At the moment there are almost twice as many women as men enrolled as students at UNE. “That means there are more mothers than ever before at UNE – mothers who are balancing their studies with family commitments,” said UNE’s Student Experience Liaison Officer, Mr Ed Campbell.

“Part of being a university student is learning to juggle competing demands such as study, work, and social life,” Mr Campbell said. “But imagine the challenges involved in doing all of this with the responsibility for a small child. That’s why we’ve established Mums@UNE. We expect that most members of the group will be mothers, but Dads are welcome too.”

Mr Campbell, the coordinator of the Mums@UNE project, said social support was extremely important in student life - particularly for parents with young children whose commitments often made it difficult to participate in extra-curricular academic and social activities available to most students.

“It’s easy to feel left out of activities and social events because they are not always designed with toddlers and young children in mind,” said Irene Lemon (pictured here with her daughter Shenoah), a first-year student and mother-of-one who is a founding member of Mums@UNE. “To have a network of parents to share concerns and achievements with will be very valuable to my studies and to the quality of my education.”

Mums@UNE has found widespread support across the campus, with Services UNE providing access to the Chancellory within the Boolominbah Collection as a meeting venue, and the University’s child-care centre, Yarm Gwanga, helping to alert parents to the group’s existence.

The first informal meeting of Mums@UNE is being held at “Booloominbah” on Monday October 20 from 9.30 am. Anyone who would like to attend can send an e-mail to mums@une.edu.au. “Children will be most welcome,” Ms Lemon said.

While students can contact the group through e-mail or by approaching the student services organisation Student Assist on campus, it will be managed through the social networking Web site Facebook.

“Students don’t have to join the Facebook group to be members,” Mr Campbell said, “but we’ve found that social networking sites provide an enjoyable way of quickly and easily staying in touch with others in the group, sharing information, and finding out about the wide range of services available through the University.”

For more information, e-mail mums@une.edu.au or contact Ed Campbell through Student Assist on 02 6773 2897.

A public lecture at the University of New England next week will take the audience back to an age when dance was – in the words of the lecturer – “woven into the very fabric of public life”.

“Dance in the late medieval and Renaissance period was a symbol of civilised, educated behaviour, a demonstration of moral virtue, a display of power and authority, and a precise mark of caste and class,” says Dr Jennifer Nevile, who will present this year’s Gordon Athol Anderson Memorial Lecture on Wednesday 22 October.

Her lecture, titled “Dance, Society and the Cosmos in Late Medieval and Renaissance Europe”, will recreate a world of courtly ceremony in which, she says, “dance also had a moral and ethical component, since movements of the body were seen as the outward manifestation of movements of the soul”.

Dr Nevile, the author of The Eloquent Body: Dance and Humanist Culture in Fifteenth-Century Italy (Indiana University Press, 2004) is a performer, choreographer and teacher of early dance as well as a leading scholar. She has participated in many performances of Renaissance and Baroque dance with The Early Dance Consort, including performances in the Concert Hall of Sydney Opera House (with the Brandenburg Ensemble and The Ensemble of the Golden Age). For several performances she reconstructed choreography and composed additional musical parts.

In 1999 she was present at the first performance in 500 years of English dances from the late fifteenth century, for which she had reconstructed the choreography. That performance, by the Capriol Dancers, was in the Banqueting Hall of the late-medieval Haddon Hall in Derbyshire, England.

Dr Nevile is an Honorary Research Fellow in the School of English, Media and Performing Arts (Music) at the University of NSW. Her research – on the transformation of intellectual ideas into dance movements during the early modern period – is truly interdisciplinary, bridging the scholarly traditions of music, dance, and social history.

Her lecture next Wednesday, at 7.30 pm in UNE’s Oorala Aboriginal Centre, will be followed by a light supper. The event is free, and everyone is welcome. For more information, and to register attendance, phone (02) 6773 3638 or e-mail events@une.edu.au.

Professor Gordon Anderson was the first Australian academic to make an international impact on the study of medieval music. He held a personal Chair in Music at UNE from 1979 until his death in 1981. UNE inaugurated the Gordon Athol Anderson Lecture series in 1983, and it has continued every year since then.

In 2006 Nicci Burraston (pictured here) graduated as Bachelor of Science / Bachelor of Teaching and began teaching science at Cowra High School. Since then she has transformed attitudes to science not only within the school, but also in the wider local community.

The Vice-Chancellor of UNE, Professor Alan Pettigrew, presented Ms Burraston with the award at the ceremony on Saturday 11 October for people graduating in UNE’s Faculty of The Professions. “Through her efforts, the profile of science in the school has been raised and student participation in science activities and courses has increased significantly,” Professor Pettigrew said.

Ms Burraston explained how – through science camps and competitions, and activities such as the building of crayfish and turtle tanks – she had changed the perception of science throughout the school. And she has ensured that – through the local newspaper – students get public recognition for their achievements in science-related activities. “One student came up to me,” she recalled, “and said: ‘Cowra High is now a science school.’ That made me really happy.”

She has already begun to extend the school’s new-found enthusiasm for science into the general community, and would like to see this as an ever-expanding movement.

Her work was recognised as “the best national achievement by a beginning teacher” in the Australian Government Quality Schooling Awards, and she won the Minister for Education’s Medal of Distinction for 2008.

Reflecting on her own achievements, her advice to the graduands was: “Go out and find an area of need, and set about addressing that need – with passion.”

Professor Paul Clark, Vice-Chancellor of Southern Cross University, in delivering the Occasional Address at Saturday’s ceremony, recalled his own school-days experience of a teacher who, he said, “fired in me an interest in mathematics”. That interest uncovered a dormant talent for the subject that set him on the path to becoming a physicist.

“It happened because one teacher one day said one thing that worked,” Professor Clark said. “Teachers make a great difference – often in ways they don’t know.”

He, too, urged the graduands to approach employment with passion and commitment - by finding work that they enjoy, making “adventurous choices”, and being constantly aware that what they do “is not a trial run”.

Dr Prawit Taytiwat, the Dean of the Faculty of Public Health at Naresuan University in Thailand, who graduated on Saturday with a Doctor of Health Services Management degree, brought the focus on teaching back to UNE itself when he delivered the Vote of Thanks that concluded the ceremony. Speaking on behalf of all the new graduates, he said UNE’s academic staff had worked “tirelessly” in a way that “sustained us, gave us confidence, and, at times, restored our momentum to succeed.”

Dr Taytiwat (pictured here with his wife Ms Waraphorn Suphamum) is the first international graduate of UNE’s Doctor of Health Services Management Program to have studied full-time on the UNE campus.

THE PHOTOGRAPH of Nicci Burraston displayed at the top of the page expands to include the Vice-Chancellor, Professor Alan Pettigrew (left) and the Deputy Chancellor, Scott Williams.

From the opening remarks of the Deputy Chancellor, Scott Williams, who paid tribute to “the many staff members and students who have made this university what it is today”, to the vote of thanks to current staff members by Honours graduate Rebecca Payne, the occasion celebrated UNE as a living-and-learning community.

Ms Payne, who graduated today as a Bachelor of Arts with First Class Honours, said UNE offered its students “a unique opportunity to be personally acquainted with their lecturers”. “The academic staff are willing to go the extra mile for their students,” she added.

She also highlighted the “rich social culture” centred on the University’s residential colleges – a culture she had experienced as a resident of Earle Page College – and the opportunities for leadership roles that college life offers.

Professor Flood, UNE’s Pro Vice-Chancellor (Research), spoke about the quality of “social intelligence”, which, he said, was an essential attribute of a good leader. “Social intelligence” – involving the ability to empathise with others – was more important in a leader than “expertise”, he said.

“Leaders are not born,” Professor Flood explained. “They develop the skills of social intelligence that inspire people to follow them.”

“May you continue to develop and make a positive contribution to society throughout your lives,” he urged the graduands.

Dr Tanya Hanstock, who was presented with a Young Distinguished Alumni Award during today’s ceremony, has already made an outstanding contribution to society in the five years since she graduated from UNE as a Doctor of Psychology. Dr Hanstock has devoted her early career to helping children with mental illness. She was one of the foundation psychologists at The Nexus Unit, a child and adolescent inpatient psychiatric unit established in 2003 at the John Hunter Hospital in Newcastle. In 2005 she established the first Juvenile Bipolar Disorder clinic in Australia – called The Bipolar Program – within the Hunter New England Area Health Service.

“I really love my work,” she said today, adding that her seven years of study at UNE – as a BA, Honours, and PhD student – had made it possible. “”I was fortunate to have great lecturers and supervisors,” she said.

Dr Hanstock, who combines her professional role of youth mental health worker with a wide range of related community-involvement and academic activities, told the graduands they could look forward to “a fulfilling and diverse career”. “I hope you enjoy your career as much as I enjoy mine,” she concluded.

All the speakers at today’s ceremony emphasised that gaining a degree was just the beginning of a process of life-long learning. A vital example of life-long learning is one of today’s graduates – 70-year-old Jennifer Swain, who graduated as a Doctor of Philosophy after completing a study titled “Comparing Aboriginal and El Salvadoran Refugee Experiences of Place and Belonging in Coffs Harbour”.

“I decided to do something for myself before I got too old,” Dr Swain said. She began as an undergraduate at UNE in 1993 – studying archaeology, a lifelong passion. “I loved it,” she said. “The whole thing was exciting and invigorating.”

Today’s ceremony was for people graduating from the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. The ceremony tomorrow (Saturday 11 October) will be for those graduating from the Faculty of The Professions.

THE PHOTOGRAPH of Dr Tanya Hanstock displayed here expands to show the Vice-Chancellor, Professor Alan Pettigrew, presenting her with her Young Distinguished Alumni Award.

A University of New England lawn bowls team won a gold medal at the Australian University Games (AUG) in Melbourne last week, taking the total medal tally for UNE to one gold, one silver and two bronze.

“To score that number of medals when you consider the size of our university compared to others is a fantastic overall performance,” said Brad King, UNE’s AUG team manager.

The outstanding results in all sports saw UNE gain second place in the Doug Ellis Trophy, awarded to universities scoring the highest number of points per head of student population. Organisers believe it is likely that some of the UNE competitors will be selected for the Australian University Sport “Green and Gold” team in their respective sports.

“We are very excited about the performance of our entire team,” Mr King said. “It was the biggest team we’ve ever sent, with around 170 competitors. They all participated to their best ability and always played in the spirit in the game.

“The medal tally might have been lower than in previous years, but overall our teams performed better than ever before. In all sports they improved on previous levels.”

The AUG lawn bowls games were played at Melbourne Bowling Club – the real-life location of the film Crackerjack, which was responsible for a surge in interest in lawn bowls among young people.

This year UNE fielded two lawn bowls teams. The Division One team, including State title winners Jay Porter and Daniel Williams, had a convincing win over defending champions Curtin University in the gold medal match. In Division Two, the UNE team (which had been together for only a short time) scored a bronze medal.

“This was the first competition for some of the players, but they all worked well together as a team,” said the team manager, Jon Knight. “There was some competition from the other universities, but we rose to the occasion and played really well.”

In the Rugby Sevens competition, UNE won silver after a tight match against Sydney University. The team, including current Brumbies player Francis Fainifo, lost by a converted try with a final score of 36 to 29. Other outstanding performers included Ben Thomas and Sam Bacigalupo.

An individual bronze medal was won by athlete Renee Van der Berg, who came third in the 800 metres running event and was also a finalist in the 400 metres event.

“It’s a fantastic achievement,” Mr King said, “when you consider that many of the athletes are Olympic standard.”

The Australian University Games is the largest annual multi-sport event in Australia, and is the highlight of the university sporting calendar. This year, the games had more than 6,000 participants from 42 universities. Next year the games will be held on the Gold Coast.

THE PHOTOGRAPH displayed here expands to show UNE’s gold-medal-winning lawn bowls team: (from left) Anthony Jarvis, Daniel Williams, Dan Whale, Jay Porter, and Jon Knight.

Two distinguished scientists who have moved with great success into the field of educational and research management will be the Occasional Address speakers at the University of New England’s Spring Graduation ceremonies later this week.

Professor Peter Flood, UNE’s Pro Vice-Chancellor (Research), will speak at the ceremony for the Faculty of Arts and Sciences on Friday 10 October, and Professor Paul Clark, Vice-Chancellor of Southern Cross University, will speak at the ceremony for the Faculty of The Professions on the following day.

Professor Flood, a geologist and UNE alumnus, has served UNE as Head of School, Dean of Science, and Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research). Professor Clark, a physicist, has held the positions of Deputy Vice-Chancellor of the University of the Sunshine Coast, Pro Vice-Chancellor (Research) and Deputy Vice-Chancellor at Victoria University of Technology in Melbourne, and Dean of Science and Head of Applied Physics at the Capricornia Institute in Rockhampton.

About 1,000 people are graduating from UNE this Spring, with many of them travelling to Armidale to attend the ceremonies. Both ceremonies will be on the lawns of “Booloominbah”, beginning at 10.30 am.

During Friday’s ceremony the Vice-Chancellor, Professor Alan Pettigrew, will present a UNE Young Distinguished Alumni Award to Dr Tanya Hanstock. Dr Hanstock, who graduated from UNE with a BA (Honours) degree in 2000 and a Doctor of Psychology degree in 2003, has dedicated her early career to helping children with mental illness.

During Saturday’s ceremony, Professor Pettigrew will present another Young Distinguished Alumni Award – this one to Nicolette Burraston, who graduated from UNE in 2006 as a Bachelor of Science / Bachelor of Teaching. Ms Burraston’s outstanding success in enthusing students about science was recognised as the “best national achievement by a beginning teacher” in this year’s Australian Government Quality Schooling Awards. She also won the Minister for Education’s Medal of Distinction for 2008.

Scott Williams – a graduate of the University of New England whose career spans aid work abroad, regional development planning, consulting in information technology and tertiary education, and co-founding and managing a multi-award-winning small business – has been elected Deputy Chancellor of UNE.

Scott Williams succeeds Dr James Harris, a long-serving member of the UNE Council who retired from the role of Deputy Chancellor on the 6^th of October after holding that position for the past seven years.

Mr Williams (pictured here) was appointed as a member of the UNE Council in 1997 in recognition of his business and regional development expertise. His other roles in public service have included eight years as a Uralla Shire Councillor (including three years as Shire President), two terms as an elected regional representative of the NSW Shires Association, and membership of Armidale Dumaresq Council’s Economic Development Committee. He was a foundation member – and, later, Chair – of Armidale Public Radio Station 2ARM-FM.

The Chancellor of UNE, Mr John Cassidy, in announcing the election of Mr Williams as Deputy Chancellor, said that his outstanding combination of business skills and public service experience had already been of great benefit to the University, and that his new role would allow him to make an even greater contribution.

“Scott is currently Chair of Council’s Finance, Investment, and Tender Committees,” Mr Cassidy said, “and, as a past Director of the UNE Foundation, has guided the University’s fund-raising and community-relationship activities. His personal commitment to education in general – and UNE in particular – has resulted in his provision of about 40 annual scholarships for UNE students, and about 120 for local school children.

“His regional and global perspectives are informed by his ongoing advisory work, which gives him a deep understanding of the pressures that rural areas are experiencing in employment and economic development, and by his former aid work overseas, which has helped him to understand lifestyles in developing countries and Asia.”

When asked about his priorities for the UNE Council, Mr Williams said: “I think any governing body needs to be seen to be engaged with the community it represents. I am keen for the UNE Council to have more time than at present to listen to the views of the UNE community face-to-face. In that way, Council can be most effective in helping to unleash the tremendous latent energy at UNE for the greater good of the University.”

Mr Williams is the co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of the Armidale-based international florists’ relay service Petals Network. Petals, which runs in Australia, England and New Zealand and trades in 70 other countries, has won numerous awards, including being named “National Telstra and Australian Government Small Business of the Year” in 1996 and “NSW Premier’s Regional Exporter of the Year” in 2000, and winning the “National GIO Innovative Service Award” in 2000, the “Innovative Supply Chain Management Award” in 2001, and the Australian Business Limited “President’s Prize for Best Business” in 2005.

He has been based in Armidale since 1969, and holds a Bachelor of Economics degree and Graduate Diplomas in Rural Accounting, Financial Management, and Computing Science from UNE.

Mr Cassidy also announced that the Council would be seeking two new members following the recent resignations of the Armidale Chartered Accountant Ann Maurer and the Sydney-based solicitor and financial consultant Fiona Giuseppi. He said that Ms Maurer and Ms Giuseppi had served the Council with distinction, and that their expert professional perspectives had been of great benefit to the University.

A Thai researcher into healthy ageing has just completed four months of collaborative academic work at the University of New England, complemented by experience of everyday life in regional Australia.

Prapaporn Manorath (pictured here), a lecturer at Boromarajonani College of Nursing in Thailand’s Uttaradit Province, is completing a four-year investigation of measures that people in their early 50s can take to prepare themselves – both mentally and physically – for retirement.

Working in Thailand with primary school teachers between the ages of 50 and 55, she found, through an initial sampling of 328 teachers, that knowledge – and practice – of health-promoting behaviours was not a high priority for professional people such as these. She then developed a health-promotion program for a group of the teachers to follow, and found that it had a positive effect on indicators such as blood pressure and stress levels.

“This ‘health promotion model’ focused on the teachers’ physical, mental and social wellbeing,” Ms Manorath said, “and involved them in taking responsibility for their own health by managing stress, maintaining healthy levels of nutrition and exercise, developing positive mental attitudes, and strengthening their social relationships.”

“And they actually did change their behaviour in these respects,” she added.

The study is the basis of Ms Manorath’s PhD thesis, which she will submit at Thailand’s Naresuan University next January. UNE has a collaborative arrangement with Naresuan University that facilitates exchange visits by scholars such as Ms Manorath, as well as large international projects. Naresuan University, like UNE, is a regional university with strong programs promoting the delivery of health services to people living in rural areas. Ms Manorath’s work in UNE’s School of Health over the past four months has been guided by David Briggs, a Senior Lecturer in the School who has wide experience of collaborative projects in Thailand.

One of Ms Manorath’s missions during the visit was to develop her English language skills through interaction in a variety of academic and social settings. Her achievements in this respect – and in her scholarly work – were displayed when she presented a research seminar in the School of Health last week. After her presentation, the Head of the School, Associate Professor Jeanne Madison, said: “I’m most admiring of your elegant study and your presentation today.”

Referring to the importance of Ms Manorath’s research, Dr Madison said: “You came to UNE to learn from us, and we’ve learnt so much from you.”

For part of her time in Australia, Ms Manorath stayed with a retired couple – Jo and Gavin Moore – on a farm near Manilla. She said this experience had contributed greatly to the development of her English language skills and her understanding of Australian lifestyles – particularly post-retirement. She also stayed in an Armidale home, experiencing family and social life in this regional city.

Coming from Thailand to a New England winter was, she said, something of a shock. But the friendliness of everyone she encountered, and the benefits she derived from her academic program at UNE, made her “warm at heart” even when “cold in the body”.

James Harris is retiring from the position of Deputy Chancellor of the University of New England after serving in that role for the past seven years. His current term finishes on the 6^th of October.

The Chancellor of UNE, Mr John Cassidy, yesterday announced Dr Harris’s retirement as Deputy Chancellor, and the election of Armidale businessman Mr Scott Williams as his successor. Dr Harris will remain a member of the UNE Council.

“James has made an outstanding contribution to UNE, both as Deputy Chancellor and as a long-serving member of Council and Chair of several of its committees,” Mr Cassidy said. “That contribution, while grounded in his links with the University’s past, has been shaped by his vision for its future.”

James Harris’s association with UNE is one of both inheritance and personal commitment. In 1938 his maternal great-grandfather, Thomas Richmond Forster, gave a home to the New England College of the University of Sydney by donating the fine country residence “Booloominbah” for that purpose. His father’s family, too, has been associated with UNE since the time of its founding.

He grew up in Sydney, where his father worked as a doctor. He gained farming experience by working on several properties – and travelled abroad – before moving to the New England region in 1979 to take over the management of “Abington”, a grazing property 20 km south of Bundarra that had been in his mother’s family since the 1880s. He became the owner of “Abington” in 1990.

His work on the land has been combined with an active commitment to social issues in New England. In 1983-84 he was treasurer of the Save New England Action Group, which fought successfully to stop the acquisition of land by the Department of Defence for use as an artillery range. He was chairman of Armidale Wool Expo from 1983 to 1993 and, as a trustee of the New England Regional Art Museum, was chairman (1993-1999) of the fund-raising committee for the building of Stage 2 of the museum.

This community involvement found an educational focus when the Minister for Education appointed him to the Council of UNE in 1994 – a time when the University was rediscovering its individual identity after the “Network University” experiment. He has remained a member of the UNE Council ever since, serving on several of its committees as well as chairing the Buildings and Grounds Committee (1994-2001) and the Audit and Compliance Committee (2001-2007). He was elected to the position of Deputy Chancellor in 2001.

His commitment to the University and the wider community was recognised by UNE last year when he was awarded the honorary degree of Doctor of the University.

Dr Harris will continue, as a member of the UNE Council, to work for the good of the University. His strong family connection to the University – and particularly to “Booloominbah” – gives him a unique perspective on – and concern for – UNE’s past, present and future.

The restoration of “Booloominbah” in the late 1990s was a particularly satisfying process for him. (”It’s good that the University now has a ‘heart’,” he said at the time.) And, in 2002, he was instrumental in securing substantial funding for the restoration of the magnificent Gordon Window in “Booloominbah”.

“It has been an honour and a privilege serving on the UNE Council over the past 14 years, and as Deputy Chancellor for seven of those years,” Dr Harris said. “I’ve found it challenging, exasperating, and fun – all together . . . and (at times) separately.

“UNE is a vital part of the Armidale community and economy, and it must continue to thrive, grow, and maintain its strengths in its many fields of endeavour.”

The incoming Deputy Chancellor, Mr Scott Williams, said yesterday: “James was a great help to me when I first joined the UNE Council. He is, in many ways, the collective memory of Council, being its longest-serving member. There can be no doubt that UNE has been well and loyally served by Dr Harris in all his Council roles – and, in particular, that of Deputy Chancellor.”

“It’s good news that Dr Harris’s knowledge and skills will remain available to Council and UNE through his continuing membership of the UNE Council,” Mr Williams added.

Two of Australia’s leading pianists will join hands in Armidale next weekend for a concert to celebrate the rebirth of a great musical instrument.

On Saturday 4 October the international performers Stephanie McCallum and Robert Curry will give a recital at the keyboard of the University of New England’s newly-restored Steinway grand piano.

The concert, at 8 pm in UNE’s Lazenby Hall, will explore the full tonal and dynamic range of this exceptional instrument in a program of music spanning the eras of Romanticism and Impressionism. The program includes Beethoven’s Grosse Fuge for Piano Four Hands (Op. 134), Schumann’s Fantasie in C (Op. 17), Debussy’s Epigraphes antiques for piano duet, and Szymanowski’s Three Masques (Op. 34).

The piano, bought for the University in Germany in 1977, has remained in Lazenby Hall as a major asset for the musical life of UNE, Armidale, and the New England region. The recent restoration work, by the Steinway specialists “Theme & Variations”, is the first it has received.

“The total restoration of the piano – including a completely new action – cost just a fraction of the price of a new Steinway,” said Dr Terrence Hays, a Senior Lecturer in UNE’s School of Education who is himself an accomplished pianist. “Seeing it and playing it, you’d think it really was a new Steinway. We now have a first-class grand piano – a wonderful musical resource for the University and the wider community that will enable us to attract first-class performers to Armidale.”

Bringing such performers to Armidale while the piano was in need of restoration was difficult, and the recital by the world-renowned pianist Stephen Hough in Lazenby Hall in September 2007 (part of last year’s Musica Viva concert series) was made possible only by the loan of a concert piano from Kawai Australia.

Since its restoration, the piano has already been played in one of this year’s Musica Viva concerts: the performance on September 13 by the violinist Feng Ning and the pianist John Chen, winner of the Sydney International Piano Competition in 2004.

Stephanie McCallum, whose international career as a concert and recording artist spans more than 25 years, is especially noted for her performances of virtuosic music of the nineteenth century – particularly that of Liszt and Alkan. On her most recent CD – Fur Elise – she plays the complete Beethoven Bagatelles, including the first recordings of newly transcribed fragments from Beethoven’s sketchbooks. In conjunction with her career as a performer, she teaches at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music as a Senior Lecturer in Keyboard.

Robert Curry, who studied piano in Warsaw and New York, has performed and lectured throughout the Middle East and South Asia. He was the pianist invited by Steinway & Sons to tour international capital cities earlier this year with four of the firm’s historic pianos, demonstrating their distinctive features in performance. He is the Principal of the Conservatorium High School, Sydney.

Entry to the Lazenby Hall concert on the 4^th of October is $10 (adults) and $5 (children).

A new degree program in social work at the University of New England has received official endorsement from the Australian Association of Social Workers (AASW).

At its most recent meeting, the AASW Board of Directors granted provisional accreditation of the program which, coordinated by UNE’s Dr Myfanwy Maple (pictured here), will begin next year.

In a letter to the Vice-Chancellor, Professor Alan Pettigrew, the President of the AASW Board, Mr Bob Lonne, says: “The Board notes the consultants’ commendation of Dr Maple and the University of New England development team for delivering a comprehensive Bachelor of Social Work program with a regional focus.”

Professor Pettigrew said the endorsement by the AASW was a tribute to Dr Maple and her interdisciplinary team at UNE, to the Pro Vice-Chancellor and Dean of the Faculty of The Professions, Professor Victor Minichiello, and to the region’s community agencies and social workers, who had given such “tremendous support” to the program.

He said the commendation of the program’s “comprehensive” nature, along with its “regional focus”, was confirmation of the University’s success in designing courses – including those in nursing, medicine and criminology – applicable to employment anywhere in the world, while specifically addressing workforce shortages in rural and regional Australia.

UNE’s Bachelor of Social Work program will be eligible for full accreditation by the AASW after the graduation of the first cohort of students in 2012.

The consultants’ report to the Board refers to the “readiness both within the University and within the community for a UNE Bachelor of Social Work program”.

“Integral to the development phase,” the report says, “has been the engagement of local social work practitioners who have had considerable input into the detail of the program, and curriculum principles and sequence. There is evidence of a wide range of social work practitioners in central and northern NSW committed to UNE social work conceptualisation and to the integration of social work practice and education.”

“The curriculum has deliberately been designed to be student-focused and flexible,” it continues. “The combination of on-campus and online allows for skill and knowledge development in both face-to-face and distance modes. In both modes students will be encouraged to build on their own life experiences, and to be reflective and critical while becoming independent and creative.”

“In July and August of this year, air particulate pollution in Armidale exceeded the National Environmental Protection Measure advisory standard on 28 occasions,” said UNE’s Associate Professor Don Hine, one of the chief investigators on the project. “This indicates the need for such research in Armidale.”

Based at UNE and conducted by the University in partnership with Armidale Dumaresq Council, SmartBurn Australia, the Australian Home Heating Association and the Firewood Association of Australia, the three-year project will develop and evaluate a community-based social marketing campaign targeting Armidale residents. The project will also provide the first large-scale field test of SmartBurn – a small canister that can be placed in wood heaters to improve combustion and reduce particulate emissions.

“We will monitor airborne particulate matter and health complaints over the three-year period to determine whether the interventions are effective in reducing overall levels of wood smoke pollution and health complaints,” Dr Hine said.

“The first year of the project will focus on defining the scope of the air quality problem by collecting baseline data,” he explained, “and identifying the major barriers that prevent residents from reducing their own wood smoke emissions and from participating in broader community initiatives to improve air quality.

“Simply educating people about the negative health effects of wood smoke pollution and proper wood-burning practices will not be sufficient, in most cases, to induce them to change their behaviour. Psychological and economic barriers must also be addressed.

“For example, in a study recently published in the Journal of Environmental Psychology, my colleagues and I found that many wood-heater users were very reluctant to trade in their heaters, even if they perceived the potential health costs – to themselves and the community – to be high. We found evidence to suggest that many wood heater users have strong positive emotional associations with wood fires that seem to over-ride their rational assessments of risk.”

The researchers will begin by conducting a series of focus group interviews with a broad cross-section of the local community to solicit opinions about the perceived magnitude of the wood smoke pollution problem in Armidale, and the best way of managing the problem. “At this initial stage of the project, we are particularly interested in speaking to members of the community who currently use wood heaters, or who have recently switched from wood to other types of heating systems,” Dr Hine said. “We are also interested in speaking to seniors and other residents who are concerned about this problem.”

People interested in participating in the focus groups can contact Dr Navjot Bhullar at UNE on 6773 2546, or e-mail her at nbhullar@une.edu.au.

THE PHOTOGRAPH displayed here, showing Associate Professor Don Hine in front of a wood-burning fireplace, expands to include the other two members of the UNE research team - Dr Navjot Bhullar (left) and Dr John Scott (second from left) - with Mr Euan Belson, Environment and Health Manager, Armidale Dumaresq Council.

UNE’s Moot Court, within the School of Law, became the “New England Land and Environment Court of Appeal” for the hearing of a hypothetical appeal case involving the alleged degradation of wetlands by a farmer.

The Hon. Keith Mason AC QC (pictured here), former President of the Court of Appeal of NSW, presided over the hearing, in which the farmer and the Attorney General were represented by opposing teams of lawyers – some of them specialists in environmental law. The legal participants in the moot court hearing travelled to UNE from Sydney, Lismore and Gunnedah, as well as from Armidale.

Their inquiry focused on the concept of “duty of care” as it relates to farmers’ environmental responsibilities. “The main issue was whether the legal concept of a ‘duty of care’ is an effective and fair way of managing environmental disputes,” Mr Mason said.

“Everybody agrees that we have a long-term duty to look after our land so that the environment is sustainable,” he continued. “But would it be fairer to have just a general ‘duty of care’ for farmers, or a more detailed regulatory framework?”

“While farmers would probably prefer a general ‘duty of care’ to a lot of regulation,” Mr Mason said, “it could leave them more open to being sued.”

“Although the concerns of farmers are focused on their farming interests,” he added, “they aren’t narrow or selfish concerns.”

Mark Shepheard, a CRC for Irrigation Futures research student at UNE, organised the hearing as part of his PhD project investigating the role of the “duty of care” concept in managing conflict about farming and the environment. The project is being supervised by Professor Paul Martin, the Director of UNE’s Australian Centre for Agriculture and Law, and Associate Professor Mark Lunney from UNE’s School of Law.

For yesterday’s hearing, Mr Shepheard created “legislation” (based on current laws in Queensland and South Australia), and outlined the background to the case and the courtroom scenario. “We took the kind of legislation that exists, and looked at the problems that could arise when it’s applied in the courtroom,” he said.

Mr Shepheard agreed that support for the “duty of care” concept was widespread throughout the community. “But how does a farmer translate that concept into practical measures?” he asked. “Yesterday’s experiment has taken a significant step towards answering that question by identifying some of the problems involved in explaining ‘duty of care’ in practical terms.”

THE PHOTOGRAPH displayed here shows the Hon. Keith Mason AC QC presiding in UNE’s Moot Court yesterday. Clicking on this image reveals a photograph of Mr Mason with Mark Shepheard, the research student who organised yesterday’s moot court hearing.

The University’s new timetable system, which goes “live” on the UNE Web site today, uses simpler terminology than the previous system and is easier to navigate around.

“I was looking for a system that was clear, simple, and easy to follow,” said Julie Fookes, UNE’s Timetable Coordinator. “Although nobody had reported having problems with the previous system (in place since 2005), we carried out a survey about a month ago and discovered that some things were being misinterpreted.”

Ms Fookes said that the new system avoided confusion by adopting the same terminology for teaching periods as that used by the academic staff – for example, “Semester 1 Week 1 (S1.1)”, and “April Residential School Week 2 (R2.2)”.

Unit and course timetables for students, teaching timetables for lecturers, and schedules for regular and “ad hoc” room bookings all use the same new terminology and “help” features.

Among those features are questions that students are most likely to ask – in the way they are most likely to ask them. For example, by clicking on the newly-included question “Where are my classes?” at the top of a unit timetable, students arrive at a new help page leading to a clearly marked map. By clicking on “When are my classes?” they go to a calendar showing the days and times of the specified classes. On a page presenting the bookings for a particular room during a teaching week, the questions “When is the booking?” and “Where is the room?” lead, respectively, to a calendar and a map.

Another new feature of the system is the insertion of a UNE banner at the top of every page to help prospective students keep track of the university Web site they are visiting. To the right of the banner is a direct link to the “AskUNE” site for answers to all timetable questions. A reminder to check for timetable updates has been moved from the bottom of pages to a more prominent position near the top.

To reach the timetable pages, click on “Information for: Current students” at the left of the UNE Home Page, and then scroll down the “Information for Current Students” page to “Timetables”.

A team from the University of New England has won the award for the “most inspiring community engagement” project at the 2008 national championships of Students in Free Enterprise (SIFE).

Five members of SIFE UNE – Sam Harris (President), Tara Stokes (Treasurer), Miriam White, Dan Beransconi, and Joanne Grogan – travelled to Brisbane in July for the SIFE National Conference and Championships. There they competed with representatives of SIFE teams from 23 other universities around Australia by presenting the outcomes of this year’s projects to an audience including the Chief Executive Officers of major companies.

Robyn Marshall, the UNE lecturer who is the team’s Faculty Mentor, accompanied the students to Brisbane, along with UNE’s Dr Peter McClenaghan, the National Program Consultant for SIFE Australia.

SIFE is a global organisation supported by some of the world’s leading corporations. It encourages students from all areas of study to engage in community-oriented projects in order to share the knowledge they have gained at university and learn more about “real-life” free enterprise.

For their award-winning project, the SIFE UNE team is helping members of the Parents’ and Citizens’ Association at Minimbah Primary School in Armidale to develop skills in fund raising, budgeting, and the conduct of meetings. “Changing the world one step at a time” was the motto attached to the project.

“The ‘Minimbah project’ has been a great success,” Joanne Grogan said, “with a series of barbecues at the Markets in the Mall to raise much-needed funds for the purchase of a large message sign for the school. We are continuing with this project by creating an ‘agenda folder’, which contains many valuable worksheets and processes for the school – including meeting agendas, minutes, financial statement worksheets, fund-raising ideas, and many other valuable resources.”

“This has been further extended by the State Government’s agreeing to produce and distribute the folders to not-for-profit schools and organisations across the State,” she added.

The “community engagement” award brought with it a $2,000 cheque and a 10 kg block of chocolate (pictured here with some of the team). “We raffled the chocolate off at UNE’s recent Open Day,” Ms Grogan said.

The UNE team also won a special “financial literacy” award for its “Careers Aware” program. As part of this program the students were involved in the organisation and presentation of a “Corporate Cocktail Evening” at UNE earlier this year, hosted by the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Australia. This award was accompanied by a $500 cheque.

Ms Grogan said the SIFE organisation had been so impressed with the UNE team’s achievements that it had decided to sponsor Scott Finneran – a long-term team member of SIFE UNE – to attend the SIFE World Cup in Singapore early next month. Ms Marshall will accompany him.

“This is a great opportunity, as it involves spending a week with CEOs from around the world, attending presentations by teams from more than 50 countries, and the chance to advertise UNE and SIFE Australia,” Ms Grogan said.

THE PHOTOGRAPH displayed here expands to show members of SIFE UNE with their prize chocolate bar before its auction on Open Day. They are (from left) Tara Stokes, Rebecca Whale, Scott Finneran, Robyn Marshall (the SIFE Faculty Mentor), and Jo Grogan.

As Darkness Falls, by Bronwyn Parry, won a “Golden Heart” in the annual Romance Writers of America competition for unpublished manuscripts last year, and was quickly sought by the leading international publisher Hachette Livre.

“Bronwyn Parry” is the pen-name of Bronwyn Clarke (pictured here), who has lived in the Armidale region of NSW for the past 20 years and is a former employee and current research student at UNE.

“The past 14 months has been a pretty exciting time,” she said at the local launch of As Darkness Falls in Armidale earlier this month.

She said the amount of publicity surrounding the success of As Darkness Falls in the “Golden Heart” competition had been “amazing”, and had led to her being approached by Hachette. “It was a strange experience to have a publisher contact me to see if I would take them on,” she added.

As Darkness Falls is a romantic suspense novel in which two detectives search for a child abducted from a town on the edge of the outback. “While the town and its characters are purely fictional, the setting is inspired by the landscape of the Pilliga region,” the author said. “I love regional and outback Australia, and exploring the combination of the emotion of a romance and the intensity of a suspense plot with the drama of the Australian landscape.”

A reviewer of As Darkness Falls has remarked on its “powerful portrait of a small community slowly destroying itself”.

Ms Clarke, who has an Honours degree in English and History from UNE, spoke about the romance genre of fiction during the book launch at Dymocks Booksellers Armidale. “Romance is a genre that confirms values,” she said. “It’s about emotion – and a journey towards intimacy. It affirms the centrality of love in our lives.”

For her PhD, she is researching online “communities” of romance readers and writers, and their perspectives on the genre. She explained that these online “communities” varied widely in their focus: from enthusiasm for a particular author to academic explorations of the genre. “Today’s romance writing ranges from purely entertaining fiction to deeper, more complex novels looking at serious issues,” she said. “And the readership is evolving along with the genre.”

Bronwyn Parry’s next novel – the second in a loosely-linked trilogy – will be published by Hachette Australia in 2009.

Dr Mansfield (pictured here) graduated from UNE with a First Class Honours degree in 2001 and a PhD earlier this year. Last year’s winner of the Max Kelly Medal was the Sydney barrister Timothy Castle – also a recent graduate of UNE.

Dr Mansfield’s winning essay, titled “The costs of war: patriotism and price fixing during the opening months of the Great War in Australia”, covers part of his PhD research. It explains how some Australian business people took advantage of the war by immediately increasing the prices of goods such as sugar, bread and meat.

“These were domestic goods, and their prices shouldn’t have been affected,” Dr Mansfield said. “There was no excuse for it – and that’s what people were saying at the time. In this respect, Australians didn’t all enter the war with the purest of patriotic feelings.”

Dr Mansfield is the 12^th recipient of the annual award, which  includes a $500 prize as well as the medal. It is designed to encourage historians at the beginning of their careers. The Max Kelly Medal honours the first elected President of the History Council of NSW, Professor Maxwell Kelly (1935-1996).

Dr Mansfield said that, to be the second UNE graduate to win the award in successive years, and to be ranked with people such as last year’s winner, Timothy Castle, was “very pleasing – both for myself and for the University”. He was presented with the award at Government House in Sydney earlier this month.

After living in Armidale for the past 15 years, and working in recent years as a casual history tutor at UNE, he is about to move to Canberra in pursuit of a career as an historian.

A “Teacher Professional Development” event today and tomorrow is taking teachers to primary industries and research laboratories in Armidale, Guyra and Tamworth. It is part of the national Primary Industry Centre for Science Education (PICSE) program, established in 1998 to address a nation-wide shortage of skilled young people entering agricultural science careers.

The PICSE program has six activity centres hosted by universities across Australia. The NSW activity centre, established at the University of New England in 2007 and managed by Susanna Greig and Associate Professor Robin Jessop, ran a successful pilot program in 2007-08.

“Following positive feedback from the teachers and students involved in the pilot program,” Ms Greig said, “and with the continuing support of our industry partners and UNE, the program is continuing in 2008-09 and has expanded to include more schools, businesses and industries from the New England and North West regions.”

This week’s “Teacher Professional Development” event is a prelude to events for high-school students in January 2009 that – through PICSE Industry Placement Scholarships – will enable the students to explore career and research opportunities in agricultural science, and to gain experience working with scientists in agricultural research and industry.

The teachers’ event includes an information and discussion session tomorrow morning on the advantages of – and concerns about – ethanol production. It will be provided by ethanol producers and scientists from CSIRO, UNE and the Tamworth Agricultural Institute. Tomorrow afternoon at the Tamworth Agricultural Institute Dr Robin Gunning will explain the use of the “gel electrophoresis” process in investigating resistance to insecticide.

A tour of Top of the Range Tomatoes at Guyra this morning illustrated the science behind the large-scale production of high-quality tomatoes. Then, returning to the UNE campus, the teachers learnt about genetic technologies supporting the Australian beef industry and the fermentation process in the digestive tract of ruminant animals, and visited Veterinary Health Research.

Associate Professor David Lamb from UNE and Stuart George from Petersons Armidale Winery are leading a tour of the winery’s cool-climate vineyards this afternoon, focusing on novel developments in the protection of grape vines against frost.

Ms Greig said that the teachers who attended the pilot Teacher Professional Development event last year had found it both relevant and useful. “The PICSE program has been a long-awaited resource for many science teachers, and I hope to see the program continue to run for many more years,” one of them had commented after the event.

THE PHOTOGRAPH displayed here expands to show (from left) Susanna Greig, Karen Dickenson from McCarthy Catholic College in Tamworth, Jim Belford from Warialda High School, and UNE’s Professor John Nolan. Professor Nolan is explaining the function of the ruminant digestive system with the help of a model sheep rumen.

The Coast Run program, which has included the sale of discount cards sponsored by local businesses, a public “Fashion Extravaganza” and auction, and fund-raising events within the College itself, has raised more than $30,000 so far this year for the Children’s Medical Research Institute (CMRI).

Forty-five Earle Page students set off from the College early this morning on the 220-kilometre Coast Run. At the starting line Professor Graham Webb, the Acting Vice-Chancellor, congratulated the Coast Run Committee – and the Coast Run Convener, Kamal Sohi – on raising more money for the CMRI than in any previous year. Professor Webb then fired the starter’s gun, and he and the Master of Earle Page College, David Ward, ran part of the initial stage with the students. The Armidale Dumaresq Mayor, Councillor Peter Ducat, presented the runners with a message of greeting to the Mayor of Coffs Harbour, which they will deliver on their arrival at Coffs Harbour Jetty tomorrow afternoon.

Brent Gregory, who founded the Coast Run when he was a student at Earle Page College and who is now a lecturer in UNE’s School of Business, Economics and Public Policy, was there to encourage the Earle Page runners. His daughter, Myee, is one of them.

Mr Ward said that – as well as raising large sums of money for charity – the Coast Run allowed for the achievement of personal (and committee) goals, and the development of camaraderie among the participants.

“Since its inception in 1980, the Coast Run program has raised more than $300,000 for the CMRI,” Mr Ward said, “and the College is recognised as a significant donor to the CMRI’s charity fund raising. All of the activities are generously supported by the business houses and community members of Armidale, and we are grateful for their support.”

The New England Credit Union is the major sponsor of the Coast Run, and other sponsors include the Bananacoast Credit Union (Coffs Harbour), Armidale Framing and Art Supplies, The Armidale Express, Laing and Simmons (Port Macquarie), and UNE.

THE PHOTOGRAPH displayed here shows the Coast Run Convener, Kamal Sohi (wearing the Vice-Chancellor’s colours) setting out on the Coast Run with her fellow Earle Page students.

UNE colleges raise funds for a wide range of charities

Fund raising for charity is a common pursuit among the residents of UNE’s college system. Last month, students at St Albert’s College raised more than $1,600 for the Armidale Community Oncology and Cancer Support Unit. The “Albies Week” events – including a golf day, car wash, and College Ball – brought the funds raised this year at St Albert’s College to $8,500, with the majority of the money going towards cancer-related charities including the NSW Cancer Council and the Leukaemia Foundation.

Also last month, students at Robb College raised more than $3,500 for the disability service provider Integrated Living Armidale during the College’s annual “Project Week” fund-raising exercise. Robb College’s annual fund-raising program includes involvement in the Salvation Army’s “Red Shield” appeal, and community-based projects such as – this year – an appeal that helped to send a young Armidale boy, Dylan Hardey, to the United States to be assessed by specialists in the rare medical condition Jacobsen’s Syndrome.

College fund-raising activities this year have also included the raising of about $2,500 by students at Austin College for the local Police & Community Youth Club.

Dr Diana Eades said her study – the first of its kind – examined “the ways in which courtroom talk is used to legitimise the overpolicing of Aboriginal people and to continue the neocolonial relationship of control over them”.

The study, recently published as a book titled Courtroom Talk and Neocolonial Control, focuses on the cross-examination – during a Brisbane courtroom hearing in 1995 – of three Aboriginal boys who were prosecution witnesses in the case of six police officers charged with their abduction.

“It shows how, by the use of propositions and assertions in cross-examination, the three boys were portrayed not as victims of police abuse, but in terms of difference, deviance, and delinquency,” Dr Eades said.

The book, which contains 98 extracts from the courtroom hearing, reveals that a pervasive strategy in the cross-examination of the boys (aged 13-15) was one of bullying and shouting until they finally agreed to the propositions being put to them. “Despite the obvious fact that the answers were given under great duress, and therefore not given freely, the legal process interpreted them literally,” Dr Eades said.

“Such examples,” she continued, “reveal one of the problematic assumptions that underlie courtroom rules of evidence: lawyers can take words or expressions from their cross-examination questions and attribute them to the witness. Even if the witness has given only a one-word answer – such as ‘Yes’ – to repeated and harassing questions, this answer can be replaced in the lawyer’s closing address with the words from the question, and then reported as if they were the witness’s own words.”

In an earlier book (Aboriginal English and the Law, Queensland Law Society, 1992), Dr Eades showed a number of ways in which mainstream methods of lawyer-client communication can cause problems when the client is an Aboriginal person. Courtroom Talk and Neocolonial Control (published by Mouton de Gruyter, Berlin) widens the perspective to the larger historical, social and political context of the ongoing struggles between Aboriginal people and the police.

“The legal process is meant to protect citizens from abuse such as that which might be inflicted by individual police officers,” Dr Eades said. “But this book exposes ways in which courtroom language can be manipulated and witnesses linguistically tricked.

“The book concludes by asking whether Aboriginal people can ever expect justice in cases of police abuse and, more broadly, whether we can expect an end to neocolonial control over Aboriginal people without far-reaching changes to courtroom rules of evidence.”

During a ceremony in Sydney last month, the Executive Director of the ALTC, Professor Richard Johnstone, presented seven Citations for Outstanding Contributions to Student Learning to individuals and groups representing both the academic staff and the general staff of UNE.

In the words of the ALTC itself, the Citations recognise people “who have made a significant contribution to the quality of student learning in a specific area of responsibility over a sustained period”. UNE staff members have received a total of 25 Citations since the awards began in 2006.

This year’s UNE Citations went to:

Dr Josie Fisher, “for sustained commitment to motivating off-campus students to form a community of learners that encourages critical engagement with issues in business and professional ethics”.

Associate Professor Tom Maxwell, “for a decade of national and international leadership in innovative curriculum development and research in more professional, workplace-oriented teacher education”.

Dr Chris Reading, “for commitment to the enhancement of the final-year Education student learning experience through the sustained development of authentic assessment processes”.

The Student Assist Team (Rhonda Leece, Airlie Bell, Kim Glover, Annette Stevenson), “for implementing innovative and responsive programs that provide holistic support for all students to stay academically focused while maintaining a healthy wellbeing”.

Edwina Ridgeway, “for many years of caring and dedicated work within the residential college system, implementing and maintaining programs and facilities supporting students’ learning and life skills”.

The German Team (Professor Kerry Dunne, Dr Linda Hess-Liechti, Dr Julia Petzl-Berney, Jenny Evans, Iain Mackay, Peter Hess, Dr Beat Lehmann), “for sustained innovation in using technologies to foster distance education students’ becoming autonomous language learners”.

Isabel Tasker, “for sustained dedication to understanding and meeting the needs of students undertaking the challenges of learning Mandarin – on and off campus – and inspiring them to succeed”.

The ALTC emphasises that people who are awarded Citations “are widely recognised for their achievements within the nominating institution, and have received strong institutional endorsement”.

In congratulating the University’s nominees – and all those involved in the application process – on their “wonderful effort”, the Vice-Chancellor, Professor Alan Pettigrew, said that their success represented the achievement of “the broad community of those who support our students”.

Professor Belinda Tynan, who coordinated the applications from UNE, praised the work of the University’s selection committee – comprising members of the academic staff, the general staff and the Teaching and Learning Centre, and previous Citation winners. “We go through a rigorous process,” she said, “giving feedback and support to the nominees while helping them develop their applications.”

“The whole process has good repercussions for UNE’s Schools and Faculties,” added Professor Tynan, who is the University’s contact officer for ALTC activities.

The Citations were presented during a ceremony at the University of NSW on the 5^th of August.

A PHOTOGRAPH of the UNE group that went to Sydney for the ALTC award ceremony can be seen by clicking on the image displayed here. It shows, from left (back row) Eve Woodberry (UNE’s Pro Vice-Chancellor, Academic), Professor Graham Webb (UNE’s Deputy Vice-Chancellor), Professor Kerry Dunne, Dr Linda Hess-Liechti, Dr Julia Petzl-Berney; (middle row) Professor Belinda Tynan, Annette Stevenson, Dr Chris Reading, Edwina Ridgeway, Dr Josie Fisher; (front row) Airlie Bell, Kim Glover, Jenny Evans, Isabel Tasker, Rhonda Leece.

A continuation of the current trend of development, the authors say, would result in a growth of urbanised areas along the coastal strip between Tweed Heads and Yamba by more than 400 per cent between the years 2004 and 2050. This would be accompanied by a loss of up to 50 per cent of land currently used for agriculture, and a loss of about 18 per cent of the remaining coastal ecosystems – particularly littoral forest, and coastal heath and wetlands.

The report, Alternative Landscape Futures, presents a number of possible alternatives to this “current trend” scenario. These alternatives redesign the distribution of landscape change pressures to allow for more sustainable futures. They involve measures – in combinations of varying priority – aimed at limiting urban growth, protecting the coastline and its biodiversity, and protecting good agricultural land. (The photograph displayed here shows development on North Coast agricultural land.)

The authors – Professor David Brunckhorst and Phil Morley from UNE’s Institute for Rural Futures and the UNESCO Centre for Bioregional Resource Management – say that by focusing the majority of the predicted population growth further inland, around centres such as Murwillumbah, Lismore, Casino and Grafton, the loss of coastal ecosystems by 2050 could be reduced to about 5 per cent, and the loss of agricultural land to about 15 per cent.

“In all scenarios, population growth is the major driver of landscape change through urbanisation (and subsequent displacement of agriculture and environmental services),” the report says. The authors believe that, with the population of the Northern Rivers region of NSW heading towards one million by the year 2050, planning should begin immediately to shift the focus of urban development back to the inland centres.

Mr Morley explained that the three-year project, funded by Land and Water Australia, had involved the study of North Coast satellite images and census data from the past 25 years, the use of that information to analyse landscape development trends over that period, and the projection of those development patterns into the next 25 years. He said the study had shown that the strongest area of urban growth on the North Coast had been that closest to the Queensland border – “within commuting distance to the Gold Coast”.

Professor Brunckhorst emphasised the importance of this coastal region for the future of Australian agriculture. “It’s a major imperative in Australia – especially as we adapt to climate change pressures – to protect good agricultural land in areas of relatively good rainfall,” he said. He also pointed out the importance of the remaining coastal heath, forest and wetlands as a buffer against the rising sea levels and storm surges associated with climate change. “They’ve learnt in Louisiana and Florida that they shouldn’t have cleared coastal wetlands for development,” he said.

“It’s imperative that local, State, and national government planning and policy take a long-term regional view to adapt and prepare for climate change futures,” Professor Brunckhorst said. “Planning and acting now is likely to reduce vulnerability, potentially saving billions of dollars in damage and losses while protecting productive land and ecosystem services.”

“We expected the availability of water to be a major limiting factor in development,” he added, “but in fact it’s something that local governments seem to ignore when they give building approvals.” He pointed to the massive developments in south-east Queensland that have continued through a period of serious water shortage. “It’s the same in the Murray-Darling Basin,” he said. “In the past water has been ignored as a limiting factor in land use planning.”

The report, provided to Land and Water Australia in July, concludes: “Either through decisive, adaptive action, or by inaction, society is deciding today where we are headed in the future.”

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 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”.

“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).

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.

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).