Archive for August, 2008

A meeting between the University of New England and two national organisations of counsellors and psychotherapists has initiated a process aimed at the development of unified national standards for counselling and psychotherapy education in Australia.

The meeting, yesterday at UNE, was hosted by Professor Victor Minichiello, Pro Vice-Chancellor and Dean of UNE’s Faculty of The Professions. Taking part in the discussions were Philip Armstrong, Chief Executive Officer of the Australian Counselling Association (ACA), and Dr Colin Benjamin, Chief Executive Officer of the Psychotherapy and Counselling Federation of Australia (PACFA).

ACA and PACFA, together, represent about 6,000 members. Yesterday’s meeting at UNE was the first time the two national bodies have officially come together to promote the development of unified national standards for counselling and psychotherapy education.

They came to UNE because of the University’s distinguished history in the education of counsellors. UNE has produced many hundreds of counselling graduates, and is the first university to engage in postgraduate counselling programs – including a Master of Counselling degree with Honours and a PhD in Counselling. UNE academics and alumni were instrumental in the foundation of both ACA and PACFA.

Mr Armstrong and Dr Benjamin said they were committed to forming solid national working parties and collaborative projects to promote the public interest and to improve practitioners’ working conditions and access to allied health care provisions. They said there were about 16,000 practitioners in Australia who identified themselves as counsellors – in addition to social workers, psychologists, and other mental health practitioners who do counselling – suggesting the existence of a significant demand for core training as well as ongoing professional development.

UNE’s Dr Randolph Bowers, Founding Editor in Chief of the first Australian and international research journal dedicated to counselling – Counselling, Psychotherapy, and Health (www.cphjournal.com), sponsored by the Australian Counselling Association – also attended yesterday’s meeting, along with Associate Professor Jeanne Madison, Acting Head of UNE’s School of Health, and Dr Myfanwy Maple, Lecturer in Counselling.

“This meeting signalled a renewal of mutual commitment to collaboration and ongoing growth in counsellor education programs,” Dr Bowers said. “UNE Counselling has a record of great distinction through leading educational and practice-based standards nationally and internationally, and is one of the first Australian universities to take postgraduate counsellor education into Asia and the United States, via long-term and productive partnerships in Hong Kong and California.”

For more information about UNE Counselling Studies contact Dr Bowers at counsellingstudies@une.edu.au.

A PHOTOGRAPH showing (from left) Dr Randolph Bowers, Philip Armstrong, Dr Colin Benjamin, and Professor Victor Minichiello can be seen by clicking on the image displayed here.

In the week of Indian Independence Day (August 15), the University of New England and Armidale’s Indian community welcomed a group of 21 Indian nurses who are the first students to undertake UNE’s new Bachelor of Professional Nursing degree program.

The official welcome to UNE took place in the University’s School of Health on the 12^th of August. The welcome organised by the Indian community was at Smith House in central Armidale on the 16^th, the day after the newly-arrived students participated in another Indian community event – an Independence Day flag-raising ceremony at UNE’s Wright Village.

The 21 students are all from the city of Chandigarh in the State of Punjab, and they all have diploma-level qualifications in nursing. The one-year degree course at UNE has been specially designed to build on the qualifications and experience of nurses such as these. Their arrival at UNE is the result of negotiations – led by UNE’s Dr Mary Cruickshank – with the INSCOL Academy in India, one of that nation’s most important providers of health-care professionals. Travelling with them to UNE – and sharing in the welcome – were five Indian postgraduates about to begin a Master of Nursing degree program at UNE.

One of the Professional Nursing degree students, Gurwinder Dhillon, said her first impression of Armidale had been of a town – set in a beautiful environment – free of crowds and traffic jams. UNE’s Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Professor Graham Webb, in welcoming the Indian students to the University, urged them to enjoy the beauty of Armidale’s natural environment by visiting the surrounding National Parks.

Professor Webb told them that, at UNE, they were entering a “community environment” in which members of the academic staff were interested in their students “as people”. He assured them that, through their interaction with students and staff members around the campus, they would make an “exceptional contribution” to the vibrant multicultural life of the University.

The Acting Head of the School of Health, Associate Professor Jeanne Madison, confirmed that the School was looking forward to a process of reciprocal learning. “Often when we have international students we learn as much from them as they learn from us,” Dr Madison said. “It’s a rich experience for both of us.” Then the nursing course coordinator, Dr Penny Paliadelis, welcomed the students to Nursing at UNE.

A second group of Indian students for the Bachelor of Professional Nursing program is due to arrive at UNE in February.

UNE’s Dr Kiran Shinde, a lecturer in Urban and Regional Planning, and Dr Subba Reddy Yarram from the School of Business, Economics and Public Policy, coordinated the organisation of this month’s Indian Independence Day celebration and community welcome. Dr Shinde said that he hoped to see – with the increasing number of Indian students at UNE – an increasing number of events bringing members of Armidale’s Indian community together and enabling them to share elements of India’s rich cultural heritage with the wider community.

THE PHOTOGRAPH displayed here, showing Professor Victor Minichiello, Pro Vice-Chancellor and Dean of UNE’s Faculty of The Professions, with two of the Indian Nursing students – Rajdeep Kaur Grewal (left) and Preetkamal Kaur – expands to include (from left) Dr Penny Paliadelis, Professor Graham Webb, and another of the students – Navneet Bath. They are pictured (with a “patient”) in the School of Health’s Clinical Laboratory.

A new, rust-resistant variety of triticale, developed at the University of New England, will be commercially available early next year.

UNE has just signed an exclusive agreement with ABB Seeds for the marketing of the new variety, named “Bogong”.

Triticale is a hybrid cross between wheat and rye. The “Bogong” variety (pictured here), which has grown very well at Warialda, Narrabri and Grafton in NSW, is on show this week in the UNE tent at Ag-Quip – the annual agricultural field days near Gunnedah.

Associate Professor Robin Jessop, the agronomist who leads UNE’s triticale research team, said that the new spring-grain type was the latest in a series of triticale varieties developed at UNE over the past 25 years. “Our data show that ‘Bogong’ delivered a very high yield in South Australia, Victoria and NSW last year,” Dr Jessop said. “It’s now being built up for seed, and will be commercially available in February 2009.”

The General Manager of ABB Seeds, Garry Goucher, said it was exciting to be launching the new high-yield, early-season-maturing variety of triticale. “‘Bogong’ is broadly adapted to suit many of the prime dairy and livestock areas around the country, including the coastal regions of NSW, the south-west slopes and NSW, and Victoria and South Australia,” Mr Goucher said.

“Bogong” is a widely-adapted spring variety that performs best in medium-to-high rainfall or late-maturing environments. With its very good resistance to all current field strains of rust – including the latest, the “WA” pathotype of stripe rust – it is designed to replace varieties such as “Kosciuszko”. It has a frost tolerance equivalent to – or better than – “Kosciuszko” or “Everest”.

Dr Jessop said that “Bogong” was one of a pair of new varieties of triticale developed at UNE. He said that the second variety – as yet unnamed – was designed to have a particularly high tolerance of acid soil, and that it too should be commercially available through ABB Seeds next February.

For information on UNE’s triticale research contact Associate Professor Robin Jessop on (02) 6773 2502 (e-mail: rjessop@une.edu.au). For information on the purchase of both of the new varieties, and to place orders, contact ABB Seeds on1800 018 205 (e-mail: abbseeds@abb.com.au).

A new book by a UNE historian explores Australia’s cultural evolution in the 1960s in the context of its Indigenous people.

Dr Jennifer Clark (pictured here) said her book – Aborigines & Activism: Race, Aborigines & the Coming of the Sixties to Australia – presented “an alternative interpretation of the 1960s”.

“It encourages broader thinking about this period,” she said. “It goes beyond the stereotypical perceptions: that the ‘60s was all about hippies and student protests. There was much more than that: it was the period when people began to question – and to consider liberating themselves from – old, conservative ideals.”

“When you look at the beginnings of Aboriginal activism,” she explained, “you see that many of the issues in those early stirrings were later identified with the anti-war movement, for example. What I’m suggesting through this book is that Indigenous Australians and their supporters were responsible for a lot of the changes that we might see as the ’60s phenomenon – and were involved in that well before the popular stereotypes of the ’60s emerged.

“The story of the coming of the ’60s to Australia is the story of ‘Aborigines and activism’.”

Dr Clark, a Senior Lecturer In UNE’s School of Humanities, said that a lot of her research for Aborigines & Activism had been undertaken in archives in Canberra and various libraries around Australia. “We can over-localise our perspective in this kind of analysis,” she said. “Aborigines & Activism went beyond local boundaries and required a national approach.”

The book’s publisher, the University of Western Australia Press, says Aborigines & Activism is “an engaging study of the stories of racial awakening in Australia that marked the coming of the ‘wind of change’.

“Through rigorous research, the author shows how supporters of Indigenous Australians and their struggles for equality pushed Australia into the ’60s – literally and figuratively. The book also puts the Australian experience of the ’60s into an international perspective.”

Dr Clark said that, although it was intended mainly for students and those interested in the 1960s, Aborigines & Activism would also be of interest to anyone seeking to understand how our society became what it is today, while its holistic (or “big picture”) view of Aboriginal activism would interest Indigenous Australians. “Although Indigenous communities have a very strong sense of their own local heritage, the 1960s period – on a national level – is also important,” she said. “It was ‘Aborigines and activism’ in the 1960s that resulted in the sense of identity as Indigenous Australians that exists today.”

Jacqui Lawrence’s friends and teachers from her undergraduate days at the University of New England are all delighted that her dedication as a kayaker has resulted in a silver medal at the Beijing Olympics.

UNE graduate Michael Waggitt, who met Jacqui through the UNE Mountaineering Club, was one of a group of her friends and kayaking companions who watched her on television as she came second to Slovakia’s Elena Kaliska in the women’s K1 single slalom. “It was fantastic to see her do so well after all the years she’s been training,” Mr Waggitt said. “Now we’re looking forward to seeing her in the 2012 Olympics in London – perhaps with her sisters, who are also great kayakers.”

Jacqui Lawrence (pictured here) graduated from UNE in 2005 with a First Class Honours degree in Natural Resources. “She was a very hard-working student, and applied the same focus and determination to her studies as she did to her kayaking,” said UNE’s Associate Professor Richard Faulkner, co-supervisor (with Dr Janelle Wilkes) of her final-year project. “She showed great initiative in her project, which was on saving water in the Sydney area by using rainwater tanks.”

Coming from Old Bonalbo in northern NSW, Jacqui won a UNE Country Scholarship to enter her degree program at UNE in 2000. The criteria for these awards are academic excellence and involvement and leadership in school and community activities. She lived for several years in Drummond and Smith College, where she is remembered for her high level of motivation, her leadership qualities, and her work as an Academic Mentor.

Mr Waggitt recalled visits by himself, Jacqui, and her fellow champion kayaker Robert Cork to The Armidale School to help the students with their kayaking.

Jacqui was selected to represent Australia in the World Junior Slalom Championships in the Slovak Republic in 2000, attending the event with support from Sport UNE.

In 2001, when she was the Australian Junior Whitewater Canoeing Champion, she was awarded the inaugural Sport UNE Full Sporting Scholarship. In the same year, she and Robert Cork led the UNE kayaking team that won two gold, eight silver and three bronze medals at the Australian University Games in Ballarat (finishing a close second to Sydney University overall). Jacqui and Robert won nine of those medals between them. Jacqui also competed in the women’s canoe polo team, which won a silver medal.

She was an elected member of the Sport UNE General Committee in 2001-02.

In 2002 she represented Australia at World University level as a member of the White Water Kayaking Team that competed in Poland. In the same year she won nine gold, four silver and two bronze medals at the Australian University Canoe / Kayaking Championships hosted by UNE at Nymboida, and she and Robert Cork won a bronze medal in the mixed C2 slalom event in the National White Water Kayaking Championships.

She was awarded the Bill Hanlan Shield for the UNE Sportsperson of the Year in 2003. In that year, too, she was selected for the Australian under-22 team that competed in Europe, achieving 5^th and 7^th places against the world’s top 40 competitors.

Armidale will celebrate the vital relationship between Indonesia and Australia with a night of Indonesian food and culture on Saturday 23 August.

Indonesian Night 2008, in Lazenby Hall at the University of New England, will include a program of traditional Indonesian songs and dances as well as a full Indonesian meal.

This will be the third annual Indonesian Night to be organised by the Indonesian-Australian Community of Armidale (KIAA), the Indonesian discipline at UNE, and the Armidale branch of the Indonesian Students’ Association. It will begin at 6.30 pm and continue till 9 pm.

The event is planned each year in conjunction with the celebration of Indonesian Independence Day (17 August). Dr Zi Adnan, Convener of Indonesian at UNE, said that the theme of this year’s Indonesian Night would concern collaboration: “With collaboration we can make a change in the world.”

The professional dancer and dance teacher Alfira will travel from Sydney to present a series of dances from various Indonesian provinces. She will be accompanied by her teacher Murtala, from Indonesia. As Artistic Director of Sanggar Suara Indonesia Dance Troupe, Alfira has organised and coordinated dance workshops and performances at schools, universities and festivals across Victoria, the ACT, NSW and Queensland, and in Java and Aceh.

Joining Alfira on the program will be 20 high-school students from Macksville, who will perform the East Indonesian dance Poco-poco. An Armidale-based group comprising students and staff from the Indonesian discipline at UNE and Indonesian residents of Armidale will perform a Sajojo dance from West Papua and a medley of folk songs from throughout Indonesia. Colourful Indonesian costumes will be a feature of these performances.

The meal, prepared by a local team led by Ms Ratna Widiarti, will include spring rolls, nasi goreng and mie goreng, satays, and desserts.

Entry to Indonesian Night 2008 is $10.

Referring to the theme of collaboration, Dr Adnan said: “Knowledge is essential for collaboration. We’re keen to provide opportunities for people to find out about the Indonesian nation and its culture.”

More than 300 secondary students visited the University of New England today for a practical scientific program that included working with robots and stone tools, investigating swamp creatures and chemical compounds, and much more.

The students, in Years 8-10, came from 11 secondary schools in Inverell Gunnedah, Walcha, Warialda, Coffs Harbour, Tamworth, Uralla and Armidale.

This was the sixth of UNE’s annual “Science in the Bush” events, scheduled each year as a contribution to National Science Week. The coordinator of “Science in the Bush”, Dr Chris Fellows from UNE Chemistry, said the day was designed to show students from regional schools that UNE – a regional university – was a centre of cutting-edge scientific activity. “Science is the key to our future,” Dr Fellows said, “and we want to help these young people experience something of the excitement that the pursuit of science – ‘in the bush’ as well as in the city – can bring.”

There was plenty of that excitement in today’s program, which included activities such as “The RoboBug Obstacle Challenge”, “Out of the Swamp!”, “The Wildlife Biologist Challenge”, “The Nature of Consciousness”, and “The Chemistry Fire and Brimstone Show!”

The program also included some activities new to “Science in the Bush” this year, such as adventures in palaeontology, thermal imaging and blood typing, and – in UNE’s new School of Rural Medicine – studies of anatomical models in conjunction with CT-scan and X-ray images. An activity presented by Rhonda Davey from CSIRO’s McMaster Laboratory near Armidale enabled students to investigate egg fertilisation and embryo development, and a chemistry lecture by UNE’s Dr Peter Lye gave them fresh insights into phenomena of energy transformation such as those observed in chemical reactions.

“Science in the Bush” 2008 was sponsored by UNE’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences, CSIRO, and the Australian Poultry Cooperative Research Centre.

It’s Open Day at the University of New England early next month – a day when UNE and the wider community can tell potential students all about the benefits of living and learning in the university city of Armidale.

The University is expecting more than 1,200 potential students to visit the campus on Open Day, Friday 5 September. They will be coming from throughout northern NSW and southern Queensland – and beyond.

UNE is inviting local clubs and businesses to become involved in the day by setting up information stalls in the UNE Bistro, which will be one of the hubs of activity for Open Day visitors. This year’s emphasis on the role of the University within the wider community is a new direction for Open Day at UNE. The online program for the day (on the UNE Web site: www.une.edu.au) will include a list of participating clubs and businesses, with links to their individual Web pages.

The Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Professor Graham Webb, will welcome Open Day visitors during a short ceremony at 10 am in Lazenby Hall. Professor Webb will urge the visitors to take full advantage of opportunities available during the day to find out about the benefits of living and learning within the UNE and Armidale communities. UNE staff will be available in Lazenby Hall throughout the day to answer all questions about courses, enrolment, and studying at UNE.

The day will begin at 7.30 am with a breakfast in the dining halls of all seven of the University’s residential colleges, when visitors can gain an initial insight into life within UNE’s unique residential system. The college breakfast is free, but bookings should be made by visiting UNE’s virtual community for potential students, UNExtra, at: http://www.une.edu.au/unextra. (By registering for Open Day on the UNExtra Web site, potential students can enter a blog competition.)

A day-long program of information sessions in various locations around the campus will deal with areas of study including Natural Resources, Social Work, Accounting and Finance, Rural Science and Agriculture, Nursing, Economics, Medicine, Management, Computer Science, Law, Arts, Humanities, Education, and the Behavioural, Cognitive and Social Sciences. These will be interspersed with information sessions on subjects such as careers, HECS and applying for a university place, and tours of individual Schools, the Dixson Library, IT facilities, support services, Sport UNE, and the student radio station TUNE! FM.

Tours of the residential colleges will begin at 8.30 am (after the breakfast), and will run throughout the day. Later, in UNE’s Central Courtyard, the social side of college life will be highlighted in a high-spirited inter-college tug-o’-war competition, lunch will be provided, TUNE! FM will be conducting an outside broadcast, and musical entertainment will be provided by DJ “Rusty”. Visitors to Open Day can enter the draw to win an iPod Nano.

THE PHOTOGRAPH displayed here was taken at last year’s UNE Open Day.

Theatre teachers and practitioners have a unique opportunity to enhance their skills and qualifications through a new online Master’s degree program being offered by the University of New England.

The Master of Applied Theatre Studies program, to begin in Semester One 2009, builds on UNE’s 20 years of experience in delivering undergraduate Theatre Studies courses by distance education. UNE is a world leader in this regard, and the new postgraduate program is the only one of its kind. It can be studied entirely online from anywhere in the world.

“Students will come with an undergraduate degree, and practical theatre experience gained either as part of – or separately from – that undergraduate program,” said Professor Adrian Kiernander, Convener of Theatre Studies at UNE. “Our aim is to enable such people to enhance their skills in ways that will help them to be better practitioners or teachers of theatre.”

“Our off-campus undergraduate courses – culminating in the Bachelor of Theatre Studies program that began this year – have been very successful,” Professor Kiernander said, “and last year earned us a citation from the Federal Government’s Carrick Institute for ‘sustained commitment and innovation in devising and providing realworld learning experiences for off-campus students in the practical study of theatre’.

“For the new Master’s program we’re developing electronic tools that will enable students to do the work of analysis, and then communicate the results of that analysis, totally online. We want them to be able to share their knowledge as widely as possible.”

The practical focus of the course is emphasised by the fact that it can be based on a theatre project – such as a professional production or a school play – in which the student is involved as an actor, director or designer. “All the student’s research, analysis and recording can be tied in to that project in a very focused way,” Professor Kiernander said. “They will get credit for their practical work as well as for their academic research and analysis.”

Taking one year full-time (or its part-time equivalent) to complete, the Master of Applied Theatre Studies program includes dramaturgical research techniques, theatre history, and techniques of script and character analysis and the recording of performances. While there are no compulsory residential schools attached to the program, students will have the option of attending some on-campus classes and residential schools if they wish to.

“We’ve identified a need for a postgraduate course like this to be taught externally,” Professor Kiernander said, “particularly in NSW where, with the rapid expansion of drama teaching in secondary schools, there are a lot of teachers who want to upgrade their knowledge and enhance their qualifications. And for theatre professionals, it will provide a more scholarly background to their practice.”

For more information about the Master of Applied Theatre Studies degree, contact Professor Kiernander on (02) 6773 3755.

A dinner and ball in Armidale this Friday evening will celebrate the education of rural health professionals at the University of New England.

Everyone is welcome to the event on Friday 15 August, at which Richard Torbay, Speaker of the NSW Legislative Assembly and Member for Northern Tablelands, will be one of the guest speakers.

The Health Ball is the first major event to be organised by the New England Rural Club for Health Alliance (NERCHA), formed last year by students of nursing and other health-related disciplines at the University of New England.

One aspect of the celebration will be the integration into the Alliance of medical students from the newly-formed School of Rural Medicine at UNE. The guest speakers will also include Professor John Fraser, Head of the School of Rural Medicine, Jan Brown, Course Coordinator for Nursing at UNE, and Dr Yoni Luxford, a UNE Senior Lecturer in Nursing.

The co-Chairs of NERCHA, third-year nursing students Ruth Irwin and Allese Tansley, said they hoped the event would raise community awareness of the Alliance itself, and of the necessity to retain rural-trained health professionals in rural practice.

Ms Irwin said that new NERCHA office-bearers would be announced on the night – including a first-year medical student and a first-year nursing student. There will also be announcements about the Alliance’s planned activities – such as school visits – within the community, aimed at bringing more attention to issues of rural health.

The event will be at Armidale’s Wicklow Hotel, starting at 7 pm with arrivals at 6.30 pm. Tickets ($25 each) can be bought at the UNE Post Office.

For more information phone Allese Tansley on 0400 308 117 or Ruth Irwin on 0413 202 728.