phase one’ of their pilgrimage in Australia – we enable them to settle and acclimatise before they move out into ‘phase two’: their ‘Days in the Diocese’.”

Felix Moseler is one of a group of 22 high-school students from Ahlen in Germany that stayed at St Albert’s. He said that he was excited about the prospect of meeting people from so many different cultures, and impressed with his first taste of Australia. The Ahlen group has been raising money for their pilgrimage for the past 18 months through jobs such as gardening and catering.

After a special Mass at St Mary’s and St Joseph’s Catholic Cathedral in Armidale last Thursday morning, followed by a civic reception at the Ex-Services Memorial Club, the pilgrims dispersed to their billets with families throughout the Diocese – the Ahlen group going to Uralla.

During those ‘Days in the Diocese’, the young pilgrims attended a bush dance and a fireworks display, saw sheep-shearing at a local station, and experienced many other aspects of Australian culture and the natural environment of New England.

Yesterday [Monday 14 July], all the pilgrims travelled to Sydney in preparation for the arrival of Pope Benedict XVI, and their World Youth Day experience will culminate with the Papal Mass at Randwick Racecourse on Sunday 20 July.

THE PHOTOGRAPH displayed here shows World Youth Day pilgrims from Belgium at St Albert’s College.

Wendy and Graham Hyde have retired after devoting all their working lives – a combined total of nearly 83 years – to the University of New England.

In June 1966, Graham Hyde began work as an electronics apprentice in the University’s Physics Department, and in November of the following year his future wife joined the University as a secretary in the Department of Sociology. They celebrated their 38^th wedding anniversary on the 14^th of February this year.

In a farewell function at UNE’s “Booloominbah” earlier this month, Professor Margaret Sedgley, Pro Vice-Chancellor and Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, pointed out how unusual it was these days for an individual – let alone a couple – to devote their whole career to one employer.

Professor Sedgley, who has worked closely with Mrs Hyde in the administration of the Faculty, commented on her “encyclopaedic knowledge” of the Faculty and its teaching programs, and said she had been “a wonderful support”. Mrs Hyde ended her UNE career as Faculty Adacemic Manager – a position she held from late 2003.

Her career led her through secretarial positions in the Departments of Sociology, Physiology, Rural Properties, and Animal Science before she was appointed secretary to the Dean in the Faculty of Rural Science in 1981. She became secretary to the Dean of the Faculty of The Sciences in 1990, before her appointment as Student Administrative Officer for the Faculty in 1991. “I’ve really enjoyed working at UNE,” she said at the farewell, “and particularly with the students.”

Graham Hyde spent most of his career in Physics (except for three years in Ecosystem Management), rising to the position of Senior Technical Officer.

After the birth of each of their two sons – Mark and Craig – Mrs Hyde had a break from UNE of several years. More recently, she undertook a Bachelor of Arts degree program through UNE as an external student, graduating in 1992.

Mr and Mrs Hyde have seen many changes at UNE over their 40-odd years of employment, including what Mrs Hyde referred to as “a big change in culture” during the period of the amalgamated “Network UNE” in the early 1990s. Recently, she has been closely involved in the structural reorganisation that has seen the integration of Arts and Sciences into the one Faculty – with a consequent increase in opportunities for interdisciplinary collaboration in teaching and research. At the same time, she played a major role in the University’s process of academic renewal, which included the creation of new degree programs to address the needs of a changing educational, employment, and social environment.

Professor Sedgley said at the farewell that much of the success of the academic renewal process within the Faculty had been “really Wendy’s achievement”. ‘It’s been the culmination of her years at UNE,” she said.

The Hydes are looking forward to travel and recreation in their retirement. They have bought a caravan (and a vehicle to pull it) and are planning an extensive tour of northern Australia next year.

A PHOTOGRAPH of Wendy Hyde (left) and Professor Margaret Sedgley, taken at the farewell function, can be seen by clicking on the image displayed here.

The University of New England is stepping forward to address the current serious shortage of social workers in rural and regional Australia.

UNE is introducing a degree program in social work that will capitalise on the University’s regional location, and its expertise in preparing graduates for professional practice in rural areas.

The first students in UNE’s Bachelor of Social Work program will be enrolled at the beginning of next year. The course will be available to both on-campus and distance-education students.

The program will be unique in its focus on the practice of social work in rural areas. “It builds on UNE’s strength in providing rural-focused professional training in related and complementary fields including medicine, nursing and criminology,” said Professor Victor Minichiello, Pro Vice-Chancellor and Dean of UNE’s Faculty of The Professions. “It is grounded on the philosophy that ‘those who are trained in the bush stay in the bush’.”

Professor Minichiello said that the new UNE program would prepare graduates for any professional social work position – in either government or non-government agencies or community services – while maintaining its special focus on rural areas, including Aboriginal communities.

Professor Alan Pettigrew, the Vice-Chancellor of UNE, said that the “strong rural focus” of the course represented “another major contribution that UNE will make to addressing critical workforce shortages in rural and regional Australia”. “We have received tremendous support from social workers – and agencies that employ social workers – in our area,” he said.

“The development of this new interdisciplinary Bachelor of Social Work program has been facilitated by the recent restructure of the University that has created opportunities for academic disciplines to work together,” Professor Pettigrew explained. “The accreditation body – the Australian Association of Social Workers – has specifically mentioned the interdisciplinary team approach as one of the obvious strengths of the program.”

Among the disciplines contributing to UNE’s social work program will be Counselling, Social Science, Law, Psychology, and Indigenous Studies.

Ros Giles, a reviewer of social work programs for the Association and Chair of its National Practice Standards Committee for Social Work, visiting UNE last week as part of the accreditation process, said the UNE program would “complement the current range of programs across Australia with its rural focus, and help in developing the rural workforce”.

She said that it was currently “impossible” to fill many of the positions for social workers in rural agencies, and that “training locals to stay local will address that”.

Professor Minichiello said the commonly-held view that rural communities are more socially cohesive than urban communities was – in general – “a myth”. “In rural communities the population is more widely spread and, as a result, social networks are more difficult to rely on,” he said. “The higher suicide rate is an indication of this.

“And, considering the likelihood of increasing economic difficulties, the need for social work services in rural communities will be enormous.”

A PHOTOGRAPH of Professor Alan Pettigrew (right) and Professor Victor Minichiello with Dr Myfanwy Maple, the Course Coordinator for the Bachelor of Social Work degree program, can be seen by clicking on the image displayed here.

A documentary drama written and directed by Barbara Albury, an Adjunct Senior Lecturer in UNE’s School of Arts, will be a highlight of NAIDOC Week celebrations in Armidale this week.

Who is Frank Archibald? will be performed tomorrow (Friday 11 July) at 11.30 am in Armidale Town Hall. It will follow the annual march by Aboriginal people through the streets of Armidale. Entry to the 30-minute drama is free.

Who is Frank Archibald? explores issues of race, assimilation and reconciliation in the 1950s and ’60s by focusing on the life of Frank Archibald, an Elder of the Gumbainggir people and a revered member of Armidale’s Aboriginal community, who died in 1975.

“Frank Archibald became a symbol of hope for his people,” Ms Albury said. “He was a strong advocate for Aboriginal rights, and believed that education was the way forward for Aboriginal people. His vision and courage as a spokesman for his people are recognised in the annual Frank Archibald Memorial Lecture held in his honour at the UNE Oorala Centre.” (This year’s lecture is at 7.30 this evening. See the posting on this Web site for Thursday 3 July.)

The play was originally commissioned by Daisy William, Director of the Aboriginal and Regional Cultural Centre and Keeping Place, as one of a series of short plays depicting the history of Armidale.

“The production is a blend of documentary information, the original songs of Frank Archibald, traditional Aboriginal children’s dances, and projected images depicting the ’50s and ’60s,” Ms Albury said. “The documentary information was gathered from newspaper cuttings, published literature, and a recorded interview with Gracie Gordon, Frank Archibald’s last living child.”

The cast of Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal actors includes two UNE students: Lesley Vale and Methuen Morgan.

THE PHOTOGRAPH displayed here shows Shane Levy in the role of Frank Archibald.

A two-day forum in Moree next week will focus on research projects and management initiatives undertaken in the Lower Gwydir wetlands and channels over the past few years.

“Many of the research projects on this high-conservation-value ecosystem are nearing completion, and this forum will give researchers and managers an opportunity to explain their work to the community at large,” said the convener of the forum, Dr Glenn Wilson from the University of New England.

“The Moree community and landholders will have an opportunity to learn about individual projects, how these complement each other, and ways in which the findings will be used by managers of the catchment’s rivers and wetlands,” Dr Wilson said.

The forum, on Tuesday the 15^th and Wednesday the 16^th of July, is being jointly hosted by the Border Rivers-Gwydir Catchment Management Authority and Moree Plains Shire Council. The first day, at The Max Centre, Balo Street, Moree, will comprise a series of research and management talks, with time for questions and for viewing research and organisational displays. On the second day there will be a bus tour to view river and wetland sites in the Lower Gwydir wetlands area, where landholders, researchers and managers will talk about maintaining both healthy and sustainable farming in this unique landscape. Attendance is free apart from a $20 charge for the forum dinner on Tuesday evening.

Among the presentations will be a report by Dr Wilson on research conducted through UNE and the Cotton Catchment Communities Cooperative Research Centre (Cotton CRC), and funded by the Australian Government, that has produced useful insights into how fish, planktonic animals, water chemistry and wetland plants respond to environmental and other flow releases from Copeton Dam.

The Gwydir Wetland System covers an area of 102,120 hectares and provides more than $200 million of irrigated agricultural products in the Gwydir region. It is listed in the Directory of Important Wetlands in Australia.

Next week’s forum has gained the support of a wide range of agencies, including UNE, the NSW Department of Environment and Climate Change, the Murray-Darling Basin Commission, the Border Rivers-Gwydir CMA, Moree Plains Shire Council, the Gwydir Valley Irrigators Association, the NSW Department of Primary Industries, and the Cotton CRC.

For more information on the forum contact Dr Glenn Wilson on (02) 6773 3078 or 0429 837 082 (e-mail: glenn.wilson@une.edu.au).

The University of New England will be honoured next week by a visit from the President and the Chief Executive Officer of the world’s leading honour society of nursing.

Professor Carol Huston is the President, and Dr Patricia Thompson is the CEO of Sigma Theta Tau International, based in the United States. While at UNE, they will give a public presentation titled “Vision 2020: Sigma Theta Tau International looks to the future”.

Their presentation will be from 9 am till 11 am in the Somerville Lecture Theatre in UNE’s Pat O’Shane Building. Everyone is welcome to the presentation, which will be linked by video conference to audiences at the University of Newcastle and Southern Cross University.

Professor Huston and Dr Thompson are visiting UNE at the invitation of Associate Professor Jeanne Madison and Associate Professor Mary Cruickshank from UNE’s School of Health – both members of Sigma Theta Tau. The visit follows the 19^th International Nursing Research Congress in Singapore (7 – 11 July), at which the two international leaders are officiating.

Sigma Theta Tau International, which has more than 405,000 members around the world, supports the learning, knowledge, and professional development of nurses in order to improve the health of the world’s people. It has a significant emphasis on research and evidence-based practice.

Dr Madison and Dr Cruickshank said that their distinguished guests would report on their visit to UNE in the international Journal of Nursing Scholarship, the leading, peer-reviewed scholarly journal with a global circulation of 130,000. The journal reaches health professionals, university Faculties and students in 90 countries.

While at UNE they will be introduced to the new version of the University’s Bachelor of Nursing program which – uniquely in Australia – qualifies students to work as Enrolled Nurses after their first two years of study, as well as Registered Nurses at the completion of the three-year degree course. The new program began for on-campus students this year, and will be available next year for distance-education students.

For more information on next Monday’s presentation, contact Associate Professor Jeanne Madison on (02) 6773 3667 or Associate Professor Mary Cruickshank on (02) 6773 3640.

A ceremony at the University of New England today to mark the beginning of NAIDOC Week drew together people from the University and Armidale communities to celebrate the Indigenous heritage of the region and to reflect on some of the inequities that remain in Australian society.

The speakers at the ceremony focused on the theme of this year’s NAIDOC Week – “Advance Australia Fair?” – in their comments on the past and present, and their vision for the future.

The Vice-Chancellor, Professor Alan Pettigrew, expressed his thanks for the contributions of Indigenous people to society both regionally and nationally. “We owe it to them to ensure that our society is a fair society,” he said.

Professor Pettigrew confirmed UNE’s commitment to moving towards such a society by continuing to provide both employment and educational opportunities for Indigenous people.

Geraldine Cutmore, who represented the University’s Indigenous students, spoke about a local program in which a group of teenagers – most of them Aboriginal – had prepared and presented exhibits in dog shows throughout the region with outstanding success, and had been welcomed by the communities in which they exhibited. Ms Cutmore, who is a case manager for the Benevolent Society and a youth worker for the Street Beat Armidale Project as well as a first-year Arts student at UNE, said this was an example of the sort of “inclusive practices” that could “make Australia fair”.

Jill Ahoy, speaking as a representative of the Indigenous community, said the apology to the “stolen generations” by the incoming Australian Government in February had been a “great milestone”, and that now “our nation needs to move on together”. She said Indigenous Australians could achieve “a fair go” only with the support of their non-Indigenous fellow citizens, but that “together as Australians we can achieve anything”.

Bruce Cohen, the community member who presented the Welcome to Country that opened the ceremony, acknowledged the traditional owners of the land – both past and present – and thanked UNE’s Oorala Aboriginal Centre for organising and hosting the event.

The ceremony concluded with the raising of the Aboriginal Flag.

NAIDOC (originally standing for “National Aborigines and Islanders Day Observance Committee”) is a national celebration of the history, culture and achievements of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

Aden Ridgeway, who chairs the National NAIDOC Committee, has explained that the aim of the “Advance Australia Fair?” theme is “to encourage people to reflect on the Australian principle of “a fair go”, and to consider the inequalities still experienced by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in this country today”.

THE PHOTOGRAPH of Professor Alan Pettigrew and Geraldine Cutmore displayed here expands to include Michael Brogan, an Associate Lecturer at UNE’s Oorala Centre, who was today’s Master of Ceremonies.

A five-day festival in Sydney next week will celebrate the power of music to foster social relationships, enhance personal wellbeing, and promote creative expression.

The festival will bring together 65 people from NSW, Victoria and Queensland for four days of choral workshops with a prominent conductor from the United States, followed by a free public concert on the fifth day. All the participants are over the age of 60.

The second biennial Australian National Seniors’ Choral Festival will begin on Tuesday 8 July and conclude with the concert – at 2 pm in the Verbruggen Hall of the Conservatorium of Music – on Saturday 12 July. The festival is a joint project of the University of New England (UNE), the University of Sydney, and the Conservatorium High School, Sydney. Its Patron is the internationally renowned Australian composer Peter Sculthorpe.

Dr Terrence Hays, the Artistic Director of the festival, is a musician and music educator who has conducted research – both in Australia and abroad – on the benefits of music-making for individual and community health. Dr Hays, who lectures in Creative Arts in UNE’s School of Education, said the aim of the festival was to celebrate the passionate engagement of many older people with music, and promote the benefits of such an engagement. “Music-making is more than just playing or singing the notes on the page,” he said. “It’s about health and wellbeing and providing opportunities for people to express themselves artistically. The meaning we derive from music is not necessarily associated with a formal knowledge of music practice, theory or history, but rather through our own life experience.”

The festival’s Principal Conductor is Heather Buchanan, Director of Choral Activities at Montclair State University, Upper Montclair, New Jersey, and the accompanist is the distinguished Australian music educator Wendy Huddleston. The Sydney-based coloratura soprano Erika Simons will perform as soloist with the choir in a program that will include choruses from works by Mendelssohn, Mozart and Vivaldi, choral anthems, folk songs and spirituals.

Dr Hays said that participants in the inaugural Australian National Seniors’ Choral Festival in 2006 had found it had enhanced both their sense of wellbeing and their appreciation of music. “They felt a sense of achievement in learning new skills, and experienced the joy of artistic self-expression,” he said. “The festival provided fresh insights into the possibilities of ‘positive ageing’ for everyone involved.”

People seeking last-minute enrolment as participants in the festival should contact Dr Hays on 0410 562 452.

The Web site of the Australian National Seniors’ Choral Festival can be accessed by clicking on the choir image (taken at the inaugural festival in 2006) displayed here.