Archive for the 'News' Category

About 1,200 prospective students took advantage of the University of New England’s annual Open Day today to get a first-hand impression of the University’s campus and all that it offers.

They came from near and far, with some – drawn by UNE’s “five-star” reputation for a rewarding educational experience – travelling many hundreds of kilometres from their homes in Victoria, NSW and Queensland.

One of those – Jessica Lloyd – travelled to UNE from south-west of Longreach in Queensland. Jessica, who finished school at Fairholme College in Toowoomba last year, said some of her school friends had come to UNE and had “really enjoyed it”. And, with her preference for country life and her interest in studying rural science, she said the University’s rural setting was an added attraction.

Lazenby Hall was crowded with visitors collecting information and advice on all aspects of UNE’s academic programs, as well as its administrative procedures and student support services. There were displays and demonstrations illustrating UNE’s research and teaching programs in fields such as botany, geology, physiology, zoology, agriculture, chemistry, and environmental science.

The Acting Vice-Chancellor, Professor Graham Webb, in his official welcome to the visitors, emphasised the accessibility of the University’s teaching staff, and the community atmosphere prevailing on campus and extending into the wider Armidale community.

Professor Webb spoke about UNE’s proud tradition as Australia’s first regional university, its reputation for academic excellence, and the unique “living-and-learning” environment of its residential colleges. He said UNE offered “the best of both worlds”: study at a highly-regarded academic institution while forming life-long friendships in a friendly and supportive community.

Madeline Beveridge, a second-year undergraduate living at Earle Page College, welcomed the visitors on behalf of the University’s students, saying: “UNE is far more than just a place to study”. As well as working towards her Bachelor of Advanced Science with Honours degree, Madeline said, she was making friends and “having the time of my life”.

Meshaal Alshammary, a student from Saudi Arabia studying for a Master of International Business degree, gave a welcome on behalf of UNE’s international students. He spoke about the “warmth and kindness” of the University’s staff, saying that it made the campus “feel like home” for overseas students. He recommended UNE to prospective students as a place to experience cultural diversity in a friendly environment. “On any short walk around the campus you’ll hear at least five different languages,” he said.

This year’s Open Day involved local clubs and businesses more than ever before, and the UNE Bistro was alive with information stalls on religious, environmental, political, sporting, and community service groups, as well as student organisations.

Wet weather focused most of today’s activities indoors, with information sessions on a wide range of academic programs as well as on subjects such as careers, HECS, and applying for a university place. There were also tours of individual Schools within the academic Faculties, as well as of the residential colleges, the Dixson Library, IT facilities, support services, Sport UNE, and the student radio station TUNE! FM. Visitors were treated to a free barbecue lunch, live music and theatre performances, recorded music provided by DJ “Rusty”, and the chance to win an iPod Nano. The prize winner was Vanessa Sing, a Year 12 student from the New England region.

THE PHOTOGRAPH displayed here shows Professor Graham Webb with Madeline Beveridge and Meshaal Alshammary.

The Chief Executive Officer of the NSW Outback Division of General Practice, Mr Stuart Gordon, will be the guest speaker at a University of New England college dinner next week. The title of his talk will be “Country general practice – more than just medicine”.

The occasion will be the annual Robb College Rural Focus Dinner on Tuesday 9 September. Members of the public are welcome to attend the lecture in the Robb College Dining Hall at 8 pm, but should book through the College office on (02) 6773 1700.

Serving communities in the shires of Bourke, Brewarrina, Cobar and Walgett covering 128,061 square kilometres, Mr Gordon works to ensure that best practice is implemented in these rural and remote areas, and to assist in the delivery of efficient and cost-effective health care.

He has spent more than 10 years working in international and regional health services, and in 2006 completed two years as the Deputy CEO for the Aga Khan Health Services in Tanzania.

Mr Gordon has a Master’s degree in Public Health. However, before working in this field, he gained a Bachelor of Applied Science degree in Land Science and worked for the Australian Cotton Foundation and the Australian Conservation Foundation.

The Head of Robb College, Ms Jan Moran, said it was “always a pleasure to welcome speakers to the College’s annual Rural Focus Dinner who have fresh ideas on a sometimes controversial topic”.

A national symposium hosted by the University of New England will examine ways of helping Australian primary industries to adopt innovative technologies more quickly and efficiently.

“Primary industry research hasn’t got a good record for having innovations adopted,” said the convener of the symposium, Dr Philip Thomas from UNE’s School of Business, Economics and Public Policy. “Rates of adopting innovation across Australia’s primary industries are (with a few exceptions) low. This is a fundamental challenge for both the research and the farming communities, and we don’t at present have a strategy to overcome it.”

Dr Thomas said that the aims of the symposium, on the 24^th and 25^th of November 2008, would be to identify impediments to the process of adopting innovation, to discuss solutions, and to outline a strategy to develop and implement those solutions.

The symposium will bring together researchers, farmers, and agricultural advisers and investors, as well as representatives of industry organisations, government and non-government agencies, and agribusiness. There will be more than 20 speakers from around Australia, and the Keynote Address will be given by John Bessant, Professor of Innovation Management in the Tanaka Business School at Imperial College London. Professor Bessant, a Fellow of the British Academy of Management, has lectured and consulted widely around the world, and is the author of 15 books and many articles on the adoption of innovation.

The Primary Industries Innovation Centre (a joint venture of UNE and the NSW Department of Primary Industries) is supporting the symposium, together with the Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) for Sheep Industry Innovation, the CRC for Beef Genetic Technologies, Meat and Livestock Australia, the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research, and Australian Wool Innovation Ltd.

Titled “New Pathways to Adoption and Diffusion of Primary Industries Innovations”, the symposium will draw on a broad range of industry and research experience. “We’re trying to achieve a good balance between academic perspectives and real-life case studies,” Dr Thomas said. “We’ve engaged professionals who will provide insight into real-life innovation success, and also highlight the key factors causing failure to adopt innovation – and how these might be overcome in the future.”

The symposium will end with a workshop to establish a collaborative research strategy aimed at integrating and implementing ideas arising in the preceding sessions.

Selected papers presented at the symposium will be peer reviewed for publication in a special edition of the Australian Journal of Experimental Agriculture. The deadline for the submission of abstracts (including poster abstracts) is the 30^th of September, and the deadline for registering attendance at the symposium is the 10^th of November.

A registration form will be available at www.une.edu.au/piic/ from tomorrow (Wednesday 3 September). It can also be obtained - with more information on the symposium - from Elizabeth Davies at the Primary Industries Innovation Centre, University of New England, Armidale (phone 02 6773 2745).

Recommendations in a report by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) could lead to more “shop cemeteries” in the main streets of towns, according to two academics at the University of New England.

The report – on the competitiveness of grocery retail prices – was released in July after being commissioned by the Federal Government at the beginning of the year. Among the measures it recommends is a further deregulation of retail sites as part of an attempt to increase competition.

Associate Professor Robert Baker and Dr Stephen Wood from UNE’s discipline of Geography and Planning say this recommendation could lead to a proliferation of “greenfield” retail development on the outskirts of towns. “Such a policy would further exacerbate the problems facing struggling main streets,” Dr Baker said, “and see the increasing invasion of pawnbrokers, $2 shops, tattooists, op shops, local MPs, and ‘adult’ shops into what is becoming the ‘dead heart’ of towns. The ACCC seems intent on creating retail deserts in town centres in the name of competition.”

“What Australia needs is strong regulation, not motherhood statements on competition,” he continued. “Competition policies like this are based on the economic ideology that ‘the market always gets it right’, but in fact the market usually gets it wrong. The ACCC needs to take on the hard decisions against the big players.”

It is those “big players”, the academics say, who could exploit any further deregulation of retail development by building more out-of-town supermarkets – still classified as “general stores” in out-dated government regulations.

Dr Baker and Dr Wood advocate a system similar to that in the UK, where the emphasis in supermarket development is on “what’s good for the community” and not “what’s good for the supermarket company”. “In Britain, priority is given to developments in town centres,” Dr Wood said, “and developments have to be sustainable in terms of the town’s population.”

“In Australia we’re continuing to operate in a policy vacuum in terms of retail planning, and it’s undermining main-street viability and vitality. What we need is a retail policy that has definitions, guidelines, and enforceability.”

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.”