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Liaison officers bridge gap between schools, uni

February 27, 2006

UNE Schools Liaison Officer Brian SeeDon't be alarmed if you see a car driving around with University of New England plates that looks as if it's been attacked with a spray can. The bold new look is designed to draw attention to UNE's highly successful Schools Liaison program, which aims to help young people bridge the gap between school and university.

The program, which has been running since January 2001, employs three Schools Liaison Officers (SLOs) to visit high schools, attend careers fairs and run parents' information sessions. The purpose of the program is to inform young people about their options when considering university study, and to promote UNE's “unique living and learning lifestyle”.

“We're on the road nine months of the year, from mid-February to late September,” SLO Brian See says. “Our target area goes north to the Queensland border, west to Dubbo and as far south as Wollongong. On top of that we attend careers markets in nearly all the capital cities.”

It's a job that involves explaining the merits of studying at a regional campus to kids who may not be able to find Armidale on a map.

“The further you get from Armidale, the less likely they are to know much about us. But once they hear we're the oldest regional university in Australia, they tend to become very interested,” Mr See says.

“It helps that many teachers and careers advisers out in the schools did their degrees here. They can cross-promote for us, and talk about their own experiences as well.”

A good SLO needs to be able to relate to a wide range of people, including school principals, parents and students. It's particularly important to be able to talk to teenagers on their own level, Mr See says.

“Sometimes you have to work hard to decipher their questions. Often they're not too sure themselves of what they want to know, and they mightn't know much about the actual process of applying to go to uni. That's where we can help them, by making available our expert knowledge on the way the whole university system works, and telling them what they have to do to get here.”

The latest weapons in the SLOs' armoury are three brightly coloured Holden Crewman utes, painted in graffiti style to promote UNE and show where Armidale is on a map of Australia. The cars have proven to be a highly effective marketing device, according to Mr See.

“We felt that since we were driving around all the time, we might as well get noticed,” he says, “so we turned the cars into moving billboards. They're getting a lot of attention. Students and people from other universities have come up to us and told us how much they like them.”

“It's great to pull into a town and everyone can see right away what we do and where we're from.”

For more information about the Schools Liaison program contact Brian See on (02) 6773 3498 or Leon Braun (UNE Public Relations) on (02) 6773 3771. A photo is available to accompany this story.

Posted by Leon Braun at February 27, 2006 03:58 PM