Archive for the 'News' Category

On Tuesday, 26 March, UNE’s Vice Chancellor Jim Barber will present UNE student Michael Walton with the prestigious Australian Psychology Society Prize (APS) for the top student in psychology.

The APS award recognises excellence in psychology and is awarded annually to one student from each tertiary or higher education provider offering an APS programme in psychology. The APS is committed to spreading the message that psychologists make a difference to peoples’ lives through improving scientific knowledge and community wellbeing. Michael’s thesis, Understanding Hypersexuality, which helped define him as UNE’s top student, draws on scientific research to help the community understand the personality profile of persons engaging in unsafe sexual practices and “sex addicts.”  

Michael’s research explores the dimensions of hypersexuality, the extremely frequent or sudden increase in sexual activity, through the examination of sexual theories of dual control, impulsivity and compulsivity. He explores the mood and personality factors associated with sexual inhibition and exhibition, and sexual impulsivity and compulsivity, to predict what type of character is predisposed to hypersexuality.

From a sample of 507 participants Michael concluded that whilst hypersexuality was most common in those who were both easily sexually excited and sexually inhibited, and in those who suffered from anxiety or depression, generally mood and personality factors did not interact to predict hypersexuality. Notably age and gender were the most accurate indicators predicting hypersexuality. Contrary to what one might expect, child sexual abuse, bipolar disorder and openness to new experiences were unrelated to hypersexual behaviour. Michael concluded that although multiple theories exist to predict hypersexuality, a core personality that predisposes people toward hypersexual behaviour may exist.

Michaels’s research both answers and asks many questions relevant to today’s society. With this award, Michael is granted a one year associated membership to the APS, which will give him the ideal medium to explore this important topic further.

University of New England student, Sarah McFarlane-Eagle, who has trekked thousands of kilometres across four continents to raise awareness and funds for mental illness, has been selected to appear on the cover of this year’s Tamworth White Pages^® and Yellow Pages^® .

Sarah has been selected for the cover under the 2013/14 theme Keeping Our Communities Healthy, which recognises the selfless Australians who go above and beyond to improve the quality of life for locals in their area.

In 2001, after her brother Ben died following a battle with schizophrenia, Sarah established Walking Feat Inc, to raise awareness about mental health and to honour plans her and Ben had made to go on a trek together. Beginning with a 600 kilometre walk along the Bibbulmun Track in Western Australia, Sarah has since embarked on a number of epic walks across France, Spain and Japan.

In total, Sarah’s walks have raised $20,000 for SANE Australia. On the way, Sarah has also hosted numerous information sessions to increase regional Australia’s awareness and understanding of mental illness.

Most recently, Sarah embarked on her fourth Walking Feat Inc trek, a three-month walk from Armidale to Melbourne, arriving at her destination on World Suicide Prevention Day in 2012.

“I feel so lucky and honoured to be selected by Sensis for the cover of the Tamworth phone book. It is such a great opportunity to really spread the word and increase awareness and understanding of mental illness,” Sarah said.

Each year, Sensis^®, the publisher of the White Pages^® and Yellow Pages^®, recognises the efforts of local people in their communities by celebrating their achievements on the cover of its books.

White Pages^® Product Manager Sarah Simpson said this year’s theme, Keeping Our Communities Healthy, celebrates people committed to improving the health of Australian communities.

“Health is an issue that affects us all and at the centre of good health are the selfless men and women who devote their time to improving others’ quality of life,” she said.

“We are delighted to recognise Sarah’s efforts keeping her community healthy. She is someone who is making a positive impact on health and wellbeing in the Tamworth region.”

On Wednesday 27 March, Assistant Professor Daniel Shike, from the University of Illinois, will visit the University of New England to present a guest lecture on US feed efficiency research, with an emphasis on practical outcomes for improvement in production efficiency in the cow herd and feedlot yard.

Local cattle producers in particular are encouraged to attend the informal lecture, which will focus on “Key findings of North American beef feed efficiency studies”, a topic of  benefit to researchers and cattle producers seeking to improve feed efficiency in their herd.

Dr Shike is in Australia as a guest judge of cattle at the Royal Easter Show and is visiting UNE at the invitation of the NSW Department of Primary Industries, the New England branch of the Australian Society of Animal Production and the Angus Society of Australia.

Following the free lecture, attendees will have the opportunity to inspect the new beef cattle chambers on the UNE campus. With 10 chambers, it is the biggest facility in the world for studying methane greenhouse-gas burped out by beef cattle.

The talk will be held on Wednesday 27 March 2013, at 1pm in the Animal Science Lecture Theatre, located upstairs in the NSW DPI Beef Industry Centre, on the UNE campus.

Please contact Robert Herd, 02 6770 1808 and robert.herd@dpi.nsw.gov.au, for further information.

UNE Chancellor Richard Torbay has congratulated Vice-Chancellor Jim Barber on being named in The Australian newspapers “Top 50 in Higher Education” list for 2013.

“Professor Barber is just one of five Vice-Chancellors to make the list and along with Professor Sandra Harding (James Cook University) is one of only two based at a regional university,” Mr Torbay said

“This is a great achievement and is testimony to the high regard in which he is held within the higher education sector.

“Professor Barber is willing to be innovative and push the boundaries to ensure that UNE maintains its competitive edge.

“For example, UNE is the first university in Australia to announce its open online courseware offering, UNE Open, will provide the opportunity for students to gain advanced standing into a range of UNE degrees.

“This has the potential to make study more affordable and available to both domestic and international students.

“I applaud the Vice-Chancellor on making this year’s list and look forward to seeing his innovation in action throughout this year,” Mr Torbay said.

The University of New England (as part of the Regional Universities Network) is hosting Australia’s first Digital Rural Futures Conference in Armidale, Australia’s first mainland NBN town and home of the NBN SMART Farm from 26 to 28 June 2013. 

The Conference aims to be a regular, national forum to exchange ideas and provide updates on the opportunities and challenges faced by agriculture in Australia’s digital economic future.  The conference will involve business leaders, technology developers, farmer groups and regional development groups.

Ultimately a national broadband communications network offers enormous opportunities for Australia’s agricultural sector. In turn, connected farms and their supporting industries and communities will play a significant role in Australia’s digital economic future.

Registration will open soon, but you are invited NOW to submit abstracts addressing aspects of the Conference themes:

1. Smart technology: including sensors and sensor networks, immersive and sentinel vision and communication technologies, far-end control and autonomous systems (including UAVs and robotics) for environment and agricultural production.

2. Data and information management: including cloud-based services, interoperability, sharing and security, crowd sourcing and citizen science, remote surveys, web-supported smart phone apps etc.

3. Smart services and decision support systems: application cases including precision agriculture, farm-to-customer retail, remote on-farm product support, teleworking, remote diagnostic and advisory systems including tele- veterinary and tele-agronomic support, assisted living, tele-health, remote extension and training , consumer surveys, intelligent networks for power grid control, emergency and environmental risk management.

The Digital Rural Futures Conference is about building networks and raising awareness of challenges and opportunities across a broad range of fronts. We encourage abstracts designed to introduce your research, your group or institution, your business or your activity to other Conference delegates.

Please visit theConference website www.une.edu.au/smart for submission details.

The University of New England will offer a remarkable insight into the evolution of human society in the Middle East, when an exhibition of ancient artefacts goes on display this week.

The Pella Exhibition features artefacts from the ancient city of Pella in Jordan, which is considered one of the significant archaeological digs of our time.

The exhibition goes on public display from Thursday, March 7, in the Dixon Library at UNE.

Adjunct Senior Lecturer in Archaeology at UNE, Dr Pamela Watson, said the generous donation by the Near Eastern Archaeology Foundation at the University of Sydney would be a significant addition to UNE’s extensive collection of artefacts from the Eastern Mediterranean region, already on display in the University’s Museum of Antiquities.

Dr Watson has been involved in the Pella project for 30 years and has recently returned from her latest visit to the site, along with two recent UNE graduates.

“Pella is a magnificent site in the eastern foothills of the north Jordan Valley, situated at the confluence of the major north-south and east-west routes for trade and military conquest,” Dr Watson said.

“The site is significant because it has been more or less continually occupied for the past 10,000 years, while regular conquest and earthquake activity mean that the settlement has been destroyed and rebuilt many times throughout history. Evidence for hominid activity in the immediate region goes back half a million years.

“As we work through more than 20 metres of occupation debris at the Pella excavations, we are uncovering a wealth of information and artefacts about the daily life of the inhabitants through thousands of years.

“Recent discoveries at Pella have led archaeologists to re-examine accepted timelines in relation to significant historic events, such as the precise year of invasion by the Jewish king Alexander Jannaeus in the 1^st Century BCE, or more generally, the first ever flowering of urban settlement at the beginnings of the Early Bronze Age.”

Director of the University of Sydney’s Pella Excavations, Dr Stephen Bourke will present a public lecture Pella through the Ages: Key discoveries in the light of recent work, at 10am on Thursday, March 7, in the Letters Room at Dixon Library.

The Pella Exhibition will be open to the public from 8am to 5pm, weekdays, throughout March in the Dixon Library at UNE.

Associate Professor Nigel Andrew, based in Zoology at The University of New England, has led a group of researchers around the world to assess climate change literature on insects in the first Issue of PeerJ, an international open access journal aiming to change the way scientific research is published.

From 1703 papers published between 1985 and 2012, Associate Professor Andrew’s group examined how climate change affecting insects is being assessed, what factors are being tested and the localities of studies. The team found that while research predicting how insects will respond to a rapidly changing climate is still in its infancy, current research gives a good basis for how the scientific community are attempting to assess insect responses.

In particular, the team identified a crucial need for broader studies of ecological, behavioural, physiological and life history responses across a greater range of geographic locations, particularly in areas of high human population growth and habitat modification.

 “It is well understood that species that are rare and have a restricted distribution may be highly vulnerable to human-induced climate change. However, the responses of common species to climate change are still poorly understood. It is anticipated that because they are common they are resilient and have a high adaptive capability to rapid change. However, extreme ecological changes can occur when the populations of common species go through a rapid and severe fluctuation.” Associate Professor Andrew said.

This research directly links to Associate Professor Andrew’s long-term achievements in climate change research, entomology, ecology and zoology with his recent achievements in physiology, behaviour, and genetics research.

 Associate Professor Andrew’s research interests span a range of interlinked topics of significance to biological and geographical diversity.

UNE’s Chief Operating Officer David Cushway has welcomed the decision by the Joint Regional Planning Panel to approve the development of a new residential college for the University.

“This is wonderful news, allowing the University to proceed with construction of a brand new college, as the first stage in a long term College Redevelopment Project,” Mr Cushway said.

The new college development involves the construction of four two-storey residential college buildings providing 222 new student rooms, including 10 rooms specifically designed for students with a disability. Additional car parking will also be provided for 98 cars.

Mr Cushway said UNE aims to be the country’s pre-eminent collegiate University and to do that we need modern infrastructure and greater student accommodation options.

“In line with the requirements of a modern university student, each wing will also include communal kitchen facilities and rooms as part of UNE’s focus on building the on-campus student experience.

“Particularly exciting is the design of one floor and ten student rooms, specifically to accommodate people with disabilities.”

A separate building will house a bike store and workshop as an important extension of the university’s environmental sustainability policy, encouraging university students to use pedal power in preference to motor vehicles.

A call for tenders for the new college development was issued this week, with responses to be considered in March.

“The new college is the first stage in a comprehensive College Redevelopment Project, and will play a vital role in housing students during the rejuvenation of the rest of the college system,” Mr Cushway said.

“The rejuvenation of the college system is a key feature of the University’s aims to provide on-campus students with a formative lifestyle experience, while they complete a world-class degree at UNE.”

The University of New England has recently hosted the latest delegation of agriculturists from 13 different districts across Iraq. This is the latest AusAID-funded short course award that UNE has been successful in training, including the Iraq Partnership Facility short courses in Advanced breeding techniques, and Improvement of Fodder.  Additionally, UNE has also trained 12 other short courses for African agriculturists related to Livestock Systems, Water harvesting and Small Scale Irrigation and Dryland Farming in 2012 and into 2013. 

Delegates from Iraq and various countries in Africa have been exposed to a wide range of farming systems in Australia, including specialised training in ultrasound fat deposition in sheep, through to design and layout of small irrigation systems. UNE’s innovative facilitation method is to improve an aspect of farmer livelihoods using an action-oriented pro-poor approach.  The in-Australia training component places major emphasis on site visits and practical training, as well as technical training. 

These visits couldn’t be achieved without the support and involvement of industry, private organisations, and importantly farmers, and this is what underpins that age old saying, that seeing is believing, as at least half the time delegates spent in Australia is spent on farm talking with those on the ground about issues important to agriculturalists worldwide.

The recommendations of UNE Researcher Dr Tiffany Jones have recently influenced the recommendations of the Senate Legal and Constitutional Legislation Committee.  The Committee has released its recommendations to the Australian Government ahead of the consolidation and reform of Australia’s current state based Discrimination Acts.

 The recommendations supporting the reform have been informed in large by research undertaken by Dr Jones, based on her analysis of state education policies from a national survey of over 3,000 gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and intersex (GLBTIQ) students (aged 14-21). 

From her  findings Dr Jones has recommended that the Australian government change draft law to offer more protection for gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, intersex and otherwise queer people and add ‘sexual orientation’ and ‘gender identity’ as protected attributes of the law.

Dr Jones said “Many people don’t realise that, unlike most other western countries, Australia does not yet have protection against discrimination on the basis of sexuality and gender identity in National law.”

“My work on education policy has underlined the huge impacts legislation and policy can make to safety issues and suicide rates for young people. This Act will offer greater protections from violence and discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity or intersex status for all students regardless of the type of school they attend.”

Dr Jones’ research revealed that Queensland doesn’t have a clear and explicit anti-homophobia education policy – only 11% of Queensland GLBTIQ students characterised their school as a supportive safe space for them to attend – an alarmingly low percentage given that state legislation requires these students to attend schools every day.

The report also revealed that Victoria has a comprehensive policy on Supporting Sexual Diversity in Schools and New South Wales has an anti-homophobia policy and coverage of diversity in their mandated sexuality education.

 Dr Jones has previously submitted a report to The Tasmanian Department of Education and Training, and as a result the Tasmanian DET released ‘Guidelines for Supporting Sexual and Gender Diversity in Schools and Colleges’.  Dr Jones has also submitted a report to the Western Australian Equal Opportunity Commission Policy Steering Committee and the WA EOC has responded with the release of guidelines for school staff, teachers and students.

The Senate Committee has also supported Dr Jones’ argument that it is inappropriate for religious schools to retain broad exceptions from anti-discrimination provisions around the bullying and harassment of their GLBTIQ students, quoting Dr Jones’ research findings in their inquiry report.

Her recommendation that the proposed ‘default’ model of exemptions for service providers – which simply granted the right to discrimination to religious schools and other service providers – be replaced by an ‘opt-in’ model of exemptions requiring a public justification of any intention to seek exception to anti-discrimination standards.

Dr Jones’ new book Understanding Education Policy: The ‘Four Orientations’ Framework is out through Springer in March. The book highlights the importance of policy in education systems and her theory of how it can be better understood and researched.