Archive for May, 2012

Professor Michael Stuckey, the new Head of the School of Law at the University of New England, believes that UNE is “ideally placed” to be a leader in the process of including Indigenous cultural perspectives in legal education and practice.

Professor Stuckey (pictured here), who has returned to his native Australia after 11 years as a legal academic in the UK, said he had noticed “a nationwide shift in the acceptance of the role of the Indigenous community”. “Australia is continuing to become a fairer place,” he said.

His interest in attracting more Indigenous and Torres Strait Islander students to the legal profession, and integrating Indigenous cultural concepts into legal education and practice, began while teaching law at the University of Newcastle before his move to the UK. “I started working with the Aboriginal legal education unit,” he explained, “where my specific role was in the admission and pastoral care of Indigenous students.”

“Inclusion and equality in education are vital for a fair society,” he said. “I don’t see widening access as antithetical to high standards.”

Born in Brisbane and raised in Sydney, Michael Stuckey moved into a medium-sized Sydney law firm practising commercial litigation after his graduation from the University of Sydney. His academic career began at Monash University in Melbourne, and continued at the University of Newcastle, before his move to the University of Ulster in Northern Ireland and then to the University of Glamorgan in Wales, where he was Head of Law. His research interests include legal history, property law, and Native Title, and he is the author of numerous books, book chapters, and scholarly articles.

As a legal historian, he is a leading international expert on an approach to historical research known as “prosopography”, which takes recognisable groups within a society – for example, medical practitioners or adults who went to a private school – as its units of analysis. His paper titled “Late sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century English humanism and antiquarianism: the prosopographical method and reflections on historico-legal tradition” is due to be published in the Journal of Legal History.

Professor Stuckey is pleased that “old-world” values in Australian legal practice, such as those relating to client service and professional relationships, are surviving the impact of globalisation – particularly in the regions. He feels, however, that traditional approaches to the business side of legal practices – including those related to business planning and the use of technology – are “in some ways quite outmoded, and a risk for the legal profession”.

“Universities should be providing students with the kind of learning that enables them to be effective and imaginative actors in a changing environment,” Professor Stuckey said. “This includes skills such as the optimal use of information technology.

“UNE has a philosophy aligned to those purposes. It has some exciting plans for developing technology and moving operations into the virtual world, and the School of Law itself has an excellent reputation for innovation in learning and teaching.”

The Pro Vice-Chancellor and Dean of the Faculty of The Professions at UNE, Professor Victor Minichiello, said that UNE was fortunate in having recruited a law scholar who had gained extensive knowledge of the discipline while working both in Australia and the UK. “Professor Stuckey brings to UNE a wealth of legal knowledge and experience in administrative leadership that will further develop the reputation of UNE’s School of Law,” he said.

Cooperative Research Centres (CRCs) based at the University of New England have won two of the five Collaborative Innovation Awards presented during the annual conference of the  CRC Association of Australia earlier this month. The UNE-based centres are the CRC for Sheep Industry Innovation (Sheep CRC) and the Poultry CRC.

The Sheep CRC was recognised for its Information Nucleus Program which, by correlating information on a wide range of desirable traits with the DNA profiles of individual sheep, is paving the way towards significantly faster genetic gain to improve productivity and meat and wool quality.

“The Information Nucleus has collected data from 18,000 sheep since 2010, resulting in the capacity to predict sheep breeding values from DNA profiles,” said the Chief Executive Officer of the Sheep CRC, Professor James Rowe. “This takes the sheep industry right into the ‘genomic era’.”

Partners in the project have included Sheep Genetics – the key end-user of the new information in delivering results via the LAMBPLAN and MERINOSELECT networks – as well as practically all of the Sheep CRC’s 20 participants. “Collaboration with industry has been a key element in the success of the program,” Professor Rowe said.

The Poultry CRC’s award was for the development – in collaboration with Bioproperties Pty Ltd and the University of Melbourne – of the Vaxsafe® PM vaccine that protects chickens against fowl cholera.

Professor Mingan Choct (pictured here), the Chief Executive Officer of the Poultry CRC, said the development of the vaccine over the past eight years had been made possible by the unique contributions of each of the collaborators. “In Australia, no single institute possesses the expertise and facilities to address highly complex problems facing industry,” he said. “Only the CRC model, with its focus on collaboration using the capabilities of various partners, can deliver such a result.”

Professor Choct said that the new vaccine would save the Australian poultry industry an estimated $13 million a year. “The poultry industry is an important contributor to Australia’s food basket,” he said. “And, as the Australian industry represents only one per cent of the poultry industry world-wide, the potential benefits of the vaccine to global food security are enormous.”

Already in use in Australia, the vaccine is currently being registered in Mexico.

THE PHOTOGRAPH of Professor Mingan Choct displayed here expands to show him speaking after receiving the award.

Dr Amanda Kennedy, the Deputy Director of the Australian Centre for Agriculture and Law (AgLaw Centre) at the University of New England, has been named one of the State’s “future leaders” in a new program launched in Sydney last week.

Dr Kennedy (pictured here) is one of four young academics who, as Future Leaders, will help Sydney attract business events and conferences from around the world.

The Future Leaders program is an initiative of Business Events Sydney (BESydney), Australia’s leading business events marketing organisation. Future Leaders will receive grants to attend business events relating to their fields of expertise in order to develop networks, to identify opportunities for events, and to explore the function of conferences.

“NSW universities contain much of our State’s intellectual capital, and collaboration with the university sector is a key to our success in the business event industry,” said the Chief Executive Officer of BESydney, Lyn Lewis-Smith.

“We are adapting to changes brought about by technological advances, the rise of the Asian market and its inherent challenges and opportunities, and the increasing competitiveness of our global market,” Ms Lewis-Smith said. “We have to be on the front foot when it comes to identifying and responding to trends. The Future Leaders program will be integral to this process.”

As Deputy Director of the AgLaw Centre, Dr Kennedy has focused on aspects of natural resource law and rural social policy. Last year she coordinated an international colloquium at UNE – Water Law: Through the Lens of Conflict – that attracted participants from Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Egypt, Iceland, South Africa and the United States to examine the role of legal institutions in providing new insights into water law.

More recently, she was one of the conveners of the 2^nd National Rural and Regional Law and Justice Conference, which drew participants from around Australia – and overseas – to Coffs Harbour last weekend (18-20 May). This conference enabled the delegates to share their interest in rural and regional Australia while discussing practical strategies for enhancing social justice in rural and regional communities.

Dr Kennedy is one of the inaugural recipients of the Commonwealth Government’s Discovery Early Career Research Awards. Funded by this $375,000 award, she has begun a three-year study of the role of the law in managing disputes over the use of natural resources. She is studying cases of conflict in Australia – and also in the United States, where UNE’s partnership with Penn State University will facilitate her work. She is also the recipient of a $133,000 Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations cross-institutional research grant to develop strategies within the undergraduate law curriculum to prepare, attract and retain lawyers and other legal professionals for legal careers in rural and regional Australia.

The launch of the Future Leaders program was at BESydney’s 2012 Ambassador Dinner and Investiture on Monday 14 May, when the guest speaker was Michael Kirby AC CMG, who retired as a Justice of the High Court of Australia in 2009.

The three other Future Leaders are Dr Pia Winberg, Director of the University of Wollongong’s Shoalhaven Marine and Freshwater Centre, Dr Andrew Hutchinson, a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the School of Medical and Molecular Sciences at the University of Technology, Sydney, and Dr Jochen Schweitzer, a lecturer in strategy and marketing at the University of Technology, Sydney.

More than 200 scholarships, worth a total of $6.4 million, were presented last Thursday during an annual ceremony at the University of New England that celebrates both the aspirations of outstanding students and the generosity of the community.

In welcoming scholarship donors, and scholars and their families, to UNE’s 2012 Scholarship Presentation ceremony, the Vice-Chancellor, Professor Jim Barber, said that the support of the community demonstrated through the donation of scholarships was “important for the spirit and the soul of the University”.

Addressing the donors, Professor Barber said: “Thank you for your faith in us – and thank you for your faith in our students. We know they’ll do you proud.”

Among the scholarships presented for the first time this year are UNE Equity Scholarships for Environmental and Rural Science. Awarded to students from country areas, they are worth $6,000 a year for three years. The inaugural recipients are Emily Bidgood, Georgina Lawrence, Jessica Spence, Tayla Vanderneut and Claudia Vicary.

Another new scholarship this year is the Pat and Rob Robertson-Cuninghame Honours Scholarship, established with a generous donation from the Robertson-Cuninghame family and other donors. This scholarship, worth $6,000 for one year, is awarded to a student from a regional or remote area entering their Honours year in an Agriculture-based discipline. The inaugural recipient is Kimberley Duver.

The Ella Schroder Indigenous Residential Scholarship, also presented for the first time this year, pays the residential college fees of an Indigenous student who has completed secondary studies at boarding school. Kyle Neale is the recipient of this scholarship.

All these awards exemplify a major focus of UNE on scholarships to help outstanding young people who, for one reason or another, might not otherwise have been able to go to university.

Mrs Gloria Cook, representing Quota International of Armidale, presented Nicholas Evans, a third-year medical student, with the Quota International of Armidale Scholarship. Mr Evans, a mature-aged student who has brought his wife and two young children with him to Armidale, said the scholarship had “taken the pressure off” some of the financial aspects of this relocation. Coming from the small, “one-doctor” town of Coolamon in south-western NSW, his ambition is to practice medicine in a rural area – ideally, he said, in New England.

The Armidale branch of Quota, like others throughout the world, has a special interest in assisting hearing and speech-impaired people and disadvantaged women. Mrs Cook said that her meeting at the presentation ceremony with Mr Evans, who has a hearing impairment, was “a very proud moment” for her.

Some students were awarded more than one scholarship – one of these being Murray Scown, a PhD student who received not only the SportUNE Full Sporting Scholarship but also a Keith & Dorothy Mackay Postgraduate Travelling Scholarship. He said that the travelling scholarship would enable him to go to the United States later this year, where he will be involved in research at the U.S. Geological Survey’s Mississippi River Monitoring Field Station.

In introducing the presentation of postgraduate scholarships, UNE’s Pro Vice-Chancellor Students and Social Inclusion, Eve Woodberry, who was the MC for the ceremony, said that the scholarships were “awarded to students undertaking a Master’s degree by research, or a research doctoral degree”. “They are variously funded by the Commonwealth, the University, and a number of organisations, companies and individuals,” she said.

At the end of the ceremony Leah MacDonald, who was awarded a Country Scholarship in 2009, thanked both the University and the donors on behalf of all UNE scholarship recipients. Ms MacDonald, who graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree this year, is now undertaking an Honours project in Chemistry, and is also enrolled in UNE’s Diploma of Modern Languages program, majoring in Japanese.

THE PHOTOGRAPH displayed here shows Mrs Gloria Cook presenting the Quota International of Armidale Scholarship to Nicholas Evans.

The achievements of 13 international students from countries including Vietnam, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Iran and the United States were celebrated during a farewell ceremony for them at the University of New England last Friday.

Dr Vernon Crew, the Director of English Language and International Services at UNE, told the students that the ceremony was “to honour you and thank you for everything you’ve brought to our community . . . to mark the end of your studies, and to wish you well for the future”.

Speaking on behalf of his fellow students, Tien Hai Nguyen thanked the University “for organising this wonderful and significant event”.

Mr Nguyen (pictured here), who has completed a two-year Master of Agriculture degree program at UNE, will return to Vietnam, where he works as an agricultural scientist for the Vietnamese Government.

Another Vietnamese student, Nam Le Huu, has completed his Master of Economics degree program, but will remain in Armidale until his wife, Phuong Nguyen, finishes her PhD studies at UNE around the end of the year. Mr Huu, who has a legal background, said the combination of law and economics would be useful for his career in the parliamentary office of the Vietnamese Government.

“You represent success for us,” said the Vice-Chancellor, Professor Jim Barber, addressing the students before presenting each of them with a Certificate of Completion. “You’re joining tens of thousands of UNE alumni all over the world.”

“We pride ourselves on getting to know our students,” Professor Barber said, “and hope you’ve felt welcome here.” Mr Tien and Mr Huu confirmed that the friendliness and helpfulness of people within the University and Armidale communities had contributed to making their time at UNE both enjoyable and academically rewarding.

Katrina Dry, a student of early childhood education in Pennsylvania, USA, who has just completed a four-month exchange program at UNE, said she had “loved it”. “It was a great experience,” Katrina said, “and gave me a wonderful insight into different methods of teaching. I’ll definitely come back one day.”

There are currently 805 international students – 682 in degree programs and 123 in English Language programs – at UNE. They come from 58 countries.

THE PHOTOGRAPH of Tien Hai Nguyen displayed above expands to show him speaking at the farewell celebration.

An international conference at the University of New England last week drew participants from Japan, Kenya, Nepal and Costa Rica, as well as from other Australian universities, to share their insights and investigations into the cultivation of peace.

Many of the participants in the conference, titled Cultivating Peace: Context, Practices and Multidimensional Modes, were international students – at UNE and elsewhere – from a wide range of Asian and African countries.

Dr Bishnu Raj Upreti, a Regional Coordinator – based in Kathmandu, Nepal – for the National Centre for Competence in Research, travelled to the conference partly, he said, to find out more about Peace Studies at UNE, which is one of only a few such academic programs – and the oldest – in Australia.

Dr Upreti, who said he was keen to support any initiatives – particularly in the study of peace-making in South Asia – presented a paper titled “The business sector in peace promotion: a comparison of business engagement in Assam, India and Nepal”.

“I’m interested in how money-makers are involved in peace-making,” he said, explaining that the extent of their involvement could depend on the effect of the conflict on their business, their ambition to enter politics, opportunities for business expansion through peace-making, and desire to be recognised as a peace-maker.

Dr Upreti said the keynote address by UNE’s Professor of Peace Studies, Helen Ware, had “brought a very different perspective” to the conference in her discussion of excessive military expenditure that, in the interests of peace, could be better spent on such things as health and education. Dr Tony Lynch, a Senior Lecturer in UNE’s School of Humanities, contributed a thought-provoking philosophical perspective in his keynote address titled “Two kinds of peace”.

Dr Jack Maebuta, a Pacific Island Research Fellow at the Australian National University in Canberra, presented a paper titled “Building peace in post-conflict Solomon Islands: socio-economic and political issues and challenges”. Dr Maebuta, who graduated as a Doctor of Philosophy from UNE in March this year, comes from the Solomon Islands. He said his conference presentation looked at underlying issues in a conflict that, if left unresolved in the aftermath, could lead to further conflict.

Some of the other presentations at the conference dealt with conflict – and its resolution – in countries including China, Afghanistan, East Timor, Zimbabwe, and Ivory Coast.

Professor Ware said the conference, organised by a committee of UNE postgraduate students led by DB Subedi, had been “a striking success”. It was part of the University’s inaugural Peace Festival, which included also the annual Nonviolence Film Festival, exhibitions and public forums.

Clicking on the image above reveals a photograph of Dr Bishnu Raj Upreti (left) and Dr Jack Maebuta.

More than 95 per cent of staff members in Australian schools have experienced some form of workplace bullying, according to a book launched in Sydney last week by General Peter Cosgrove AC, MC.

The book, Bullying of Staff in Schools, is published by the Australian Council for Educational Research and aims to assist school employees to understand the phenomenon of staff bullying – its existence, the forms it takes, and its impact on staff members and their schools.

Written by Dr Dan Riley from the University of New England (UNE), Dr Deirdre Duncan from the Australian Catholic University (ACU), and John Edwards, it draws together responses from more than 2,500 Australian government, Catholic and independent school employees about 42 separate kinds of bullying behavior. More than 95 per cent of respondents had experienced at least one of those behaviours, and more than 75 per cent had experienced a third or more of them.

The research revealed that the types of bullying most likely to be experienced by school staff members are the questioning of their professional judgement, and being set impossible targets, deadlines or workload. Over 80 per cent of respondents had experienced these. The least-experienced types of bullying were those actionable by law under sexual harassment and anti-discrimination legislation, or criminal action such as assault.

Dr Riley, an Adjunct Senior Lecturer in UNE’s School of Business, Economics and Public Policy, said that bullying of staff members was largely invisible in schools – except to the target of the bullying – because it becomes part of the culture. “Bullies are frequently unaware that their behaviour has an adverse impact on their colleagues,” he said.

“Bullying behaviour needs to be named and shamed if it is to be eliminated from the workplace,” said Dr Duncan, an Adjunct Professor of Educational Leadership at ACU.

John Edwards, a teacher and statistical analyst, said the book contained implications for educational leaders and provided strategies and tools to build and maintain a bully-free workplace culture.  “The importance of reducing and eliminating bullying of school staff members is a major challenge for Australia because it costs the country approximately 0.85 per cent of GDP and has an adverse impact on the health and wellbeing of all those involved,” he said.

Bullying of Staff in Schools (ACER Press, 2012) was launched at ACU’s North Sydney campus on Thursday 10 May. Print copies can be bought from the ACER Online Shop or by contacting customer service on 1800 338 402, or via e-mail at sales@acer.edu.au.

Keen young mathematicians from 39 secondary schools throughout northern NSW met at the University of New England last Friday (11 May) for a day of stimulating competition.

The 260 students, accompanied by 65 teachers and parents, travelled to UNE for the University’s annual Year 8 Mathematics Day. It was the biggest number of participants in the history of the Mathematics Day, which is now in its 18^th year.

Working in 65 teams of four, the students had an enjoyable experience of cooperative problem solving and applying mathematics to real-life situations.

“They absolutely love it,” said Brad Giffin, a mathematics teacher at Dorrigo High School who accompanied eight of his students to UNE for the day. “They’re challenged but not stressed. They all have smiles on their faces. And, in addition, it’s a social outing for them.”

Mr Giffin has been bringing teams of students from Dorrigo to the Mathematics Day for the past 11 years, and uses the opportunity to show them around the University’s campus – including its residential colleges and sporting facilities.

Pip Terry, one of Mr Giffin’s students, confirmed that she and her team-mates were enjoying not only the mathematical challenges but also the social side of the day. “We’ve caught up with some of our friends from NEGS (the New England Girls’ School) and PLC Armidale,” she said.

One of two teams from Uralla Central School won the trophy in the central schools division, and a team from Armidale High won the trophy for high schools. The other Uralla team came second in the central schools’ division, with a team from Manilla Central School coming third. Second and third in the high schools division were teams from O’Connor Catholic College (Armidale) and Bellingen High School. Students from Macintyre High School (Inverell) and The Armidale School tied as winners of the “construction” competition, which challenged the teams to build the tallest free-standing tower from the materials provided.

The Year 8 Mathematics Day is sponsored each year by the New England Mathematical Association, the UNE-based National Centre of Science, ICT and Mathematics Education for Rural and Regional Australia (SiMMER), and UNE’s School of Education.

At the end of the day on Friday, UNE’s Professor John Pegg, the Director of SiMMER, thanked everyone involved, and particularly the teachers from the New England Mathematical Association who had devised the questions and answers. He also acknowledged the support of those teachers who, after bringing students to the Mathematics Day for many years, were now approaching their retirement.

The University of New England’s inaugural Peace Festival, incorporating the annual Nonviolence Film Festival and a new Peacebuilding Conference, got under way this week with public forums and an exhibition in the Dixson Library.

Dr Marty Branagan, a lecturer in Peace Studies at UNE, said the festival had “grown organically” out of the film festival, which is now in its third year. “It’s complementing our teaching program by allowing people to engage in more informal discussions about nonviolence,” he said.

The exhibition, Transforming the Human Spirit, presented by the international Buddhist peace organisation Soka Gakkai, was opened on Monday 7 May and will continue till Friday 18 May. It is complemented by a display titled Ain’t Gonna Study War No More, featuring books, posters, buttons t-shirts and other protest movement ephemera. The display includes one of Dr Branagan’s paintings inspired by his aspirations for social and environmental regeneration.

The Peace Festival program this week has included public forums on “Creating value in activism” (with a panel including Dr Rebecca Spence, a UNE-based peace worker, Adam Blakester, a board member of Greenpeace Australia, and Greg Johns, the General Director of Soka Gakkai International Australia), and “Nonviolence: how most revolutions really occur” (with Dr Marty Branagan). A public forum on “Grassroots activism: activism and the democratic process”, with Angela Gates, will be in the Dixson Library’s Letters Room at 11.30 am on Monday 14 May.

Nonviolence Film Festival

The Nonviolence Film Festival will open in UNE’s Lewis Lecture Theatre at 1 pm on Monday 14 May. The film festival, which will continue till Friday 18 May in the Lewis Lecture Theatre at 1 pm (except for a 2 pm start on Thursday), aims to show the effectiveness of nonviolence against injustice and oppression through a public series of free lunchtime documentaries about significant nonviolent campaigns in Australia and abroad. These include the rescue of the majority of Danish Jews from the Nazi Holocaust (Monday 14 May), the first major strike held by Indigenous Australian workers in Western Australia (Tuesday 15 May), the overthrow of the Philippines dictator Ferdinand Marcos after 20 years of rule (Wednesday 16 May), logging blockades in the subtropical forests of northern NSW (Thursday 17 May), and a satirical take on global free trade (Friday 18 May).

Amnesty International will mount a stall at the film festival, and discussions with Peace Studies staff members will follow each screening. Dr Branagan said that the week-long festival of free films presented by UNE Peace Studies could help people to understand the potential of what he called “the world’s most powerful philosophy of social change”.

Peacebuilding Conference

A major component of the Peace Festival is the conference, Cultivating Peace: Context, Practices and Multidimensional Models, that will begin on Thursday 17 May and continue till Saturday 19 May. Members of the public are welcome to attend the conference sessions (entry by donation) in the UNE Arts Theatre. A keynote address by UNE’s Professor of Peace Studies, Helen Ware, will be at 1.20 pm on the first day of the conference, and that afternoon, starting at 2.30 pm, there will be talks about peace building and conflict resolution in the Solomon Islands, China, Zimbabwe, and India/Nepal.

The conference sessions on Friday 18 May, when the countries under discussion will include East Timor, Ivory Coast, Pakistan and Kenya, will begin at 9 am with a keynote address by Dr Tony Lynch, a UNE philosopher, and continue till 5 pm. Saturday’s sessions, starting at 9 am and continuing till 1.30 pm, will include critical discussion around current theories and practices in peace building.

The conferences speakers – mainly international postgraduate students – are from countries including Kenya, Bangladesh, Japan, Sierra Leone, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Nepal, China, Hungary, and Yap State. One speaker is travelling  to  Armidale  from the University of Peace in Costa Rica.

For more information on the Peace Festival, contact Dr Marty Branagan at marty.branagan@une.edu.au, or phone him on (02) 6771 4948 or (02) 6773 3951.

A free public lecture in Armidale Town Hall on Wednesday 16 May will address the question “Why have weeds survived against our best efforts to control them?”

In his Inaugural Lecture as Professor of Weed Science at the University of New England, Brian Sindel will outline “three secrets for success in controlling weeds”.

Professor Sindel’s lecture, titled “Why weeds: a tale of survival”, will explain why we have weeds and why we need to control them. He will also review the history of weed survival in the Armidale region and its impact on people and agriculture. “Weeds cost the Australian economy a damaging $4 billion a year,” he says.

The lecture will deal with management tactics for local weeds such as serrated tussock, saffron thistle (pictured here) and fireweed.

Professor Sindel has been examining weeds for more than 30 years and has taught at UNE for the past 18 of those years. His work is widely published in scientific journals, and he is recognised as a leading expert in the field. His one-hour lecture, which will draw on the most up-to-date research in discussing weed management tactics, will be of interest to everyone – including, in particular, graziers, agronomists, lifestyle farmers and home gardeners. “Everyone has to deal with weeds,” he says. “They are everyone’s business.”

The lecture will begin at 6.30 pm. Drinks and canapés will be provided in the Town Hall foyer after the lecture, when Professor Sindel will offer his expertise to help members of the audience identify weeds that may be lurking in their garden.

To help with catering arrangements, please e-mail the organisers at events.pr@une.edu.au by Tuesday 15 May if you are intending to go to the lecture.