A law lecture in 1994
Michael started working at UNE in January 1994 when the UNE School of Law was only one year old.
‘In those days the UNE School of Law was very different to how it is today. The numbers of students enrolled in law was very small. The composition of online to on-campus students was also different, with the majority of students studying on-campus. Now the vast majority of students study online.
In the early 1990s, the experience for online students was a lot less sophisticated. There were no moodle pages or podcasts. In fact, I did not even have access to email until about 1995. Instead, external students (as they were then known) were sent a Study Guide, a reading list and usually a booklet of materials and taped lectures. Generally the academic staff would not hear from the students again until the assignment was due many weeks later.
Externals would return assignments via post. There was an assignment box for on-campus students. Students could often be seen running to the assignment box at 4.55pm on their assignment’s due date so they did not incur any late penalties. Both on-campus and external assignments were then stamped with the date and time they were collected. The post marks on the assignments were looked at for verification the student submitted their assignment on time.
For each of the law units there were four day compulsory residential schools (as they were then known). There were no distractions during these residential schools as nobody had mobile phones or ipads and students were able to focus purely on the content being delivered.’
Dr Michael Eburn
Michael applied for a job at UNE because of the positive experience he had whilst completing a Graduate Diploma in Social Science at UNE. Michael commenced as a Level A Academic in the School of Law in 1994. He was promoted to Lecturer (Level B) and then Senior Lecturer (Level C) before leaving in 2010 to take up an appointment as Associate Professor (Level D) at the Australian National University.
When Michael was first appointed, he was excited to join the other lecturers in the School. Bob Hughes was the Head of the School and he was supported by lecturers such as Susan Mendes, Me Wun Li, John Oxland, Gerry Kelly, Cliff Baker, Peter Hemphill, Geoff Lean and of course Bronwen Jackman!
Dr Peter Hemphill
Michael really enjoyed his time at the UNE School of Law. He found UNE to be ‘down to earth and practical. UNE offers many opportunities to people who otherwise may not be able to study.’ He went on to say that ‘UNE releases fabulous graduates.’ He often meets UNE School of Law alumni when they do their practical legal training (PLT) at ANU. In fact, whenever he travels Michael always seems to meet a UNE graduate as ‘they are everywhere.’
Whilst at UNE Michael taught into many units such as Civil Procedure and Evidence and Torts. He also introduced popular units such as ‘Medico- Legal Issues’ and ‘Trial Advocacy.’ Michael was best known as the lecturer in Criminal Law. In fact, Michael became so familiar with the Criminal Law course that he, along with the late Robert Hayes, wrote a specialist text book on Criminal Law and Procedure in NSW based on the UNE teaching materials. That book is now in its 5th edition. Fellow UNE academic Paul Sattler came on board as a co-author for the 4th and 5th editions.
When Michael was at UNE, he was the go-to guy for anything IT related. He was the first lecturer at the UNE School to Law to really integrate technology into his teaching. In fact, he created an interactive CD Rom for his Criminal Law unit. This was cutting edge at the time!
Barbara Avis, Dr Same Varayudej and Dr Michael Eburn
Michael is now best known as an expert in Emergency Management Law. His passion for this area started when he was a teenager. You see, Michael has been a volunteer with the emergency services since he was 13 years old. This interest turned into a profession when Michael joined the NSW Ambulance Service. When Michael was an ambulance officer, one of the issues he found most difficult to deal with was end of life decision making. He proceeded to write his master’s dissertation on this issue. When Michael came to Armidale and UNE he continued to volunteer his services first with St John Ambulance and later with the NSW State Emergency Service (SES).
When I interviewed Michael, I thought his main claim to fame was when he was featured on Channel 10’s The Project. Michael quickly corrected me and noted that his popular blog is his main claim to fame. He has 4,000 subscribers and at times his posts can reach tens of thousands of people. You can follow Michael’s blog at https://emergencylaw.wordpress.com/
Thank you Michael for sharing some of your story with us. We can’t wait to hear the rest of the story on the 17th of November!
Written by Julia Werren
