But where’s the one already finished

The 2022 Student Experience Survey opened yesterday, with universities encouraging people to complete.

Yes that SES, the basis of the excellent Quality Indicators for Learning and Teaching. Good to see the new one is underway. Perhaps it will encourage the Government to release the 2021 edition – which, with Open Days on and early offer decisions not far away, is needed by prospective students now.

In Features this morning

Zoe Terpening (UNSW) on the extraordinary potential of health precincts to radically transform health care. “Universities are electing to put their research spaces within the four walls of our hospitals – a huge step forward in bringing academia closer to the patient bedside,” she writes.

plus Helping disengaged students can start with a phone call. Kelly Linden and Chris Campbell (Charles Sturt U) set out what to do in Commissioning Editor Sally Kift’s new selection for her celebrated series Need now in learning and teaching.

“There’s nothing boring about tunnels,” UNSW headlines a story about constructing “underground” tunnels

It’s a very  Sydney https://www.sydneymetro.info/tunnelling  story

The university is “on track to have a teaching location” there

Uni Wollongong plans to teach finance, business and STEM programmes at a greenfield property development for financial service companies, in the Gujarat-state city of Ahmedabad.

There was a signing ceremony Wednesday , attended by the university’s dean of business and law Colin Picker, NSW trade minister Stuart Ayres and an unnamed bloke in the photo who looked rather like High Commissioner Barry O’Farrell.

“We are delighted to be the first Australian university on track to have a teaching location in India,” Professor Picker said.  The university states that teaching will occur, “within a partnership or on a stand-alone basis.“

Teaching local and international students could begin in May, “subject to Indian regulations.”

There is no word on student numbers or whether courses will articulate to the university’s campus in Wollongong.

While UoW has been looking at Gujarat for at least five years this plan appears intended to make the most of the interim India-Australia free trade agreement, signed last year.

Which a licence to print money is not.*

Still, UoW is game to get on the ground – which is probably wise. As Macquarie U director for India Abizer Merchant told Dirk Mulder in CMM, “Indian providers will look for mutual benefit rather than simply articulating their students into Australian degrees (CMM June 16, HERE).

* according to the Commonwealth Department of Education, (CMM May 27) India will now allow,

twinning programme: 30 per cent of a qualification awarded by an Indian university can be studied at a foreign university, “through a conventional mode of study”

joint degree: syllabus jointly created by Indian and off-shore partners, minimum 30 per cent studied with the latter

dual degree: Not what it means in Australia. In India it is two degree in the same field and academic level. 30 per cent of total credits must be from the Indian university and subjects completed at either count to the degrees from both.

The government introduced bills to abolish the National Skills Commission and establish Jobs and Skills Australia into the Reps on Wednesday yesterday the Senate referred them both to its Education and Employment Legislation Committee

The committee is required to report on both by September 23.

The version of the latter to be considered by the Senate may be a bit different, appearing after the Skills summit at the start of September.

But the government clearly wants it known that it is not mucking around on what it appears to consider a foundation reform

Studying history needs be about more than picking up generic skills

Historians split on how to pitch to students. “The employment value of history degrees needs to be better communicated,” except that, doing so“ should not be at the expense of recognition of the more holistic value of history study in preparing individuals to navigate complex social and ethical issues at work and as citizens,” (CMM July 5).

But Kathleen Neal and Nicholas Ferns (Monash U) suggest in a new article that history teaching must be defended on “the deep disciplinary particularities of its habits of analysis and evaluation.”

And that means teaching how to critically read primary sources, to “adopt an open-minded yet sceptical stance towards evidence; to seek the particulars of its time, space and production before exercising judgement; and to recognise that moving to judgement in the absence of such understanding is premature and flawed.”

Their paper presents ways to teach primary sources and why claims that studying history teaches “general skills” cases depend on them.

“In the absence of disciplinary content, general skills are effectively empty of meaning: without learning and practising them in the context of a certain set of epistemological stances and substantive information, students do not actually acquire the disciplinary grounding from which truly transferable skills can grow.”

Kathleen B Neal and Nicholas Fern, “Primary sources, pedagogy and the politics of tertiary history in Australia,” History Australia,19 (2022).

Of the day

 The Queensland Government announces 2022 Education Horizon research grants ($36000-$99 000 to,

* Dawn Adams, Griffith U (supportive and inclusive physical environments for students on the autism spectrum) * Rebecca Armstrong, (Uni Queensland) (classroom comms for children with Developmental Language Disorder)  * Stephen Billet, Griffith U (industry partnerships for post-school pathways)  * Jennifer Cartmel, Griffith U (practises in outside school hours care) * Michael Cowling, CQU (digital safety cultures in schools)  * Susan Hopkins, Uni Southern Queensland (inclusive social media literacy) * Margaret Kettle, QUT (multilingual glossary of school-based terminology) * Natasha Matthews, Uni Queensland (metacognition and emotional regulation in academic wellbeing)  * Francisco Perales, Uni Queensland (school-level factors influencing Indigenous student outcomes) * Louise Phillips, Southern Cross U, (global citizenship literacies and leadership)  * Tasha Riley, Griffith U (“indigenising classroom”) * Matthew Sanders, Uni Queensland (professional development for sustainability education) * Claire Wyatt-Smith, Australian Catholic U (encouraging career changers into teaching) * Kate Williams QUT (neuroscience for early childhood education) *

 Of the week

Six emerging research leaders join the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences mentor programme. * James Chong, cardiologist. Westmead IMR and Uni Sydney * Tomas Kalincik, clinical outcomes research. Uni Melbourne and Royal Melbourne Hospital * Francine Marques, genetics, genomics. Monash U * Lisa Moran, health lifestyle research. Monash U. * Suzanne Nielsen, addiction research. Monash U. * David Scott, emerging leadership fellow, Deakin U.

The Australia and New Zealand Society for Cell and Developmental Biology announces Jose Polo (Uni Adelaide) receives the 2022 president’s medal. Kelly Smith (Uni Melbourne) has the emerging leader award.

 Christy Collis moves from Uni Southern Queensland to become provost at both the Australian Institute of Professional Counsellors and International College of Hotel Management.

 The Department of Defence Science and Technology Group announces its inaugural research partner awards, including Sarah Zhang (Western Sydney U) for collaborative research and Uni Wollongong for enterprise collaboration.

At Flinders U Michelle Picard will become PVC Learning & Teaching Innovation. She moves from Murdoch U. Chris Brebner becomes inaugural PVC Curriculum Impact, moving from interim PVC Learning and Teaching.

Evelyn Goh (ANU) is elected a corresponding fellow of the British Academy.

Miranda Harman becomes Comms Team Manager  at Uni Tasmania. It’s an internal appointment.

Jane den Hollander (former VC Deakin U, Murdoch U and UWA) becomes an honorary fellow of Cardiff University. So does former prime minister Julia Gillard. Professor den Hollander did her PhD at Cardiff U.

Brett Mitchell (Avondale U) wins the Commonwealth Health Minister’s 2022 Award for Excellence in Health and Medical Research. Professor Mitchell works on healthcare-associated infection.

Alison Pennington from The Australia Institute joins La Trobe U as an adjunct senior research fellows with the Philosophy, Politics and Economics programme.

Simon Ridings starts as Swinburne U’s DVC External Engagement in September. He moves from Edith Cowan U.

Science and Technology Australia announces committee appointments. STEM sector policy: Kate McGeoch (ARC Centre of Excellence in Exciton Science), Miloš Tanurdžić (Uni Queensland) and Vanessa Wong (Monash U). Equity, diversity and inclusion: Muneera Bano (CSIRO) Kate Callaghan (CSIRO), Corey Tutt (Deadly Science) and Sumeet Walia (RMIT).

David Llewellyn is Victoria U’s inaugural chief marketing officer. He comes from the Bellweather Agency, which he founded in 2017. He joins Corrina Langelaan who started in June as media and corporate comms director, moving from Uni Melbourne.