plus: And its gold! Gold for Deakin!

Deakin U is number one in the world for sports science research

and: the 12 days of a vice chancellor’s Christmas

Carols for campus

The University of Adelaide will do carols in the Bonython Hall next Thursday. Here’s the last verse of the old scholarly carol “the 12 days of a VCs Christmas, ” which they will not be singing.*

“On the twelfth day of Christmas my colleagues gave to me/ twelve Shanghai ratings/eleven budgets bleeding/ ten unions demanding/nine students protesting/ eight ATARs falling/ seven auditors counting/ six profs complaining – five first-class flights – four media calls/ three demented deans/ two research frauds and a new scheming DVC.” (* because CMM made it up last year).

Star lost

Thanks to a learned reader for the pointer to the new edition of Richtopia’s list of the world’s top 100 economists, which includes two Australians. Justin Wolfers, ex Uni Sydney and now at the University of Michigan is number five. Steve Keen is 15th. Professor Keen’s critique of classical economics has won him universal fame, except at Western Sydney University, which he left, along with a bunch of other serious economists, back in 2014. Professor Keen is now at Kingston University London in the UK.

MOOC of the morning

ANU academics Gabriele Bammer and Michael Smithson are running a second season of their (now expanded) MOOC, via edX, on Ignorance; “what it is, where it comes from, what people do with it, its roles in society and culture, and how to deal with it.”

“Knowing more about ignorance will help you to manage it and work with it. It also will help you in dealing with the unexpected, with complex problems, and even wicked problems.”

No surprise they have to offer the course as a MOOC – as if they could find ignorance at ANU.

And its gold! Gold for Deakin! Gold!

Deakin U is number one in the world in the inaugural ranking of sports sciences by the Shanghai Ranking (the team formerly known as the Academic Ranking of World Universities). The league table is based on research papers indexed in the Web of Science, citations and papers in the top 25 per cent of journals rather than team wins or professor transfer fees.

The world champion is Deakin University, ahead of Loughborough U in the UK, the University of South Carolina at Columbia, the Norwegian School of Sports Science with the University of Queensland in fifth place. Overall ten Australian universities make the world top 50, with 22 in the world-best 300. They are:

Deakin:1, Uof:5, Edith Cowan U:14, UWA:17, Victoria U:19, QUT and ACU: joint 43, Monash: 45, UniMelb:46, UniSydney:48, Griffith:51-75, Uni Newcastle: 76-100, Flinders, Murdoch, RMIT: all 101-150, Charles Sturt, Curtin, Uni Canberra, UTS, Uni Sunshine Coast: all 151-200 and Federation U and James Cook U: 201-300.

Last night ranking fans wondered whether this was the first international league table where an Australian team, sorry university, was number one in the world, and whether it was the highest score for a university outside the Group of Eight.

Too kind

Mark Gregory, outgoing CIO at the University of Adelaide farewelled colleagues yesterday as he left for a new job at Flinders U.It has been a fantastic experience … I learned plenty and we have built a world class technology team – I would wish them luck – but they don’t need it!,” he said. Um, they did in fact. Yesterday UniAdelaide’s online enrolment system had ‘issues’ and was “running very slowly.”

Employers of choice for gender equity

There are 18 education providers among the 106 organisations, ticked as employers of choice from the Workplace Gender Equality Agency, announced yesterday. They are; (student organisation) ARC @ UNSW, Australian Catholic U, Curtin U, Deakin U, Edith Cowan U, Griffith U, La Trobe U, Lauriston Girls School, Monash U, QUT, Swinburne U, Uni Canberra, Uni Newcastle, Uni Southern Queensland, UTS, Uni Wollongong, Uni Wollongong Enterprises, Western Sydney University. Deakin U is particularly pleased, reporting that this is its tenth consecutive year on the list. Swinburne U happy that 2016 is its eighth and Curtin celebrates its third.

Flinders farewells

Last night Flinders U farewelled nursing researcher Professor Eileen Wills who is retiring after 30 years, and Michael Kidd who steps down from his present post as executive dean of medicine, nursing and health sciences. Professor Kidd is returning to research in global health, primary care and health equity and will be based at Flinders U’s Southgate Institute. School of Medicine dean Paul Worley will act as executive dean from January.

HEADS UP

The weeks winners at work

The Laureate Group (Torrens U, Think Education and the Blue Mountains International Hotel Management School) announces three executive hires: Fiona Scott-Milligan (ex Media Design School New Zealand) becomes Director of Transnational Quality and Chief Academic Officer in the Office of the Vice Chancellor. Mavourneen Casey (ex head of academic studies at Torrens) becomes Research Director in the VC’s office. Gary Sanderfield is the new director of student operations in student administration.

La Trobe U’s Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health and Society has a new principal research fellow. Adam Bourne joins from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. He starts in March.

The federal government’s 2016 awards for teaching excellence are announced, with the winners being:

Teacher of the YearKaren Burke da Silva, Flinders U.

Biology and Health: Karen Burke da Silva, Flinders U. Paul Mills, University of Queensland. Mario Ricci, University of Adelaide.

Early CareerMichelle Quail, Curtin University.

Humanities and ArtsDawn Bennett, Curtin University. Gemma Carey, Griffith University. Trevor Cullen, Edith Cowan University. Tony Joel, Deakin University.

Law, Economics, Business and relatedPeter Balan, Uni South Australia. Mark Brimble, Griffith University. Gayle Kerr, QUT.

Indigenous EducationHeidi Norman, UTS.

Physical and related sciencesPaul Francis, ANU. Birgit Loch, Swinburne U.

Social and behavioural sciences: Catherine Attard, Western Sydney U, Jaclyn Broadbent, Deakin U. Lorraine Hammond, Edith Cowan U, Michael Platow, ANU

Warren Bebbington will not seek a second term as VC of the University of Adelaide. He will leave the university in April, eight months early. DVC R Mike Brooks will act as VC from May.

Yet another professor is leaving Deakin University’s law school. Louis de Koker is taking up an appointment at La Trobe. He follows Mirko Bagaric, who is going to Swinburne U and Christoph Antons who is moving to the University of Newcastle.

La Trobe U law is staffing up. In addition to Louis de Koker from Deakin U (above) Anne Wallace is moving fromEdith Cowan to become associate head of schoolMatthew Groves joins from Monash as chair of public law and Sara Smyth has left Bond U to lead a masters programme in cybersecurity lawLT U law school head Patrick Keyzer says there are more appointments to come.

Mars (the mob with the bars and a mass of other fast moving consumer goods) is funding a marketing chair at theUniversity of South Australia’s Ehrenberg Bass Marketing InstituteMagda Nenycz-Thiel, an E-B expert in buyer behaviour, on-line buying and managing the physical availability of brands will be the Mars professor.

Monash U has appointed Marc Parlange provost. The water scientist will move to Clayton from the Monash-size University of British Columbia where he is dean of applied science.

Just three weeks before David Battersby steps down as VC of Federation University his replacement is finally announced – Helen Bartlett, now a Monash PVC and head of its Malaysian operation since 2013.

Monash has appointed Susan Elliott DVC EProfessor Elliott is moving from the University of Melbourne where she is deputy provost and DVC International.

After 13 years as education dean Field Rickards will stand down from the University of Melbourne’s Graduate School of Education when his term expires next August. Professor Rickards will move into an advocacy role for improved education standards, to be announced in the new year.