External students get on-campus experience

January 31, 2006

By Stephanie Hubbard

Residential schools for external students are in full swing at The University of New England. More than 350 students from throughout NSW and beyond have converged on the Armidale campus this week to attend the schools, meet lecturers, and discuss their studies with fellow students.

One of the lecturers involved, Dr Gudrun Dieberg, says there are many reasons for holding residential schools. "I think they are important because they bring students into personal contact with lecturers and other students," she said. "They also help students focus on the work in the unit."

Dr Dieberg, a Lecturer in Human Biology, is teaching a school unit included in UNE's Health Science degree program. The students attending her classes are all practising health professionals. Jen Hodge, from Sydney, is a sports and remedial massage therapist who is completing her Bachelor of Health Science degree externally. She says she enjoys residential schools because they "kick-start the learning process" and help external students to feel less isolated from the student community.

Antony Lamb, from Wollongong, is also a remedial massage therapist studying for a Bachelor of Health Science degree. He says he enjoys residential schools because they "provide a rare opportunity to meet others in the profession". He adds that, by doing his degree externally, he has the flexibility he needs to keep running his business.

As part of an intensive four-day schedule, the students involved in this unit are required to attend lectures, tutorials and practical sessions, as well as training sessions on the use of on-campus resources such as the Dixson Library.

The external students at UNE this week - many of them enrolled in teaching or nursing degree programs - are attending classes in a total of 21 different units.

UNE is recognised for its leading role in the development of distance education in Australia. The nation’s first regional university (with a history extending back to the 1930s), UNE was recently ranked seventh among Australian universities for teaching performance – ahead of many larger metropolitan universities.

The photograph displayed here shows UNE lecturers Dr Gudrun Dieberg (left) and Dr Pierre Moens (right) with Health Science students Antony Lamb (from Wollongong) and Jennifer Hodge (from Sydney).

Posted by Jim Scanlan at 04:15 PM

CWA delegates to explore the spirit of Denmark

January 30, 2006

More than 200 members of the Country Women’s Association (CWA) of NSW will gather at The University of New England this Friday for a weekend of lectures, discussions and cultural events focusing on Denmark.

The 36th Annual CWA Weekend Country of Study School will run from Friday (3 February) to Sunday (5 February). Delegates to the Study School will represent CWA branches throughout the State.

Hosted by UNE’s Earle Page College and organised by the UNE Conference Company, the Study School takes a deep and informative look at a different country each year. This year’s country is Denmark (while last year’s was Vietnam).

The lectures, to be held at UNE’s Wright Centre, will explore subjects including Danish history, society, food and festivals, travel in Denmark, and the life of the most famous Danish writer – Hans Christian Andersen. In a talk about Danish agriculture, Dr Lene Mikkelson, a Research Fellow at UNE, will outline the principal farming activities in her native Denmark, and discuss some social, economic and environmental consequences of their industrialisation. The Cultural Attache from the Royal Danish Consulate General in Sydney, Mrs Birgitte Engholm, will give a talk in which she will explain how the work of N.F.S. Grundtvig, the great Danish poet, philosopher, theologian and historian, established (in the early 19th century) the freedom-loving national consciousness of modern Denmark.

At a formal dinner on Friday evening, Mrs Engholm will present a “Welcome to Denmark”, while the Armidale Dumaresq Mayor, Councillor Peter Ducat, and the Acting Vice-Chancellor of UNE, Professor Robin Pollard, will welcome delegates to Armidale and its University.

The weekend’s program will include an ecumenical church service at St Mark’s Chapel, UNE, on Sunday morning and, on Saturday evening, an entertaining “cultural experience” drawing on Denmark’s Viking heritage.

Media contact: Sharon Gallen, UNE Conference Company, UNE (02) 6773 2987 or Jim Scanlan, Public Relations, UNE (02) 6773 3049.

Posted by Jim Scanlan at 04:42 PM

Footprints in the sands of time

January 27, 2006

An archaeologist from The University of New England has described his involvement in the discovery of hundreds of human footprints, roughly 20,000 years old, in Mungo National Park in western NSW. The footprints are the oldest to be found in Australia, and the largest collection of their type in the world.

Dr Richard Robins, an Adjunct Associate Professor in the School of Human and Environmental Sciences at UNE, was one of three authors of a paper describing the footprints, soon to be published in the Journal of Human Evolution. The other authors were Professor Steve Webb from Bond University and Dr Matthew L. Cupper from Melbourne University. Their paper describes more than 124 footprints left by children, teenagers and adults as they ran across a moist clay pan at the height of the last glaciation.

One very tall man, whose height Dr Robins and his colleagues have estimated at around 194cm (6'4”), appears to have been running at about 20kmh. Had he lived today, this prehistoric sprinter would have worn size 13 joggers. So clear are his footprints that it is possible to see where mud oozed between his toes, and where his heel slipped on the surface.

The footprints were discovered in 2003 by Mary Pappin Jr, a local Aboriginal woman, during a site inspection with local Aboriginal people and Professor Webb. Dr Robins said that “initially there was some skepticism about the find, and I was called in by Professor Webb to contribute to the investigation”.

He said visiting the site for the first time was an “incredible” experience.

“The footprints been described to me, but when I actually saw them I was a bit awestruck. It's remarkable to have a record of human occupation that is so old and so well preserved,” he said.

“The find is significant in several ways. Firstly it's a unique record of the types of activity carried out by people around the height of the last glaciation, and the results of their actions. Mostly we have to rely on stone artifacts to tell us about how people lived at that time. This find therefore compliments that knowledge in a very important way.

“Also, it gives us an idea of what sort of impact climate was having on these people. The environment was very dry at that time and the system of lakes that supported them was beginning to dry out. These footprints give us a glimpse of how they were adapting to those changes.”

The footprints were preserved in a layer of calcious clay, which was “just about the right consistency” for recording imprints. According to Dr Robins, they were then covered over by sand dunes for about 19,000 years, before the sands shifted, revealing them in all their glory.

Since the initial discovery of 89 footprints a further 400 have been found, covering an area of approximately 700 square meters. And there is more work to be done – Dr Robins estimates that only as little as one-third of the total site has been uncovered so far.

Dr Robins family has had a “long association” with UNE, beginning with his Uncle, who graduated in science when UNE was still a University College, through his mother, who was the Map Room Librarian at the university when he was a child, to his son, a recent Ph.D. graduate in Physiology. He graduated from UNE with a Bachelor of Arts in 1974 and went on to become Curator of Archaeology at the Queensland Museum, a position he held for 17 years. He currently lives in Queensland, where he operates a cultural heritage consultancy.

Posted by Leon Braun at 04:24 PM

New students tune up for the road ahead

January 25, 2006

People from throughout eastern Australia are at The University of New England this week taking part in an award-winning program that prepares new students for the academic tasks ahead.

The "tUNEup" program focuses on writing and information-technology skills, but covers a range of other skills needed by students starting university study (particularly those re-entering the education system after an absence of some years).

The week-long program is run over three successive weeks: the first two courses are for people studying by distance education, and the third course (beginning on Monday 6 February) is for on-campus students. Today – three days into the first course – students were enthusiastic, with comments including “fantastic” and “really helpful”.

“Many of the participants already have relevant skills that they have developed at work and at home,” said the course coordinator, Frances Quinn. “Now it’s a matter of applying those skills to university study.” Apart from academic writing and IT skills, the program covers study skills such as listening and note-taking, reading and research, managing anxiety, concentration and memory, using the library, and online learning. Staff members from UNE’s Teaching and Learning Centre, Dixson Library, Information Technology Directorate and Counselling and Careers Service are involved in presenting the courses.

“The program is now in its sixth year,” Ms Quinn said. “This year there is greater-than-ever emphasis on online learning procedures, such as the use of electronic bulletin boards. Communication and research tools such as these have become indispensable to students.”

The "tUNEup" program, developed in consultation with staff and students throughout the Armidale campus, won for UNE an Australian Award for University Teaching in 2002. Its use of CD-ROM is complemented by its availability in print (four booklets) and on audiotape, making it accessible to everyone, not just those attending the course.

"tUNEup" is one way in which UNE enables new and prospective students to become familiar with the University campus and student life. Another is the organised campus tours that, so far this summer, have enabled more than 500 prospective students to get a close-up view of UNE’s academic, sporting and residential facilities. (Demand for places in the residential colleges – an important part of UNE’s unique living-and-learning environment – is always strong, but a limited number of places are still available for 2006.)

THE PHOTOGRAPH displayed here shows "tUNEup" participant Kael Veenstra of Byron Bay (centre) with UNE's Frances Quinn (the course coordinator) and Stephen Cenatiempo (Operations Manager of the UNE Students' Association, which provided a "tUNEup" barbecue).

Media contact: Frances Quinn, Academic Skills Office, UNE (02) 6773 2270 or Jim Scanlan, Public Relations, UNE (02) 6773 3049.

Posted by Jim Scanlan at 04:06 PM

Mathematician wins fellowship at Swiss institute

January 24, 2006

A mathematician from The University of New England has won a post-doctoral fellowship that will allow her to return to Zurich, Switzerland, for research with her original mentor in theoretical physics.

Dr Bea Bleile (pictured here) is a graduate of the world-renowned Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) – an institution that has produced 21 Nobel Prizes. (Nine of them have been in physics, including those of Roentgen, Einstein and Bloch.)

After tutoring and lecturing in mathematics at UNE for the past 12 years, and gaining Master of Science (UNE, 1999) and PhD (University of Sydney, 2005) degrees through part-time study, Dr Bleile will return to Zurich later this year to take up the offer of a post-doctoral fellowship at ETH.

“I’m very excited about the prospect of working again with Professor Jurg Froehlich, who supervised my final-year thesis (in mathematical physics) when I was an undergraduate at ETH,” she said. “Now that I have a doctorate in mathematics, I’m looking forward to getting back to its application in theoretical physics.” (Professor Froehlich, Head of the Department of Physics at ETH, is a distinguished theoretical physicist whose many awards have included the Max-Planck Medal of the German Physical Society.)

Dr Bleile, who grew up in southern Germany only 200 km from Zurich, will be returning to family and friends as well as to her Alma Mater. “ETH is a very exciting place,” she said, “and I feel at home there. Although I’ll be based in Theoretical Physics, I’ll be in touch with the latest developments in mathematics, as the Mathematics Research Institute at ETH is a magnet for the world’s leading mathematicians.”

Another of her mentors is the famous English mathematician Peter Hilton, who was one of the team led by Alan Turing that broke Germany’s secret codes during the Second World War. It was Professor Hilton, during a visit to UNE in 1995, who introduced her to the branch of advanced mathematics known as “homological algebra”, and who encouraged her to pursue this subject in her research and her teaching. She did so, and then turned to the related subject of algebraic topology for her PhD research. “These mathematical techniques are used in theoretical physics,” she said, “and I always had in the back of my mind the idea of one day returning with them to that field. The post-doctoral fellowship is a dream come true.”

Her chief ambition is to bring back to UNE the knowledge and experience she gains in Zurich. “I came to UNE in 1993 because it was a good university with a very good mathematics department of international standing,” she said. “That reputation becomes even more obvious as you travel around Australia and find that people at other institutions take you very seriously. We have had a stream of international visitors in UNE’s School of Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science, and they all comment on the dynamic atmosphere here. I’d like to contribute what I learn to that atmosphere of mathematical adventure.”

Posted by Jim Scanlan at 04:43 PM

Australian, New Zealand historians on "intellectuals and war"

January 23, 2006

Historians from Australia and New Zealand will meet next month to examine the role of intellectuals in those nations’ involvement in – and memory of – war.

The conference, at The University of New England, will discuss, for example, the role of clergymen, journalists and historians in the creation of the “Anzac legend”.

Titled “Mars and Minerva” (after the Roman deities of “war” and “wisdom” respectively), the conference will explore wars ranging in time from the Maori Wars of the mid-nineteenth century to the current “War on Terror”. Organisers believe the conference, to be held at UNE’s Drummond and Smith College from the 4th to the 6th of February, is unprecedented in its scope.

One of the organisers, UNE’s Dr Frank Bongiorno (pictured here), pointed out that “while military history, and the history of war and society, are immensely popular in Australia today (both academically and among the general public), historians have had little to say about the role of intellectuals in wartime”.

“The experience of war has interacted with intellectual endeavour in complex ways,” Dr Bongiorno explained. “For example, the Second World War was a major period of innovation in literature and the visual arts in Australia. Wars help to disrupt old ways of seeing and understanding, and mould new perspectives and modes of expression. And, in the aftermath of war, there is an interaction of popular perception and intellectual engagement in the stories that emerge.”

In this respect, a presentation on the history of Anzac will conclude that “we do not need to choose between a sacred legend and historical reality, because we can have – and benefit from – both the cynical and the sacred. Indeed, for Anzac to speak to us with maximum effect, it needs both.”

Dr Bongiorno said that the “intellectuals” to be discussed at the conference would include scientists, poets, visual artists, linguists, bureaucrats, medical practitioners, journalists, clergymen, psychoanalysts, occultists, historians, philosophers, politicians, diplomats, labour and social movement activists, broadcasters, educators and academics. Keynote speakers will include Associate Professor Neville Meaney from the University of Sydney and Professor Joy Damousi from the University of Melbourne. Professor Damousi, whose book "Freud in the Antipodes: A cultural history of psychoanalysis in Australia" was published last year, will speak on “Freudianism, the Wars and Intellectual Life in Australia”. Dr Simon Potter from the National University of Ireland in Galway will travel to the conference to deliver a paper on radio broadcasting by Australian and New Zealand intellectuals during the Second World War. The conference program can be found at:
http://www.une.edu.au/arts/scch.htm/marsminerva.html.

This will be the Second Trevenna Conference (named after “Trevenna”, the historic house that is now the Vice-Chancellor’s residence at UNE). The first, in February 1999, resulted in a book titled "The German Empire and Britain’s Pacific Dominions, 1871-1919", published in 2000. The co-organisers of “Mars and Minerva” with Dr Bongiorno are Dr John Moses (Adjunct Professor, UNE) and UNE’s Associate Professor Iain Spence.

Media contact: Dr Frank Bongiorno, School of Classics, History and Religion, UNE (02) 6773 2088 or Jim Scanlan, Public Relations, UNE (02) 6773 3049.

Posted by Jim Scanlan at 04:28 PM

Meat judging students head to US

January 16, 2006

Three students from The University of New England will fly to the US this month after taking out first, second and third at the 16th annual Intercollegiate Meat Judging (ICMJ) contest.

Sponsored by Meat & Livestock Australia, 70 students competed in the ICMJ contest, with a further 10 students completing MSA training and five finalists selected to go on the US scholarship tour.

The three UNE finalists were Ryan Andrews, Dimity Butler and George Wragge.

During the competition students assessed beef, lamb and pork carcases according to cut and quality, as well as beef and lamb retail cuts.

Meat Standards Australia (MSA) manager Cameron Dart said he was very impressed with the high standard of applicants this year, with 10 students successfully completing an MSA course in Brisbane last month.

“Five students will tour the US to gain an understanding of the USDA grading system and processing regimes as well as to compete against US students at the National Western Stock Show in Denver,” Mr Dart said.

“A rewarding aspect of the competition is that many past competitors are today employed within the red meat industry, with many extending their careers in the processing, lotfeeding, retail, trade and R&D sectors.”

UNE Bachelor of Agribusiness student Ryan Andrews was the overall individual competition winner, taking home the “founders buckle” for the highest individual score and winning a place on the US scholarship tour.

“Following the ICMJ contest and MSA training I now feel I have the practical hands-on experience to launch my career into agriculture,” Mr Andrews said.

“After returning from the US in January I will begin a Business Law degree that will hopefully lead me into a meat trading and market access career.

“The sponsorship and training MSA has given me and so many other students over the years has been fantastic and is certainly appreciated.”

Since 1990, 1,200 students have competed in the ICMJ contest, with 75 students travelling to the US and nine touring Japan and Korea.

For more information contact Leon Braun (UNE Public Relations) on (02) 6773 3771. A photo is available to accompany this story.

Posted by Leon Braun at 11:04 AM

Campus Tours boost local economy

January 13, 2006

The University of New England has had to hire extra buses to accommodate an unprecedented number of visitors taking guided tours of the campus. Families from Sydney, Brisbane and throughout western NSW have come to Armidale to see for themselves why UNE is a great place to study.

The tours are also providing a boost for the local economy. According to NSW Tourism estimates, the average visitor to Armidale spends $106 per day. With about 650 prospective students and their families visiting UNE in January alone, that's about $70,000 being spent at local shops and hotels.

The tours, which are being conducted three times a week during January, take prospective students on a narrated journey through the university's colleges and main campus. They get a close-up look at lecture theatres, laboratories, libraries and sporting facilities. They also visit UNE's historic Booloominbah homestead, where they learn about the heritage of Australia's oldest regional university.

Many of the visitors said they were impressed by the friendly staff, beautiful grounds and modern facilities, according to UNE Schools Liaison Officer and tour conductor Brian See. Others just liked the general atmosphere.

“Most people who come here say UNE has a good feel to it,” Mr See said. “I know some people who've visited city campuses say UNE feels much more personal, and a lot friendlier.”

Armidale, too, has proved a pleasant surprise to some of the soon-to-be students.

“The town is a lot bigger than I expected,” said Lauren Shaw, 18, of Newport.

“Armidale is so beautiful and green,” said Elizabeth Walsh, 18, of Boorowra. “And it's got everything you need. It's a country town with city conveniences.”

UNE has the largest residential college system of any university in Australia. About half of all students who study on campus choose to live on campus as well. First-rate resources and support are within easy reach and there are significant cost advantages to living on campus.

Formal tours of the colleges and the university campus will continue until the end of January, and informal tours can be arranged throughout the year. To make a booking for a campus tour phone the Freecall number: 1800 818 865.

For more information contact Leon Braun (UNE Public Relations) on (02) 6773 3771. A photograph is available to accompany this story.

Posted by Leon Braun at 01:55 PM

Human trafficking a focus of major study

January 12, 2006

The trafficking of Asian women and children for sexual exploitation is one focus of a major research project under way at The University of New England.

“Such trafficking to Australia is on the increase,” said UNE’s Professor Amarjit Kaur (pictured here), who has been awarded an Australian Research Council (ARC) Discovery Grant of $224,000 for the five-year project. “The young women often believe they’re coming here as students or to work as waitresses, and end up in city brothels.”

“One of the main sources of such trafficking is Thailand,” she said, “and Chinese women are also strongly represented. Thai women are trafficked to Bahrain, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, South Africa, Taiwan, Europe and North America, as well as to Australia, and the Thai Government has committed itself to making the fight against human trafficking a national priority.”

“According to one perspective,” she explained, “human trafficking is an offshoot – or ‘diversification’ – of the traffic in illegal drugs.” She drew attention to global data published by the US Department of State indicating that, of the 600,000 to 800,000 men, women and children trafficked across international borders each year, 80 per cent are women and girls and up to 50 per cent are minors.

As a whole, Professor Kaur’s project (titled “Managing the Border: Migration, Security, and State Policy Responses to Global Governance in South-east Asia”) will examine international migration, security, and border-management strategies of Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand. (Indonesia and The Philippines, as labour-exporting countries, are also included in the study.) “The project, which aims to inform public discussion and policy development, will contribute to the process of safeguarding Australia through improved understanding of our neighbours’ State policies,” Professor Kaur said.

One of her post-graduate students, Melinda Sutherland, works in Canberra for the section of AusAID concerned with human trafficking, and is investigating the situation in Thailand as part of her PhD project. “Melinda, through her PhD research, may actually be able to influence Australian policy in regard to this issue,” Professor Kaur said.

“I’m very happy in this particular project,” she continued. “It allows me to get deeply involved in the subject I’m most passionate about: human rights.”

Amarjit Kaur, Professor of Economic History at UNE, is an international authority on many aspects of Asian labour systems – including women workers, child labour, labour migration, and labour law. Elected to the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia in 2000, she was recently appointed Chair of the Academy’s Panel for Accounting, Economics, Economic History and Statistics. A workshop titled “Migration Challenges in the Asia Pacific”, to be held at UNE in November this year, will be the second UNE workshop she has organised with funding from the Academy. (Over the years, funding bodies including AusAID, the Fulbright Program, the American Council of Learned Societies, the Toyota and Japan Foundations, the International Institute of Social History, and the Wellcome Trust have supported her work.)

Professor Kaur is collaborating with colleagues in Canberra and Tokyo on another ARC-funded project that is developing a network of people involved in the study and administration of cross-border migration in the Asia Pacific region.

Media contact: Professor Amarjit Kaur, School of Economics, UNE (02) 6773 2874 or Jim Scanlan, Public Relations, UNE (02) 6773 3049.

Posted by Jim Scanlan at 04:30 PM

UNE scientists to inspire school students

January 11, 2006

Some of The University of New England’s most distinguished scientists will inspire school students participating in a three-day science program at the University next week.

The annual Siemens Science Experience allows students entering Year 10 to get a taste of the excitement of cutting-edge science as it happens in the university laboratory and lecture room.

Dr Jim McFarlane, director of the Siemens Science Experience program at UNE, said a major aim of the program was to encourage students with an interest in science to continue their studies at school. “We want them to realise that science is relevant to a wide range of professions – not just to becoming a scientist,” he said. “Year 10 is when they start to specialise, so it’s important for them to appreciate the relevance of science at this stage.”

This year’s Siemens Science Experience at UNE will run from Tuesday 17 to Thursday 19 January. More than 60 students from schools throughout northern NSW will become involved in hands-on activities and attend entertaining short lectures. “They’re coming from along the coast to the east and as far west as Coonabarabran,” Dr McFarlane said.

“The activities are designed to give them an opportunity to use research equipment and to get a glimpse of some of the things that scientists do on a day-to-day basis,” he explained. Those activities will include making aspirin, extracting DNA, examining microbes, analysing musical sounds, and programming robots. The subjects of the lectures will range from the basic chemistry of life to the biology and behaviour of birds.

The Siemens Science Experience is a national program conducted at universities in association with local Rotary Clubs and with the support of Young Scientists of Australia and the Australian Science Teachers’ Association.

As well as attending lectures and becoming engaged in laboratory experiments and fieldwork, the students gain valuable experience of life on a university campus. At UNE there is the opportunity to stay in a student residence on campus (this year, Mary White College) and, in the evenings, to take part in a wide range of games and sporting activities at Sport UNE under the direction of trained instructors.

Media contact: Dr Jim McFarlane, School of Biological, Biomedical and Molecular Sciences, UNE (02) 6773 3201 or Jim Scanlan, Public Relations, UNE (02) 6773 3049.

The photograph of Stephanie Miller displayed here was taken during last year's Siemens Science Experience at UNE.

Posted by Jim Scanlan at 04:34 PM

UNE Heritage Centre to coordinate travelling exhibition

January 10, 2006

The University of New England’s Heritage Centre in Armidale is to coordinate a travelling historical exhibition that will tell stories about the everyday lives of women in the New England / North West region.

Titled “Women of a ‘high lean country’”, the exhibition will involve museums and historical collections in Glen Innes, Gunnedah, Inverell, Narrabri and Tamworth. The NSW Ministry of Arts has granted funding of more than $10,000 for the project.

Dr Nicole McLennan (pictured here), Curator of the UNE Heritage Centre, will train people from the local museums in the skills they will need for planning, developing, and mounting their exhibitions. She said the project represented a new, collaborative approach to historical exhibitions in the region.

“Unlike other collaborative travelling exhibitions that are developed in major metropolitan museums, this exhibition will be developed locally and travel locally,” Dr McLennan explained. “About a third of the objects, images and stories in each local display will be provided by the host museum. Through our collaboration we will all learn about the wealth of material contained in each others’ collections.”

“The travelling component of the exhibition will comprise items from the UNE Heritage Centre’s regional collections,” she continued. “It will be the first opportunity since their donation for those items to travel back to their places of origin. The exhibition will thus include material of both regional and local significance in documenting the rich social history of women throughout New England and the North West.”

“Instead of the orthodox account of women’s history – settlement, home, family, community – the exhibition will use emotive themes to organise episodes in the region’s past,” Dr McLennan said. “These episodes will not centre on grand events; rather, they will be personal recollections of everyday life.” (Items already chosen include a hand-written account by Christina Cameron from Glen Innes of the death of her nine-year-old daughter Maggy in 1867, and a scrapbook compiled by Eleanor McIntyre from the Inverell region charting the progress of the Country Women’s Association, which she helped to found in 1922.)

Work on the exhibition will begin around the middle of this year, and it is expected to go on tour in 2007. The local museums/collections involved are the Land of the Beardies Museum, Glen Innes; the Water Tower Museum, Gunnedah; Narrabri Old Gaol and Museum; Calala Cottage Museum, Tamworth; Inverell District Family History Group.

Posted by Jim Scanlan at 03:13 PM

Japanese Grandmasters to give week of martial arts training

January 09, 2006

Two Japanese martial arts Grandmasters, invited to Australia by The University of New England’s Martial Arts Club, are to conduct a week-long series of training seminars at the University.

Komei Sekiguchi is Grandmaster of the samurai sword school Komei Juku Muso Jikiden Eishin Ryu Iaijutsu, and Nobuko Shimizu is the Grandmaster of Ryoen Ryu Naginatajutsu, a combat system that uses the naginata (a two-metre pole-arm). The daily classes (9 am to 9 pm, with meal breaks) at UNE’s Wright Centre will begin on Saturday 14 January and continue till Thursday 19 January.

Sekiguchi sensei is the 21st direct-line head master of the 500-year-old school of samurai swordsmanship called Muso Jikiden Eishin Ryu, which uses live blades for most training and wooden swords for some two-man activities. Based in Tokyo, he is recognised as a Cultural Ambassador by the Japanese Government and is a director of the Nippon Budokan, Japan’s quasi-government controlling body for all traditional martial arts. He has a number of schools all over the world.

Shimizu sensei (pictured here) is the founder of Ryoen Ryu. She has, as the daughter of the Grandmaster of Japan’s oldest naginata system, studied the art of the naginata from infancy. The naginata is a classical samurai weapon today used principally by women.

UNE’s Martial Arts Club is the headquarters of “Komei Juku Australia and New Zealand”, founded by Antony Karasulas sensei in 1988. The Armidale branch has been operating for almost eight years under the authority of Sekiguchi sensei. The week of training seminars at UNE will be followed by training seminars at Komei Juku branches further north.

Antony Karasulas sensei said the training would be in the practical sword-handling methods of the Muso Jikiden Eishin Ryu, including sword-drawing and one-on-one combat techniques, and extensive study of the naginata and tanto (dagger) techniques of Ryoen Ryu. “We are proud to be hosting this visit by two of Japan’s highest-ranking martial arts exponents,” he said, “and to be providing people in our region with new insights into an important aspect of Japanese culture.”

Anyone wishing to attend the classes as a spectator, or to participate in training, can call Antony Karasulas sensei on (02) 6772 2005 or Peter Traise sensei on 0408 683 089.

Posted by Jim Scanlan at 02:46 PM

External study suits Brumbies recruit

January 06, 2006

Francis Fainifo, a 2006 recruit to the ACT Brumbies, played his first game of Rugby Union as a student at The University of New England (UNE), Armidale. The 190cm, 101kg convert from Rugby League played four seasons with UNE’s Robb College while studying for a Bachelor of Commerce degree.

Four years later, aged 22, he lives in Canberra while completing his degree by distance education, balancing study with social life and demanding training sessions. “I really enjoy the flexibility external study provides, and can still enjoy a brilliant lifestyle”, Francis said.

Francis Fainifo (pictured here) is contracted to the Brumbies for an initial 12 months and trains full-time. He is in the Brumbies’ A team, playing either wing or full-back, where his side-stepping, acceleration and speed are an asset. He looks forward to his first trial match against the NSW Waratahs on 21 January at Wollongong’s WIN Stadium.

Francis completed secondary school at Eaglevale High, Campbelltown, and came to UNE for independence and new experiences away from home and city life. “I liked living at Robb College, as it has a great family atmosphere and we stuck together,” he said. “There was always assistance in exam preparation and with assignments, and they encourage leadership.”

Francis thought one of the best features of UNE was its sports centre with the top-class gym he used four or five times a week. He felt campus social life was “fantastic”. “Although I’m a non-drinker, I’m ‘high into life’ and don’t need much motivation to enjoy myself,” he said.

When asked about his career prospects Francis said he hoped to work for one of the Super 14’s Franchise teams to pursue his love of Rugby from a business perspective. He thought his commerce degree would be very useful. “I majored in Human Resource Management and Marketing while studying finance, accounting, marketing and management, and feel the Bachelor of Commerce degree program is really well balanced,” he said. “If I am injured I will have a top degree to back me up,” he added.

Posted by Jim Scanlan at 11:12 AM

Road toll highlights need to study impact of memorials

January 05, 2006

An international authority on roadside memorials says there is an urgent need to understand the impact of such memorials on the behaviour of drivers.

Dr Jennifer Clark from The University of New England was speaking today as the national road toll for the Christmas / New Year holiday period rose to 67. “Many people report that the sight of a roadside memorial brings road-safety issues to mind,” Dr Clark said, “and those who erect such memorials often believe that they will have a beneficial impact on drivers.”

“There has been, however, no scientific attempt to find a relationship between roadside memorials and driving quality,” she explained. “Whatever the outcome of such a study, it would be useful for all those who plan, maintain and police our roads, as well as for those who erect and tend memorials.”

“The current holiday road toll reminds us that we need all the information we can get on any factor that might suggest new countermeasures to help reduce the number of crashes on our roads,” she concluded.

Dr Clark (pictured here), a Senior Lecturer in UNE’s School of Classics, History and Religion, organised the world’s first international symposium on roadside memorials – at UNE in 2004. In that year, too, she joined fellow UNE researchers in forming an interdisciplinary Death Cultures Group at the University. “Like the specific subject of roadside memorials, the general field of ‘death and dying’ is receiving increasing attention from academics,” she said. “Our group at UNE includes specialists in history, sociology, health, the arts, language, and law, and has affiliates at universities in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane.”

“In some respects, this increase in academic activity matches the movement of popular culture,” Dr Clark said. “The popularity of television programs with a forensic-medicine theme is just one example of the way in which scenes focusing on a dead body are becoming more common on our film and television screens.”

Late last year the Death Cultures Group held a symposium at UNE titled “Death in the Afternoon”. Papers presented at the symposium dealt with research undertaken or published during 2005, and included historical, aesthetic, and health-care studies, as well as a paper on roadside memorials.

Dr Clark said the group is already planning another “Death in the Afternoon” event, and hoping for an even broader range of topics. “We hope to increase our activities in 2006, and welcome proposals from researchers who would like to present their findings to the group and to other interested members of the University and the wider community,” she said.

Posted by Jim Scanlan at 04:57 PM

Mathematics workshop attracts international specialists

January 04, 2006

Mathematicians from Europe and Asia, as well as from Australia and New Zealand, will soon travel to The University of New England for a ground-breaking workshop to be held there from the 7th to the 10th of February.

The workshop’s convener, Dr Gerd Schmalz from UNE’s School of Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science, is hoping that the international meeting will initiate a series of similar events at universities around the country.

The subject of the workshop – "Several Complex Variables and CR Geometry" – is a field of higher mathematics in which Dr Schmalz (pictured here) is a specialist. He explained these techniques, developed by the nineteenth-century mathematicians Cauchy and Riemann (hence “CR”), as a way of using “complex” rather than “real” numbers to investigate and describe phenomena in multi-dimensional space. “Although these are ‘pure mathematics’ techniques,” Dr Schmalz said, “they have applications in physics – for example in special and general relativity.”

Dr Schmalz brought his expertise in Several Complex Variables (SCV) with him when he moved to UNE last February from the University of Bonn in Germany. He said he had brought with him, too, the idea of organising a workshop. This, with the support of his international colleagues and the collaboration of fellow UNE mathematician Dr Adam Harris, soon began to take shape.

While the workshop has attracted participants from overseas countries including South Korea and Russia, Dr Schmalz expects it to be followed by visits to UNE from Swiss, German and Swedish specialists in the subject. “SCV is a growing field in mathematics,” he said. “It is particularly popular in the United States, South Korea and Japan, as well as in a number of European countries. Australia, too, is developing a strong presence in the field, and the UNE workshop demonstrates that we now have the ability to attract leading international specialists to this country.”

Financial support from the Australian Mathematical Science Institute is covering the local expenses of the workshop participants, and could also help post-graduate students attend the meeting. “We are hoping that some of the participants will be able to bring post-graduate students with them,” Dr Schmalz said. “This might even include those from South Korea – a country that is seeing a particularly rapid development in science and mathematics.”

He explained that SCV was closely related to other fields of pure mathematics, including algebra, geometry, and partial differential equations. “The latter field will be the subject of another UNE workshop, being organised by Associate Professor Yihong Du, to be held in July this year,” he continued.

Media contact: Dr Gerd Schmalz on (02) 6773 3182 (e-mail: gerd@turing.une.edu.au), or Jim Scanlan (UNE Public Relations) on (02) 6773 3049.

Posted by Jim Scanlan at 04:32 PM

Project looks at tax incentives to help the environment

January 03, 2006

The University of New England’s Australian Centre for Agriculture and Law (AgLaw Centre) has received a Land and Water Australia grant to investigate the use of tax incentives to boost private investment in the environment.

Professor Paul Martin (pictured here), Director of the AgLaw Centre, said the Federal Government’s increasing need to direct financial resources to the health and welfare of Australia’s ageing population made the introduction of privately-funded conservation measures “absolutely imperative”. “There might, for example, be tax incentives for primary producers using minimum-till procedures or maintaining green corridors, or implementing weed removal or soil conservation programs,” he said.

The $70,000 grant will allow the AgLaw Centre to work creatively with its collaborators, including the national financial planning organisation Godfrey Pembroke, the Sydney-based accounting firm Dormer’s, and the Macquarie University Centre for Environmental Law. Contributions from those collaborators will be worth an additional $80,000 and, with a $40,000 contribution from the AgLaw Centre itself, total funding for the project will be $190,000. “We’ll be combining the knowledge of our collaborators with our own tightly-focused research, documenting the result, and then evaluating the options that emerge legally and politically,” Professor Martin explained.

“The project seeks to marry existing taxation structures (such as managed investment schemes, tax-leveraged donations, and growth or research-financing initiatives) with market instruments such as tradeable credits, offsets, and ecosystem services,” he continued. “We aim to deliver privately funded conservation arrangements on both public and private lands, accelerated investment into technologies and services supporting sustainability goals, and fair sharing of the burdens of ‘public good’ conservation costs.”

“This is the AgLaw Centre’s first nationally competitive grant,” Professor Martin said, “and the project fits perfectly with the Centre’s aim of using its expertise in law, government policy, agriculture and natural resources to contribute to developments in both sustainability and primary industry. The project has the support of NSW Farmers and WWF Australia.

“We believe it is Australia’s first major attempt to use taxation and market instruments together to create a strong positive investment incentive for sustainability. Most prior endeavours have focused on cost offsets, not the possibility of more generous incentives.”

Media contact: Professor Paul Martin, Director, AgLaw Centre, UNE (02) 6773 3811 or Jim Scanlan, Public Relations, UNE (02) 6773 3049.

Posted by Jim Scanlan at 04:12 PM