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Features
Bums on seats
“Senior faculty management restructures are like a game of musical chairs, except that when the music stops, there are MORE chairs,” veteran HE policy person Catey R, via Twitter, yesterday.
There’s more in the Mail
In Features this morning
Merlin Crossley (UNSW) makes a case for his university publishing students’ course evaluations.
plus Simon Bedford (Western Sydney U) on the university’s new teaching and learning Badugulang Centre. This week’s selection by Commissioning Editor Sally Kift for her celebrated series, Needed now in teaching and learning.
and James Guthrie and John Dumay (Macquarie U)examine how their research performance is analysed in rankings and issues it points to.
When Lismore went under Southern Cross U stood up
In Feature this morning the university’s Dean Gould describes how SCU people saved lives and how the Lismore campus became a safe haven for survivors, providing shelter and services essential in the crisis and which will be needed for weeks, months, to come.
“It’s a role not mentioned in its Founding Act, not part of the TEQSA assessment criteria, not clearly defined in the rules of progression. But it is a role that is central to its purpose, to its soul and to its community,” he writes.
Universities in general talk up community service. When push came to flood the people of Southern Cross U delivered.
Low cost science-sell
Science Minister Melissa Price announces Science Week grants, which go to projects that “show us how much we use science in our everyday life”
Total funding is only $500 000 which won’t ever pay to service a quantum thingatron but education teams still applied, including;
* ANU’s “surprising, accessible and compelling examples of everyday mathematics”
* the National Indigenous Science Education Programme’s four-day celebration of “traditional and contemporary Indigenous knowledge in science and technology” in Redfern, Sydney
* a mobile-lab demonstration of the effect of heart and kidney disease, travelling the Northern Territory, from the Menzies School of Health Research
* what to feed one’s butterflies from the Australian Butterfly Sanctuary
* Uni Adelaide’s ideas for an urban forest
* Uni Tas research projects across the state
* a road trip by the Dark Matter Particle Physics centre (the one in the ex-goldmine at Stawell)
* practical chemistry at Edith Cowan U
Dialling for dollars at Monash U
The university tells alumni that if they want to access the alumni site they need to provide their mobile number
It’s to protect their data by using multifactor authentication – log on and a once-only access code is sent to their phone.
The university says it wants to use mobile numbers for MFA and also “for the purposes set out” in the alumni and associated “data protection privacy collection statement.”
MU specifies a bunch of reasons why it might get in touch, including, “to inform you of opportunities to engage with and support the university.”
Monash is quite clear that people “can manage communication preferences” on the site but not opting-out may be very handy for those who want to know how to “support the university”, in their will, for example.
Senator calls for Auditor General to examine U Tas into town
Despite a keg of consultation, Uni Tasmania’s plan to move most of the Hobart campus into the CBD continues unpopular
And Liberal senator for the state Eric Abetz, has asked the Australian National Audit Office to have a look at the plan to assess whether it is value for “substantial sums of taxpayer dollars which find their genesis from the Federal Government and fee paying students under the HEC Scheme.”
To which Auditor General Grant Hehir responds he “will consider the matter … as part of the work programme consultation process.”
The programme will not be published until July, but in the meantime Senator Abetz can tell constituents he tried. This may be of some help in the imminent election campaign where he is in the difficult third spot on the Liberal Party ticket for the upper house.
Appointments achievements
Of the day
Moira O’Bryan (Uni Melbourne) wins the Society for the Study of Reproduction’s International Scientist Award.
Steven Roberts (Monash U) joins the board of the (British) Sociology Journal
Of the week
The Australian Academy of Science major 2022 honours go to, Liz Dennis (CSIRO) – Ruby Payne-Scott Medal and Steve Simpson (Uni Sydney) – Macfarlane Burnett Medal. All the academy’s awards were in CMM yesterday.
Amy Baxter (Molecular Science) wins La Trobe U’s 2022 Tracey Banivanua Mar Fellowship for a researcher with major care-giving responsibilities.
Kathy Belov is interim DVC R at Uni Sydney, pending Emma Johnston arriving in July.
Gary Bowman becomes MBA Director at Uni Adelaide. He moves from Bond U.
Karen Francis becomes dean of Nursing and Midwifery at Charles Darwin U.
Mark Hatwell joins regulator TEQSA as director of registration and courses. He was previously at Monash U.
Data scientist Jeremy Howard becomes an Uni Queensland honorary professor in the IT and Electrical Engineering school. He will teach a short-course on coding, starting April.
Yuri Kivshar (ANU) receives the Max Born Prize from Optica (“the leading society in optics and photonics”). It’s for theoretical/experimental physical optics.
Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre announces its Lea Medalists (for EMCR women researchers) are Junyun Lai and Michelle Yong
Max Nelson U (Uni SA) is Exercise and Sports Science Australia’s Accredited Exercise Scientist of the Year.
The NSW 2022 Women of the Year include, Anna Barwick (PhD student, Uni New England) and Julie Redfern (Uni Sydney).
Stuart Robert continues as Acting Minister for Education and Youth, in addition to his portfolio of Employment, Workforce, Skills, Small and Family Business. Previous education minister Alan Tudge is on the backbench.
Utte Roessner joins ANU as Academic Director, Research Initiative and Infrastructure. She moves from Uni Melbourne.
The 2022 members of the Western Australia’s Women’s Hall of Fame include, * Donna Cross (Telethon Kids Institute) * Paola Magni (Murdoch U) * Britta Regli-von Ungern-Sternberg (UWA)