UNE / News and Events
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Public Relations and Corporate Communications Manager
John Kauter
(02) 6773 2779
Public Relations Specialist/Journalist
Jim Scanlan
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Leon Braun
(02) 6773 3771
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David Elkins
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Events Coordinators
Kerry De Jong
(02) 6773 3955
and
Tracey James
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Kathleen Harper
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Ross M. W. Bennetts
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Posted by rbennett at 09:48 AM
Students living at the University of New England's Earle Page College have begun their annual program of fund-raising activities that, last year, raised $30,000 for the Children's Medical Research Institute.
Now in its 29th year, the Earle Page College charity campaign includes the sale of a discount card sponsored by 41 local businesses. Purchasers of the $10 card can get ongoing discounts of up to 15 per cent – or a range of special deals – from participating businesses until the end of November.
The Vice-Chancellor of UNE, Professor Alan Pettigrew, bought one of the discount cards this week when he officially launched this year's campaign. Professor Pettigrew, the campaign's Patron, said he was "very happy to support it for the third year in succession". "The students' involvement in raising funds for a worthwhile charity adds to their own lives as well as the reputation of the University," he said. "It is one of the highlights of their time at Earle Page College."
While the campaign has already raised about $13,000 this year through donations and the sale of the discount card to students, its official launch marks the beginning of a series of fund-raising events – including a fashion parade and a charity auction – culminating in September in the annual Armidale to Coffs Harbour Coast Run which gives the entire campaign its name. The organisers of the Coast Run are inviting UNE staff members to contribute to the campaign by buying one of the discount cards.
Continue reading "College continues a great charitable tradition"
Posted by Jim Scanlan at 12:23 PM
"Are animals autistic savants?" This intriguing title of a recently-published scientific paper gives some idea of the exciting questions that today's researchers in animal behaviour are asking.
In answering this question in the negative, the authors of the paper (Giorgio Vallortigara, Allan Snyder, Gisela Kaplan, Patrick Bateson, Nicola Clayton and Lesley Rogers) draw on a body of research that, over the past 30 years, has successfully demolished some long-held assumptions about the essentially "primitive" nature of cognitive processes and abilities in animals.
At the forefront of that research has been one of the paper's authors – Emeritus Professor Lesley Rogers of the University of New England. Professor Rogers's pioneering work – together with that of her colleagues and students – has shown that the well-known specialisation of the left and right sides of the brain for different aspects of cognition and behaviour, long thought to be unique to humans and a mark of our more "advanced" cognitive function, is also characteristic of many animal species.
This Thursday, the 27th of March, Professor Rogers will give the opening Plenary Lecture at the 35th annual conference of the Australasian Society for the Study of Animal Behaviour (ASSAB), organised by her UNE colleague Professor Gisela Kaplan who is also an international authority on animal behaviour and a joint author of the "autism" paper. The title of Professor Rogers's lecture, in which she will survey the latest results of research on brain asymmetry, will be "Social and cognitive behaviour of animals with asymmetrical brains". The conference will then proceed with 42 spoken papers and about 30 posters covering a huge range of species and behaviours: from navigation by ants and food hoarding by birds to dolphin social networks and "courtship effort in a desert-dwelling fish".
Continue reading "Conference to explore complexities of animal behaviour"
Posted by Jim Scanlan at 12:56 PM
The University of New England is joining an innovative program that prepares women who are students of business, finance, accounting, economics or law for their entry into professional life.
The Lucy Mentoring Program, established in 2004 by the Office for Women within the NSW Department of Premier and Cabinet, matches each participating student with a mentor who is a working professional in either the public or the private sector.
UNE joins the Universities of Sydney, New South Wales, Western Sydney, and Newcastle in the program, which has already increased employment opportunities for more than 240 women students across the State.
An information session at UNE on Wednesday 26 March will introduce the program to potential participants, and the program itself will operate between May and October this year. It involves a "work-based activity" totalling 35 hours in the mentor's workplace, and professional-development meetings with other "Lucy" students and staff of UNE Student Assist.
Those eligible for the program are undergraduate women studying business, finance, accounting, law or economics who live in the region, have been performing well in their studies (averaging a credit), and have gained at least 96 credit points towards their degree.
Continue reading "'Lucy' prepares women for careers in business, law"
Posted by Jim Scanlan at 05:49 PM
The University of New England, which already provides course material and tuition to students of German, French, Chinese and Italian at several other universities, has now added Indonesian to the list.
UNE began providing Indonesian to the University of Southern Queensland (USQ) earlier this month – an arrangement that follows the signing of a collaborative agreement last year.
Using the "UNE Blended Model", developed in 2004 by Associate Professor Kerry Dunne together with Professor Michael Macklin (who was Dean of Arts at the time), UNE began delivering German courses to the University of Newcastle in 2005. The success of this venture led to collaboration with James Cook University in north Queensland - collaboration that now sees the provision of UNE courses in German, French, Chinese and Italian to that university. USQ is the first university to offer Indonesian through such an arrangement with UNE.
The collaborative arrangement means that UNE provides the course material, access to Web-based bulletin boards and online discussions, and a local tutor for face-to-face tuition of on-campus students. USQ for its part provides all the necessary facilities for the students and their tutor.
Dr Zifirdaus Adnan (pictured here), the Convener of Indonesian at UNE, said that USQ had opted to collaborate with UNE in this way when its one lecturer in Indonesian was about to retire at the end of last year. As part of the planning process, he said, the Associate Dean (Academic) of USQ's Faculty of Arts, Dr Rhod McNeill, had visited UNE for discussions with himself, Dr Dunne (now Transitional Head of UNE's School of Arts) and other UNE staff members. "Such arrangements allow the provision of courses that – considering the relatively small numbers of students – might not otherwise be viable," he said.
Continue reading "UNE provides Indonesian courses to collaborating campus "
Posted by Jim Scanlan at 05:37 PM
More than 120 students have embarked on a new Bachelor of Criminology degree course at the University of New England that is unique in its interdisciplinary structure and rural focus.
The students have a wide range of interests and ambitions, and the course accommodates them all. It covers crime control and prevention, criminal law, forensic science, forensic anthropology, social policy, and the sociology of crime. The students are aiming at careers ranging from specialist roles in the Police Force to crime-related work in community services.
One of them – Candice Chapman (pictured here) from Sydney – said she had had a long-term ambition to join the Police Force, and was "particularly interested in criminal psychology". "But I wanted a rounded education to start with – something to fall back on," she said.
"UNE's Bachelor of Criminology degree program is unique in its range of interdisciplinary offerings, drawing from the sciences, the humanities, law and sociology," said the program's coordinator, Dr John Scott. "We consider that this diversity accurately reflects the broad range of perspectives that have contributed to contemporary criminological thought."
"What is especially exciting about the program is the way in which students will have an introduction to diverse aspects of criminology, ranging from the applied to the theoretical – from criminal profiling to crime policy," Dr Scott continued. "In first year they undertake a foundation program in sociology, criminology and forensic science, before starting a specialist program of upper-level criminology units. And, taking into consideration the fact that students want flexibility in designing their own pathway, the program allows them to include up to eight electives of their own choice from anywhere within the University."
Continue reading "New criminology course uniquely varied"
Posted by Jim Scanlan at 05:38 PM
Medical historian Dr George Weisz, an Adjunct Lecturer at the University of New England, has prepared an exhibition on what he calls "the darkest page in the history of medicine" that will be on display at the Sydney Jewish Museum (pictured here) from 30 March until 15 June.
UNE Adjunct Professor Randall Albury – also a medical historian – will formally open the exhibition, titled "Nazi Medicine, 1933-1945", at 4.30 pm on 30 March.
Dr Weisz said he hoped the exhibition, documenting the perversion of medical ethics under the Third Reich, would be instructive to contemporary society. "Cases of unethical experimentation and other medical abuses are still reported from time to time," he said, "and this leads me to ask whether the lesson of Nazi medicine has been learnt. We need to retell this grim story as a reminder to those who have forgotten it – and as a warning to those who were born much later and have never heard it – so that we never allow these terrible events to be repeated."
Dr Weisz, a retired medical practitioner, spent more than two years preparing the exhibition, which comprises a series of large-format posters. Following a long career as an orthopaedic surgeon, he completed a BA degree program majoring in history and an MA program with a focus on the history of medicine in the Renaissance. In addition to publishing a wide range of historical papers as a single author, he has co-authored several articles with Professor Albury.
Continue reading "Exhibition casts light on medicine's 'darkest page'"
Posted by Jim Scanlan at 04:51 PM
Dogs and their owners are enthusiastic participants in research at the University of New England aimed at improving the health and welfare of "man's best friend".
Dr Wendy Brown started dog research at UNE in 1997. "UNE doesn't own any dogs," she said. "I borrow people's pets for all of my research activities, and return them to their owners at the end of their stay."
The dogs are well cared for, and, in return for their participation, they receive free veterinary treatments, health care products or dog food, so that the dogs themselves benefit. "Armidale dog owners have been particularly cooperative in allowing their dogs to participate in various research projects over the years," Dr Brown said.
"It is illegal to use pound dogs for research in NSW," she explained, "and for some institutions this has led to the use of animals that are 'purpose-bred' and maintained for research. At UNE, however, we conduct only non-invasive dog research, so borrowing people's pets is a realistic and kinder option than having a colony of purpose-bred dogs that would never have a loving home to go to."
Dr Brown's research at UNE is in collaboration with the WALTHAM Centre for Pet Nutrition in the UK.
Continue reading "Pet owners cooperate in 'dog-friendly' research"
Posted by Jim Scanlan at 05:34 PM
Two prominent authorities on the complex combination of factors underlying climate change will explain those factors and their possible impact on future weather patterns in a free public presentation at the University of New England on Wednesday evening [12 March].
UNE's Associate Professor Robert Baker (pictured here) is well known for his work linking long-term patterns of climate and sea-level change with cycles of solar activity (including sun spots), and Professor Garry Willgoose from the University of Newcastle is the Director of that university's Centre for Climate Impact Management.
This event, hosted by the Northern Group of Engineers Australia (Newcastle Division), will begin with free drinks and nibbles at 6.30 pm in UNE's McClymont Building (Lecture Theatre 1), where the talks will begin at around 7 pm. It will follow a function – also hosted by Engineers Australia – to welcome the first students to embark on UNE's new Bachelor of Engineering Technology degree program.
Dr Baker will argue that focusing simply on reducing carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere will not solve the problem. "Carbon dioxide is a major contributor to global warming," he said, "but it is just one part of a complex system. We have to understand the system as a whole. And even if we consider only the human-generated elements of that system, there might well be other contributors – such as aerosols – more significant than carbon dioxide."
Continue reading "Experts to explain mechanisms of climate change"
Posted by Jim Scanlan at 05:54 PM
For the first time, students at all eight of the University of New England's Regional Access Centres have joined each other – as well as students at the UNE Tamworth Centre and a UNE staff member at the University's Armidale campus – in a single video conference.
Twenty-one students at the Tamworth Centre joined five in Inverell, four in Coonabarabran, two in Moree, two in Narrabri, and one each in Gunnedah, Quirindi, Tenterfield and Glen Innes for a two-hour study skills workshop on Wednesday evening.
The workshop enabled the 38 students to overcome the barriers of regional isolation and share each other's experiences, as well as gain information essential for their academic success. Conducted by Academic Skills Adviser Julie Godwin, it covered important aspects of planning, researching, and writing an essay. Although there have been many such workshops through the Regional Access Centres since they opened in 2004, this was the first time that all of them have been involved simultaneously.
Anne Reynolds, one of the students who participated in Coonabarabran, said the interaction with the instructor and the other students – including the ability to ask questions – had enhanced the learning experience for her. "The information was presented right in front of me," she said. "Now I've got a good idea of how to go about my first assignment."
The Access Centres, and the communications network linking them to each other and the University, are much more than a means of delivering information to students throughout the region. They enable students to meet each other – both face-to-face at one or other of the Centres, and at a distance over the network – to discuss ideas and the process of learning.
"We do feel remote here," said Ms Reynolds, who is studying for a Bachelor of General Studies / Bachelor of Teaching degree, "and that's why it's so important to us."
Continue reading "Remote students meet in comprehensive video link"
Posted by Jim Scanlan at 04:55 PM
