Archive for July, 2009

The inaugural Vice-Chancellor’s Rugby Competition at the University of New England last weekend was such a huge success that its continuation and expansion are assured.

The two-day competition involved eight teams – including teams from St Joseph’s College, Knox Grammar and St Patrick’s College in Sydney, Farrer Memorial Agricultural High School in Tamworth and The Armidale School, and a North West representative team.

The Vice-Chancellor of UNE, Professor Alan Pettigrew, said the competition was both a realisation of UNE’s ability to attract first-class sporting events for the benefit of the New England community, and a showcase for the University’s world-class sporting facilities. “The competition highlights the importance the University places on sporting activities as well as academic study in the overall university experience,” Professor Pettigrew said.

He announced that the competition would continue as an annual event into the future.

Professor Pettigrew presented the winner’s trophy to the team from St Joseph’s College that defeated a Knox Grammar team 27-0 in the final on Sunday.

“The weekend certainly exceeded expectations,” said UNE’s Mark Stevens. “We’ve had tremendous feedback from the players and parents who travelled from the three participating Sydney schools, and we’ve received numerous inquiries about enrolling at UNE next year.

“We’re hoping to expand the event into a national, 20-team competition which would attract teams from all Australian States and Territories, and could also bring teams from New Zealand, South Africa and the UK.”

“UNE, with its first-class sporting facilities, is ideally placed to run such an event,” Mr Stevens said.

THE PHOTOGRAPH displayed here expands to show Professor Alan Pettigrew presenting the Vice-Chancellor’s Rugby Competition cup to Liam Walker, captain of St Joseph’s 1st 15.

The 6th Armidale International Film Festival will be held on the first weekend in August 2009 (31 July-2 August) at the Belgrave Twin Cinema.

This Festival had its beginnings in 2004 as part of UNE’s 50th anniversary celebrations, and has been supported by the former School of Languages, Cultures and Linguistics, and currently by the School of Arts. The committee members represent present and former staff of UNE as well as people from the wider Armidale community committed to bringing high-quality international films to Armidale and the region.

The festival is held in close co-operation with UNE Services and the Belgrave Cinema in Armidale. We are also delighted to have Ann Pettigrew as our Festival Patron.

The Armidale International Film Festival is the only international film festival in regional NSW. It is an annual event, which screens 13 acclaimed foreign language films from around the world. One of the major aims of this festival is to increase cultural awareness and to gain valuable insights into other cultures through the medium of film. The University of New England prides itself on welcoming many international students and academic staff from Asia, Africa, Europe and the US to its campus each year. Many of these bring their families to Armidale, creating a multicultural presence in the town itself. One of the aims of IFF is to show the Armidale community how much their presence in Armidale can enhance our lives, by educating us about their backgrounds.

The programme for 2009 is impressive; with a number of award-winning films from Austria, Canada, Iceland, France, Germany, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, Kazakhstan, Mexico, Spain and Sweden. All films will be subtitled.

Revenge thrillers, wars, documentaries, stunning cinematography, Baroque music, and even vampires; this year’s films have it all! From the dawn breaking on a remote farm in Chihuahua, Mexico in Stellet Licht, to the desolate Icelandic landscape in the detective thriller of Mýrin (Jar City) to the extraordinary animated film exploring the horrors of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in Vals im Bashir (Waltz with Bashir); there is something to suit everyone’s tastes.

For the first time this year, the Armidale International Film Festival Committee has brought all 5 Oscar nominated films for Best Foreign Language Film in 2009: Okuribito - Departures (winner), Vals im Bashir – Waltz with Bashir, Revanche, Der Baader Meinhof Komplex, and Entre les Murs – The Class (also winner of the Palme d’Or in Cannes)

The Armidale International Film Festival acknowledges the support of the Alliance Francaise Armidale, ABC New England North West and the University of New England.

Tickets are available NOW at the Belgrave (02) 6772 2856. Hurry! There are limited seats for the Festival Pass – a bargain at $110 for all 13 films. Come inside to the warm, put your feet up and enjoy acclaimed foreign language films at the Belgrave Twin Cinema 31 July – 2 August.

For more information concerning the Film Festival see www.belgravecinema.com.au/iff.

One of the world’s leading mathematicians, Professor Gang Tian, visited the University of New England earlier this month and spoke to mathematics staff and students about his cutting-edge research on the measurement of curved space.

Professor Tian (pictured here) is based both in the United States at Princeton University, and in China, where he heads the Beijing International Centre for Mathematical Research. He is perhaps most famous for his contribution – together with John Morgan of Columbia University – of a detailed proof (published in 2006) of the “Poincaré conjecture” that helped to verify Grigori Perelman’s successful but unelaborated solution of that century-old problem.

Professor Tian’s work on the measurement of space is extending the mathematical techniques of “curvature flow”, one of which – the “Ricci flow” – was used by Perelman in his proof. “In incorporating a time dimension, such techniques of measuring space are analogous to the measurement of the evolution of heat distribution from a radiating source,” Professor Tian explained.

His visit to UNE followed the Congress of the Pacific Rim Mathematical Association, held at the University of NSW in Sydney in the second week of July, at which he was a plenary speaker. UNE’s Professor Yihong Du was also a speaker at the Congress, and it was Professor Du who was Professor Tian’s host at UNE.

“Professor Tian’s work covers, at the very highest level, all three of our research fields here at UNE: differential equations, complex geometry, and algebraic topology,” Professor Du said. “We’ve known his work for a long time, and it’s wonderful to have had him with us. It helps our researchers and postgraduate students to feel that they’re not so far away from the cutting edge.”

“Coincidentally,” Professor Du said, “one of the unsolved ‘Millennium Prize Problems’ (which included the Poincaré conjecture before its solution) concerns the so-called ‘Navier-Stokes equations’ in fluid dynamics, a field of mathematical inquiry pioneered in the nineteenth century by the famous Cambridge-based mathematician and physicist Sir George Stokes – an ancestor of UNE’s Emeritus Professor Robin Stokes.” (Robin Stokes is a world-renowned scientist who was UNE’s first Professor of Chemistry.)

Professor Du said that there could be opportunities for future collaboration with Professor Tian – particularly in his capacity as Director of the Beijing International Centre.

THE PHOTOGRAPH of Professor Gang Tian displayed here expands to include UNE’s Professor Yihong Du.

Nineteen young people exploring the many possibilities for a scientific career in agriculture visited the University of New England last Friday for further insights into career opportunities and tertiary pathways to those careers.

Coming from throughout the New England and North West regions, they were all either past or intending participants in a national program designed to provide such insights. “There’s so much to choose from,” said Sarah Drew, a Year 12 student from Calrossy Anglican School in Tamworth who is planning to study Rural Science or Agricultural Economics at UNE. “It’s really opened my eyes.”

The national Primary Industry Centre for Science Education (PICSE) program offers scholarships that, each January, allow successful applicants finishing Years 11 and 12 to visit and talk to agricultural scientists working in a variety of industry settings during a “Science to Industry Student Camp”. Each scholarship-holder then completes a five-day “Industry Placement” working with one of those scientists. Sarah’s placement in January 2009 was at the NSW Department of Primary Industries’ Tamworth Agricultural Institute.

Last Friday’s reunion event gave previous scholarship-holders a chance to renew friendships, and to pass on their experiences to applicants for the next round of PICSE Scholarships. “It’s good to see a lot of young people enthusiastic about the program and applying for scholarships,” Sarah said. “And it’s been good to come back and learn even more.”

Tom Wilson, a Year 12 student at O’Connor Catholic College in Armidale, is aiming at a career in geosciences and is applying for one of next January’s PICSE Scholarships. Tom’s interest in soils was stimulated last Friday by one of the main items on the day’s program – a session with UNE agronomist Dr Chris Guppy on the chemistry involved in soil testing. The students also visited UNE’s Kirby Research Station to learn about the latest developments in precision agriculture from Associate Professor David Lamb and members of his Precision Agriculture Research Group.

“Both these sessions were extensions of the PICSE program, providing more insights into agricultural science careers,” said Susanna Greig, who – together with UNE’s Associate Professor Robin Jessop and Professor Brian Sindel – manages the State’s PICSE program, which is based at UNE. “The students also spoke to key people about tertiary pathways to agricultural science careers through UNE, Ms Greig said”

She explained that UNE had become the Activity Centre for the NSW PICSE program in 2007, and that since then the program had expanded to include more schools and industries throughout the region. “This year we’re thrilled to have twice the number of student applicants that we had at the same time last year,” she said.

“All our industry mentors comment on how valuable the program is,” she added, “and the need for more young scientists to move into agricultural careers.”

THE PHOTOGRAPH displayed here, showing Sarah Drew (Calrossy Anglican School, Tamworth) and Tom Wilson (O’Connor Catholic College, Armidale) during a survey of research in a UNE glasshouse, expands to include Susanna Greig.

Students from the University of New England’s Austin College have been doing their bit for the University’s charity art auction, helping to hang the art works to be auctioned this week at the New England Regional Art Museum (NERAM).

Five Austin College students, led by Senior Resident Fellow Jake Compton, joined NERAM staff in hanging the works last Thursday.

Barb Shaw, Director of the UNE Residential System, said it was “great to see the students lending a hand and participating in activities that give back to the community”.

The Celebration of Sharing Art Exhibition is now on display at NERAM, and the works will be auctioned there at 12 noon this Friday (31 July) to aid two Armidale charities.

The auction of works by Angus Nivison, Glory Kngale, Gosia Wlodarczak, Pat Elkin, Marty Branagan, Julia Hardman, Dell Bernett, Stuart Boggs, Ruth Downes and many others is part of the University of New England’s annual Celebration of Sharing fund-raising campaign.

Celebration of Sharing is an opportunity for the staff of UNE to contribute to the Armidale community. Each year two charities are chosen to receive funds raised through a variety of activities across the UNE campus. This year, the two charities are the Salvation Army and Paws Up.

Paws Up is a program for disadvantaged boys and young men who are given a Border Collie puppy to look after and train under supervision. The boys have gone on to compete successfully in Dog High Jumping around the country and are now at national championship level. The organiser of the program, Mr Bernie Shakeshaft, said: “We are having amazing results through the program, with many boys and young men completely turning their lives around.”

If you would like to attend the Celebration of Sharing Charity Art Auction, RSVP (for catering purposes) to Susan Macarthur on 6773 2960 or email Events.PR@une.edu.au.

THE PHOTOGRAPH displayed here, showing Jake Compton helping to hang a painting by Marty Branagan at NERAM for the Celebration of Sharing Art Exhibition, expands to include Jake’s fellow Austin College student Elise Eddison.

A musician from Japan who writes and performs songs inspired by the history of Japan’s Korean community is visiting the University of New England this week to collaborate on a study of music in Osaka between the two World Wars.

As a child, Bak Cho (pictured here), who was born into a Korean family in Japan, listened to his parents and grandparents sing folk songs that carried subtle but profound messages about the plight of Koreans under Japanese imperial rule. His interest in these songs was reinforced when, at university, he was able to relate these Korean folk songs to student “protest” songs.

Now, as a performer throughout Japan, his mission is to use his music both to inform Japanese people about their country’s annexation of Korea in 1910 (and its consequences for Korean people), and to support the pride of Japan’s Korean population in their cultural heritage.

In many of the songs he sings in Japanese (he also sings in Korean and English), Bak uses the Korean accent that he heard on the lips of his grandparents. This reinforces his message about the historical oppression of the Koreans in Japan and the desire of the current population – 600,000 strong – to maintain their cultural identity.

Bak Cho is visiting Armidale to collaborate with UNE’s Associate Professor Hugh de Ferranti on work associated with Dr de Ferranti’s research project, funded by the Australian Research Council, titled “Music and Modernity in Interwar Osaka”. They are jointly writing a paper about memories of singing and the role of song in maintaining the cultural identity of Japan’s Korean population.

Bak will give UNE and Armidale people a taste of his music this evening (Friday 24 July) in a free after-dinner performance at 7.30 pm in the dining hall at Mary White College. As well as his unique style of folk song referring to the history of Koreans under Japanese rule, his repertoire includes love songs and other themes more familiar to an Australian audience. He will accompany the songs on guitar and (for some) puk – a Korean drum.

While in Australia he has attended a conference of the Japanese Studies Association of Australia in Sydney, and has given performances in Canberra and Melbourne. His concert for the Korean community in Melbourne was an emotional experience for many in the audience, reminding them of long-forgotten sentiments.

This weekend he will give two performances in Sydney: one for the Korean community, and the other – attended by the Premier, Government Ministers and Korean diplomats – in memory of the Australian soldiers who died in the Korean War.

A leading expert on the early history of Christianity in Egypt will address one of the major puzzles of that history in a public lecture at the University of New England next week.

Edwin Judge, Emeritus Professor of History at Macquarie University, will talk about “The puzzle of Christian presence in Egypt before Constantine” when he gives the next lecture in UNE’s “Aspects of Antiquity” series. The lecture will be at 5.30 pm in the Junior Common Room at Earle Page College on Thursday 30 July.

“There is plenty of evidence in the form of papyri preserved in dry conditions, literary sources and archaeological remains for Christians in Egypt after Constantine embraced Christianity at the beginning of the fourth century,” Professor Judge says. “Why, however, is there so little documentation concerning Christians at the civic level when they must have been in Egypt for one or two centuries before Constantine?

“They are shown to have been present by the fragments of Christian literature that have been found on papyri even from about the mid second century. Why did the Christians leave virtually no other imprint? It is difficult even to find private letters certainly written by Christians.”

Professor Judge, a former Professor of History and Deputy Vice-Chancellor at Macquarie University, and a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities, founded the Documentary Research Centre in Ancient History, where he is involved in a research project on Christian Papyri from Egypt.

Professor Judge supervised the PhD thesis of Greg Horsley, UNE’s Professor of Classics and Ancient History, and Professor Horsley, in turn, has supervised PhD theses in early Christian studies and on topics such as Greek inscriptions. The full title of next week’s lecture is “The puzzle of Christian presence in Egypt before Constantine (and its link with Classics and Ancient History at UNE)”, and the free event will begin at 5 pm with drinks and light refreshments to celebrate this “passing on of scholarly training”. Books by Professor Judge and Professor Horsley will be on display, as well as some by Dr Anna Silvas, an Australian Research Council Fellow based at UNE in Classics.

The Vice-Chancellor, Professor Alan Pettigrew, will chair the event.

THE PHOTOGRAPH displayed here shows a papyrus codex from Egypt containing sections of the Gospel of John Chapter 18 – verses 31-33 (pictured here) and verses 37-38 (on the reverse side). This is one of the earliest surviving manuscripts of the New Testament, and dates from the mid second century AD. It is held in the John Rylands University Library, Manchester.

The results of an international test of “teacher effects” on children’s literacy learning indicate that they aren’t as great as claimed by some administrators of education.

An international team of researchers has found that quality of teaching accounts for a maximum of only 8 per cent of the variation in children’s learning in their first three years at school, whereas some have claimed that it accounts for up to 40 per cent of the difference.

Over the past 10 years the research team, led by Professor Brian Byrne from the University of New England in Australia and funded by the Australian Research Council, has followed about 500 pairs of identical twins – some of them in Australia and some in the United States – through their first three years of schooling.

As identical twins share the same genetically-determined native ability, live in the same household and attend the same school, they should – if teachers have the large effect sometimes claimed for them – progress, on average, at rather different rates when one twin is in a different classroom from the other.

For around half of the pairs of twins in the study, both children had the same teacher, and for the other half, each of the two children had a different teacher.

The researchers found that the difference in literacy levels between twins who had different teachers was only 8 per cent greater than that between twins who had the same teacher.

“This result is certainly in the direction you would expect if teachers do ‘make a difference’,” Professor Byrne said, “but it is not very large. It is not the kind of difference you would expect if 40 per cent of the variance in children’s reading and spelling could be attributed to teachers.”

“While this ‘teacher effect’ might be seen as the major component of an all-inclusive ‘classroom effect’,” he explained, “other classroom factors (such as the overall attitude of the students in a class to the value of learning) can also influence learning performance. Our study shows, therefore, that the ‘teacher effect’ on differences in children’s acquisition of literacy skills in the early years of schooling is no more – and sometimes less – than 8 per cent.”

“This result indicates that teachers are more similar than different in the quality of literacy instruction they deliver,” Professor Byrne concluded. “And, because Australia does pretty well in international comparisons of literacy, that quality appears to be of a good standard overall.”

“Results from another aspect of the same study (which includes fraternal twins as well as identical twins) have found, too, that different schools have negligible effects on children’s literacy levels,” he added. “This finding is at odds with the current emphasis on ranking schools in terms of ‘quality’.”

The Chief Executive Officer of the Australian Research Council (ARC), Professor Margaret Sheil, visited the University of New England last week to join young researchers and their mentors in a celebration of “the research journey”.

She presented a keynote address at the annual conference for postgraduate students in UNE’s Faculty of The Professions, and launched a newly-published book titled Qualitative Journeys: Student and Mentor Experiences with Research.

Professor Sheil (pictured here), who has headed the ARC since August 2007, said she tried to plan her visits to universities to coincide with an event or a celebration, and that her visit to UNE last Wednesday (15 July) was particularly rewarding because of the opportunity it gave her to talk to young researchers.

In introducing her at the book launch, UNE’s Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Professor Graham Webb, outlined her distinguished career in the practice and administration of research, and said: “We’re very honoured to have you with us.”

Professor Sheil said that launching Qualitative Journeys, edited by Victor Minichiello and Jeffrey A. Kottler, gave her great pleasure because the book “recognises the importance of the student/mentor relationship”. She added that, as a molecular biologist, reading a book about qualitative – as distinct from quantitative – research had been “very educational”. (Professor Sheil is a Fellow of the Royal Australian Chemical Institute.)

She noted that the book was a product of international collaboration, with Professor Minichiello based at UNE as Pro Vice-Chancellor and Dean of the Faculty of The Professions, and Professor Kottler based in the Department of Counselling at California State University, Fullerton, in the United States.

Qualitative Journeys, published by Sage in California, is a book for students and professionals in fields including the social sciences, education, human services and health. “The first two chapters describe the general nature of a qualitative research journey,” the editors say in their Introduction. “Each subsequent chapter tells the story of a research study with vivid, compelling descriptions of the struggles, joys, discoveries, surprises and interpersonal negotiations that take place.”

Professor Kottler, who was visiting UNE at the time of the launch, said that the book was unique in its focus on “the complex journey and partnership of research”. He also said that it was – among other things – a celebration of UNE and the impact of this University’s staff and students around the world. Many of the book’s chapters were written by staff members and students at UNE, and Professor Kottler made the point that in each case the student was the “senior author” of the chapter. Many of the authors were present at the launch.

Professor Minichiello discussed his and Professor Kottler’s experiment with an “interesting angle” in a book designed to teach people about qualitative research, and said that they had received “positive feedback from readers who say they were often unaware that they were learning about research methods”.

THE PHOTOGRAPH of Professor Margaret Sheil displayed here expands to include Professor Jeffrey Kottler (right) and Professor Victor Minichiello.

A newly established research centre at the University of New England will foster a spirit of free and creative inquiry in the arts within the New England community.

The new centre – “Arts New England” – was initiated by Professor Jennie Shaw, Head of UNE’s School of Arts, and officially opened earlier this month by the distinguished international scholar Professor Helen Tiffin.

“The membership of Arts New England is drawn from across the University and from the wider community,” Professor Shaw said. “The Centre will support a wide range of research projects based across the University, and will especially foster research and research-teaching projects in the arts with links to the Armidale and regional communities.”

Professor Tiffin (pictured here), an Adjunct Professor at UNE whose academic career has included professorships at the University of Queensland, the University of Tasmania, and Queen’s University in Canada, emphasised “the absolute importance of keeping pure arts research – and pure science research – to the fore in universities and communities generally”.

She said centres such as Arts New England were “crucial at a time when universities are under enormous pressure” to favour “directed” research over “curiosity-based” research, and that such centres were working to preserve “imagination, interpretation and transformation” – one of the major research themes of Arts New England.

The Vice-Chancellor, Professor Alan Pettigrew, said the new centre was a “watershed” for the School of Arts. He said the involvement of the wider community was particularly important, and that he was “pleased to see so many people from the New England community here today”.

Professor Margaret Sedgley, Pro Vice-Chancellor and Dean of UNE’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences, said that one of the “real strengths” of the new Centre, in addition to the involvement of the community, was its mixture of established “high-flyers” in research and younger researchers at the beginning of their careers. “That kind of mentorship and support is vital,” Professor Sedgley said.

Professor Ray Cooksey, UNE’s Acting Pro Vice-Chancellor (Research), spoke about the diverse range of research available to the Centre, saying that its “unified vision” was “underpinned by a diversity of focus”. “It reflects the diversity of the environment we live in,” Professor Cooksey said.

Dr Arthur Rickards, Managing Director of the Agricultural Business Research Institute, Chairman of the New England Conservatorium of Music, and Director of the International Livestock Resources and Information Centre, spoke at the launch of Arts New England about his own experiences in establishing successful community and UNE-based centres. “The potential for UNE-based centres is limited only by our imagination,” Dr Rickards said.

On the day of the launch, Associate Professor Erica Fudge, Reader in Literary and Cultural Studies at Middlesex University in London, presented the Centre’s Inaugural Distinguished Speaker Lecture.

Both Dr Fudge and Professor Tiffin work in Animal Studies – an interdisciplinary field of research defined as “the critical study of human-animal relations in the humanities”. They were hosted at UNE by Dr Jennifer McDonell, a lecturer in the School of Arts who was on the organising committee for the major international conference Minding Animals, held last week in Newcastle, at which both Professor Tiffin and Dr Fudge presented papers. Animal Studies is one of the research themes within Arts New England, and nine UNE academics (including Dr McDonell) from four Schools presented papers at the Minding Animals conference.

Anyone interested in contacting Arts New England or in becoming a member is welcome to contact Professor Shaw at: school.arts@une.edu.au.

THE PHOTOGRAPH of Professor Helen Tiffin displayed here expands to include (from left) Dr Jennifer McDonell, Associate Professor Erica Fudge, and Professor Jennie Shaw.