STONEHENGE Internet of another era? · Victoria through its four regional campuses. Th e University recently commissioned Compelling Economics to analyse both its direct output and

Autumn 2010

WINGED WARRIORSsave our rivers(PG08)

DEMENTIA RESEARCH$6 million funding boost(PG03)

VIEWPOINT:Paying for a smarter country (PG13)

REGIONAL CAMPUSESTheir key economic role(PG02)

STONEHENGE STONEHENGE Internet Internet of another era?of another era?(PG07)

21233 Bulletin Autumn10 v6 FA.indd 121233 Bulletin Autumn10 v6 FA.indd 1 22/03/10 12:00 PM22/03/10 12:00 PM

NEWS

La Trobe University Bulletin

COUNTRY CAMPUSESEconomic role measured 2

TACKLING DEMENTIA With new funding boost 3

GREEK STUDIESNew directions 3

JOINING FAIR TRADERSCoffee with conscience 4

NEW INSTITUTEFor social participation 5

REGIONAL PARAMEDICIntake put to test 6

REFUGEE STUDENTSNew support program 6

STONEHENGE Prehistory’s Wikipedia? 7

WINGED WARRIORSProtection for our rivers 8

SOIL STUDIESGetting more water from less 9

WORLDS IN TRANSITIONChallenge for government 10

INTERNATIONAL ROLEFor Library Head 11

THE TASK FOR CYPRUSTake risks to end separation 12

VC’s VIEWPOINTPaying for a smarter country 13

HAVE COCONUTEight legs, will travel 14

IPOD ED @ LA TROBEA touch ahead 15

CAMPUS WETLANDSCleaner waterways for all 16

Key economic role in regional Victoria The fi gures are on the board – La Trobe University spends millions of dollars and generates thousands of jobs in country Victoria through its four regional campuses. Th e University recently commissioned Compelling Economics to analyse both its direct output and fl ow-on benefi ts produced by staff and students at regional campuses.

‘Th is is an exciting time for the growth of La Trobe,’ says Vice-Chancellor Professor Paul Johnson. ‘Th e report highlights how important it is for regional communities to have campuses in their areas.’

It is about a year since the University released its Regional Strategic Plan. Th is was followed by the creation of a Regional Offi ce to support La Trobe’s commitment to the regions.

‘We set out to achieve three things in particular: to increase educational opportu-nity for students in country Victoria, to boost our regional research capacity, and to broaden our engagement with these communities,’ Professor Johnson says.

Th e University has just released its Regional Community Report which, he says, ‘demonstrates that we are keeping our promises and ticking many of these boxes’.

Pro Vice-Chancellor Regional, Professor Hal Swerissen, says the University is the major provider of higher education services in regional Victoria. Campuses are located

in Bendigo, Shepparton, Albury-Wodonga and Mildura.

He says the report by Compelling Economics found that combined, these campuses contribute $282.7 million to the regional cities in which they are located.

‘Th e Bendigo campus and its students contribute $201.4 million per annum to Bendigo’s Gross Regional Product, Albury-Wodonga contributes $50.3 million in its area, Mildura $18.5 million and Shepparton $12.5 million.’

Students spend $107m

Once fl ow-on impacts are accounted for, expenditure by the University and its students supports a total of 2,939 jobs – 2,099 in Bendigo, 515 in Albury-Wodonga, 195 in Mildura and 130 in Shepparton.

‘Each year students spend more than $107 million across the four regional campuses; $76.3 million in Bendigo, $18.0 million in Albury-Wodonga, $6.8 million in Mildura and $6.6 million in Shepparton,’ says Professor Swerissen. •

Details of the Regional Community Report are on the La Trobe University website.

Bendigo campus


NEWS

3La Trobe University Bulletin Autumn 2010

ILIAD TO INTERNETNew Director of Greek Studies

Professor Chris Mackie – an internationally recognised scholar whose research ranges from ancient classics like the Iliad to the world of the internet and interactive digital learning – has been appointed Professorial Director of La Trobe University’s Research Centre for Greek Studies.

He was formerly Associate Professor in Classics and Archaeology at the University of Melbourne where he established successful research linkages with colleagues in a range of academic disciplines.

With a PhD from the University of Glasgow, Scotland, his earlier research was on the Roman poet Vergil. Since then he has focused on the Homeric epics, Greek mythology, and modern responses to ancient cultures.

In 2002 he led a team of scholars that joined forces with the ABC to produce the Greek mythology education website Winged Sandals. Among other accolades, the site won a Gold World Medal in the New York Festival Interactive Awards in 2004 and took out the ‘Best of the Best’ and Best eLearning prizes in the 2003 Australian Interactive Media Industry Association Awards.

His current research, with Professor Antonio Sagona from the University of Melbourne, analyses the Gallipoli campaign in the context of the Greek-Homeric-Trojan legends. It also involves an archaeological analysis

Funds boost dementia research and education

continues PG11

AUSTRALIA’S AGED population will benefi t from more than $6 million for dementia research and education involving La Trobe University as a result of new grants from the Department of Health and Ageing.

Director of the University’s Institute for Social Participation and Head of the Australian Centre for Evidence Based Aged Care (ACEBAC), Professor Rhonda Nay, says $2 million will extend the work of the Victorian and Tasmanian Dementia Training Study Centre (DTSC) based on La Trobe’s Bundoora campus.

Th e La Trobe-led DTSC – one of fi ve in Australia – carries out education, training and doctoral research in collaboration with Monash University, Alzheimer’s Australia (Vic & Tas), Bundoora Extended Care Centre, the National Ageing Research Institute, Bendigo Health, St Vincent’s Health and the Universities of Melbourne and Tasmania.

It promotes dementia studies in graduate and undergraduate curriculum and provides dementia career pathways for health professionals.

For the past three years the Centre has increased the capacity, skills and knowledge of more than 2,000 health professionals who provide care for people living with dementia and for

their families. It has also provided four doctoral scholarships to study critical issues related to ageing.

Professor Nay says La Trobe will also receive a share of a further $4.1 million dollars awarded to the Dementia Collaborative Research Centre (DCRC), led by Queensland University of Technology, of which La Trobe is a partner. Th e DCRC conducts research which focuses on carers and consumers.

Innovative approaches

Announcing the new funding, Minister for Ageing Justine Elliot said the longevity of Australians brings with it greater possibility of dementia and related illnesses. ‘Th e increasing prevalence of dementia requires us to examine new and innovative approaches to improve dementia diagnosis, prevention and care,’ she said.

Professor Nay says ACEBAC staff work continuously to improve the quality of aged care, through interdisciplinary models of practice delivery and increased clinical eff ectiveness. Th ey also review and evaluate the impact of existing practices on health and social outcomes in aged care. •

La Trobe’s new Institute for Social Participation, see page 5.


NEWS

4 La Trobe University Bulletin Autumn 2010

While the World Trade Organisation’s ‘rules-based’ system has done little to improve equity in trade – the Fair Trade movement enables students and staff to take their own action to reduce exploitation of people in poorer nations by those who are better off .

As a fi rst step, La Trobe’s support for Fair Trade means Fair Trade coff ee will be available at retail outlets on its Bundoora and regional campuses. All faculties and departments will be stocked with Fair Trade coff ee and tea.

‘It’s not a gesture without impact,’ says Professor Carol Adams. ‘Staff and students at universities drink a lot of coff ee.’

Adams, Professor of Accounting and Sustainable Development, is also Acting Dean of Law and Management. As Chair of La Trobe’s Sustainability Taskforce and Fair Trade Steering committee, she oversaw the University’s successful application to the Fair Trade Association of Australia and New Zealand.

‘As a result we have become the third Fair Trade University in Australia.’

Professor Adams says Fair Trade products provide a minimum fl oor price to producers in the developing

world and help eradicate issues of poverty, child and slave labour.

‘Th e recognition of La Trobe as a Fair Trade University is an accolade

to the hard work of many staff and students, and underscores our

role as a socially responsible institution.’

Joanna Watts, an executive offi cer in central

administration, is a La Trobe Fair Trade advocate and another

main player behind the move. ‘Fair Trade,’ she says, ‘basically means a better deal for producers

in the developing world where the amount of money people are getting from crops like tea and coff ee and cocoa has been declining rapidly.

‘Many producers can’t sustain an acceptable standard of living. Fair Trade off ers a way out of that by off ering a minimum price. It means they should be able to pay fair wages and maintain an acceptable standard of living.’

She says about fi ft y countries and some seven million people benefi t from Fair Trade. ‘For example, in areas like West Africa and the Ivory Coast there have been a lot of issues around child and slave labour used in the cocoa plantations. In Ethiopia about 67 per cent of their export is coff ee, so it can make a huge diff erence if that can be Fair Trade coff ee.’

Great fi t with our objectives

‘Fair Trade,’ says Ms Watts, ‘is a great fi t for La Trobe. It comes down to our objectives as an institution. Sustainability is very important to the University, and part of Fair Trade is about sustaining communities and the environment. If communities are able to invest in their own agriculture, which is one way they can use their premium from Fair Trade, then they can improve their farming techniques.’

Th e student organisation, Equality, Sustainability and Peace, helped organise a Fair Trade week on the Bundoora campus late last year. Another group screened the fi lm Black Gold – and a Fair Trade soccer

match using a Fair Trade soccer ball was also held.

Student member of the Fair Trade Steering Committee, Inca Dunphy, and volunteer Nick Metherall helped organise Fair Trade Week. Th ey say many people knew little about the Fair Trade movement. Th e week helped raise awareness, explaining how the system works, with fl oor prices and the Fair Trade premium, and how students can become involved.

La Trobe Caff eine proprietor, Hemal Mavjee, says he has chosen to go Fair Trade because in the last few months a lot of his customers have been asking about it. ‘So it’s got a lot to do with providing a product that will satisfy their needs.’

A University podcast explains La Trobe’s move to Fair Trade. It concludes with this advice from compere James Ayers, media and communications offi cer with a special brief for sustainability activities: ‘Just try it,’ he says.

‘Th ere are so many diff erent products and brands. Tea and coff ee shouldn’t cost any more. Th is isn’t about charity… it’s about getting products that are just as good as non Fair Trade – and you can drink them with a good conscience.’ •

Coffee with a conscience La Trobe becomes a ‘Fair Trade’ University

La Trobe University has offi cially joined a small but growing band of universities in support of ‘Fair Trade’ – a global grass-roots movement that encourages ordinary people to put a capital ‘F’ into fair.

Australia’s third ‘Fair Trade’ University:From left, Nick Metherall, Carol Adams, James Ayers and Joanna Watts being served by Hemal Mavjee in the central Agora café precinct on the main Melbourne campus at Bundoora.


NEWS


In February one of its member groups shared in more than $6 million of Federal Government funding for work on dementia, one of the most signifi cant health issues of the future, see report page 3.

Deputy Vice-Chancellor Professor Tim Brown says the new Institute brings together researchers from many areas to work on matters of importance to Australian society. Th is helps improve outcomes and attracts more funds for future research.

Th e Institute deals with issues such as ageing, sensory impairment, intellectual or functional disability – any deviation from the ‘norm’ that can result in people being excluded from fully participating in our society.

As well as signifi cantly expanding research, the Institute trains postgraduate students. It disseminates its fi ndings widely – especially to government, health and welfare industries and to disadvantaged groups and

carers in the community – to achieve the best employment, education and health care for people in need.

‘Th e reality is,’ says Professor Brown, ‘that to be eff ective in research and to achieve good results for the people of Australia, you need critical mass. And critical mass is just as important for social and health-related research as it is in the bio and other sciences – areas where we have already had a massive consolidation of eff ort – for example the new Agribio complex being built on campus, and LIMS, the new Institute of Molecular Sciences.’

DIRECTOR of the new Institute of Social Participation is Professor Rhonda Nay, a specialist in dementia and aged care studies and training. She says La Trobe has widely recognised research strengths in ageing, hearing and sight impairment, as well as intellectual disability and human rights.

‘Th is Institute enables researchers from these and many other areas to make a signifi cant contribution to knowledge, resulting in better policy and practice to help people and groups at risk of social exclusion. It also furthers national and international research collaborations and affi liations.’

Professor Nay regards social participation as a basic human right.

‘Exclusion for any reason robs people of the chance to make the most of their lives, and reduces the richness of society in the process,’ she says.

‘I think of society as a mosaic. Th e picture is only complete when you include all the pieces.

‘Not so long ago we “hid” away in big buildings people who had intellectual disability, mental illness or who were seen as senile. We have come a long way in appreciating the need for integration – but we have much further to go.’

Professor Nay says it is important to understand the experiences of people who feel, or are, excluded from taking part in society, as well as those who have moved

from ‘exclusion’ to ‘participation. Th e voices of people who have experienced social exclu-sion will be vital to the success of our work.’

Affi liated areas

Areas already affi liated with the new Institute are the Graeme Clark Centre for Bionic Ear and Neurosensory Research on the main Melbourne campus at Bundoora; the John Richards Aged Care Initiative at Albury-Wodonga; the Lincoln Centre for Research on Ageing, part of the Faculty of Health Sciences’ Australian Institute for Primary Care; La Trobe Lifeskills, one of Victoria’s leading providers of day programs for young people living with a disability; the University’s Australian Centre for Evidence Based Aged Care located at Bundoora Extended Care Centre; and the Unit for Studies in Biography and Autobiography.

More than fi fty researchers and academics are involved.

They include specialists in law and human rights, ageing, gerontic nursing, social work and intellectual disability, allied health, psychological science, hearing impairment, occupational therapy, spirituality and dying, and rural aged care as well as philosophy, English, and geospatial data and systems development.

For more information see www.latrobe.edu.au/isp

Society is a mosaic. The picture is only complete when you include all the pieces.’

It’s really the ‘institute for a fair go’… but the correct name is La Trobe University’s Institute for Social Participation, a new venture for high-end research based on strong community links and wide-ranging interdisciplinary studies.

Research helps to ‘include’ us all


NEWS


Paramedic students put to test The fi rst intake in a ground-breaking paramedic course at La Trobe University’s new Rural Health School was preceded by disaster. Simulated, that is.

Support for refugee studentsLa Trobe University’s Equality and Diversity Centre has introduced a new support program to help students from refugee or asylum seeker backgrounds.

Claire Nihill, Refugee Contact Offi cer at the Bendigo campus, says the program can provide students with a contact person on each campus to help them understand the way things are done at an Australian university. It off ers fi nancial assistance and can also helps students apply for a place and scholarship at La Trobe.

Some 12,000 refugees are accepted into Australia each year from war-torn countries around the world. Many have the ability to study at university. However, says Ms Nihill, they face an uphill battle negotiating fi nancial, cultural, and psychological barriers.

To help publicise the new service to refugee students, Lisa Prowling, an intern in the University’s Media and Communications Unit, has narrated a video news release in which a Somali Australian now completing his fi nal year of his oral health degree, talks about his studies – and his plans for a career as a dental hygienist or dental therapist.

TIME TO ADJUST

He is Abdihakim Sharif who arrived in Australia in 2001. It took some time to adjust to his new home. ‘Australia,’ he says, ‘was a new country, a new language, a new culture. Everything was new. I had to learn, bit by bit. So I started learning English fi rst, having to get used to it, and then the people; and then I started school from year nine.’

Aft er completing his VCE he enrolled at the Bendigo campus. He describes oral health as a very ‘hands-on course’. ‘I like that. We’ve got lectures, we’ve got tutorials and we’ve got practical classes. We do things like working and training in hospital and treating patients. Usually we work with kids under the age of twenty.’

Last year, under the new support

continues PG15

Th e staged ‘emergency’, a car crash, tested the mettle of six students. Th ey were taking part in a nine-week rural paramedic degree program which recognises their skills and experience and fast-tracks them into fully-fl edged paramedics.

Director of Health Sciences at the Bendigo campus, Dr Amanda Kenny, says it was the fi rst time Ambulance Victoria had used La Trobe for this intensive nine-week bridging course. A Flinders University program, it was previously run through its Riverland Clinical Simulation Centre.

With La Trobe enrolling 35 students into its innovative four-year State-wide Bachelor of Health Sciences Master of Paramedic Practice course – which also emphasises health promotion and chronic disease management – the joint venture highlighted La Trobe’s strong collaborative links with other key health stakeholders.

Dr Kenny says students who took part in the simulated multi-patient car accident were ambulance community offi cers. Th ey provide fi rst aid and ambulance services when work and other commitments allow. Abandoning careers as diverse as welding, newsagency management and small small-business, they have decided to become full-

time paramedics in their rural communities.

Th e La Trobe paramedic course follows $62 million of Commonwealth Government funding last year to help set up the new $90m Rural Health School at Bendigo, under the University’s new Regional Strategic Plan.

Leading health reform

Dr Kenny says paramedics are ‘fantastically placed to lead health reform’. With expansion of other University rural health courses this year, including podiatry and speech pathology – two fi elds in which there are also major workforce shortages – La Trobe’s Rural Heath School provides high-quality, high-demand health science courses across Northern Victoria.

Paramedic students can start their studies on any La Trobe regional campus, says Dr Kenny, completing their fi rst year at Bendigo, Albury-Wodonga, Mildura or Shepparton. Subsequent years are taught from the Bendigo campus and involve professional placements across Northern Victorian. •

Photo: James Ayers


RESEARCH


Doctoral researcher Lynne Kelly thinks so. Her theory is that its purpose – and that of many other ceremonial structures in pre-literate societies around the world – was to communicate knowledge through the rituals that were held there.

Ms Kelly is a successful science writer. Her work ranges from a sceptic’s guide to the paranormal to books about spiders and crocodiles. For her thesis at La Trobe she is studying technologies used by oral cultures to preserve and pass on scientifi c knowledge.

Late last year she was invited to give the inaugural Marshall (‘the medium is the message’) McLuhan Lecture at the National Communications Association convention in Chicago. She argued that constant changes in the archaeology at Stonehenge are consistent with the mnemonic needs of the knowledge elite as people began to settle.

‘No longer moving between sacred places

to perform the cycle of ceremonies which encode all the formal knowledge of their culture, Neolithic Britons replicated that landscape in monuments built over 1,500 years during their transition from mobile hunter-gathering to settled agriculture,’ says Ms Kelly.

Th e people who built Stonehenge, like other cultures starting to settle, lacked a

written language with which to preserve their knowledge. So the most reliable recording system they had were mnemonic methods, whereby knowledge – from animal behaviour, useful for hunting, to astronomy, to help with navigation and crop planting cycles – could be communicated through chants and rituals.

Ms Kelly describes this as ‘information technology’. Societies that develop eff ective information technologies have a better chance of survival than those that do not.

Th e use of mnemonics as an aid for memory is widespread. Ancient Greeks had many gods, rituals, myths and temples. Th ey knew that vibrant characters and highly emotional events performed in splendid settings made information easier to remember. Greeks called this the ‘Loci’ method. It is still widely used today, for example by world memory champions.

‘If a method is so successful and has arisen in so many diff erent contexts, it is not unreasonable to consider that ancient oral cultures – totally dependent on memory for vast amounts of information – would do the same. Circles or lines of stones or posts, ditches or mounds spread over open space, or large, non-domestic ‘buildings’ serve this purpose well,’ says Ms Kelly. ‘In Britain and Ireland more than 1,000 stone circles have

been found – and Stonehenge fi ts with this tradition.’

Why would Neolithic people put so much energy into building these monuments? ‘Th e entire community,’ she says, ‘depended on the knowledge and participated in ceremonies, justifying the extraordinary amount of work required to create them.’

Parallels with Aboriginal culture

She sees parallels with other oral cultures such as Aboriginal Australians, Native American, and Africans.

‘It doesn’t take long listening to our Aboriginal cultures to learn that they have a very complex formal knowledge system within their oral tradition. Th eir chants, songs, dances and mythology encode all

the formal knowledge of a culture. Th e vast array of physical mnemonic devices which are used to help remember the ceremonies is simply astounding.

‘Yet we still see oral cultures represented on screen, and in much academic writing, as quaint primitive creatures who lived in a permanent fog of superstition. We always

STONEHENGE Prehistory’s Wikipedia?Was Stonehenge the Internet of another era – a site for storage and transmission of information?

continues PG11

Lynne Kelly: new look at the role of ‘science’ in oral cultures.


RESEARCH


Winged warriors in fi ght to protect our rivers Whether you’re landing a trout or feeding your livestock, the health of our rivers and streams is critical.

An accessible and relatively easy way to identify water quality, and check whether streams are healthy or not, is by the numbers and types of insects that live there.

To spread the word and improve further this type of ecological monitoring, La Trobe University’s Albury-Wodonga campus recently held its latest taxonomy workshop for people interested in freshwater insects.

Th e workshop concentrated on mayfl ies, a group of insects widely used as indicators of high water quality, and which form the main diet of trout. Th e results – in terms of the latest ‘identifi cation keys’ for the insects – will go up on the web as public resource.

Th e workshop highlighted the importance to the wider community of the University’s long-standing expertise in fresh water research and biodiversity studies. Th is has been recognised with the award of a $600,000 Commonwealth Environmental Research grant.

Environmental ecologist Associate Professor Phil Suter says the grant enables further research on Australian mayfl ies and other aquatic macroinvertebrates as key indicators of aquatic health – particularly their use for monitoring river systems such as the Murray-Darling.

La Trobe’s partners in this initiative include the CSIRO, the Australian National University, the University of Adelaide and the South Australian Museum.

Dr Suter says knowledge about these insects can be used detect even subtle changes in water health aff ected by management practices, environmental fl ow variations and climate change.

Th e La Trobe research team includes Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Dr Jeff rey Webb. He uses advanced research technologies including DNA sequencing, to assist with species identifi cation and description.

While DNA sequences are critical to the work of scientists, they’re not much help to the public in identifying insects. Th e taxonomic

workshop helped translate such high-level results into more easily recognised physical features on insects.

As Dr Suter says, as well as improving scientifi c knowledge, this project is also developing web-based identifi cation tools which are being made available to all aquatic researchers. ‘Th ese include a wide range of people working for government agencies,

catchment management authorities, Landcare branches, water watch groups and interested landholders.

‘Th ey will be able to identify their local freshwater insects using the expertise of local scientists via a series of “key” features which are being published on the web.’

Th e last such ‘key’ for adult mayfl ies in Australia, says Dr Webb, goes back to the 1950s, a time when only about 15 genera of mayfl y were recognised in Australia. ‘Th ere are now 35 recognised genera, and it is important to update the available tools in the light of this new knowledge.’

Th e use of new technologies such as genetic sequencing combined with traditional practices has led to the recognition of numerous new species. ‘In one family of mayfl ies the number of species that are now recognised has tripled.’

Th e work on this project has been undertaken at the University’s Albury-Wodonga campus in collaboration with the CSIRO National Insect Collection, the Victorian EPA and Museum of Victoria.

More than forty people from government and private organisations involved in environmentally related activity and from universities took part in the workshop.

Th ey included EPA Victoria, the NSW Department of Environ-ment, Climate Change and Water, the Queensland Department of Environment and Resource Management, the Murray-Darling Freshwater Research Centre, and Ecowise. •

See also www.taxonomy.org.au

Dr Suter, left, with Dr Webb.


RESEARCH


More water from LESSSoil research boosts crop growth in dry seasons

As many farmers struggle with dry seasons, new technology may signifi cantly boost the capacity of some soils to provide water to plant roots – increasing crop yields by more than sixty per cent.

Th e system has been developed by agricul-tural scientists at La Trobe University in conjunction with soil scientists from the Victorian Department of Primary Industry. Th e project was funded by the Australian Research Council with input from Rentiers Machinery as industry partner.

Called Subsoil Manuring, it incorporates high rates of organic nitrogen-rich material into the upper layers of dense clay subsoils. Th ese soils, known as Sodosols, are widespread across grain-growing areas in south east and south west Australia.

Dr Peter Sale, from the La Trobe University research team, said studies at two sites over three successive crops (between 2005 -2008) have found that while the technology is

expensive, the rewards for sustainable crop production are also large.

Th e results of the technology have been demonstrated on wheat and canola crops in western Victoria.

‘For example, the incorporation of twenty tonnes per hectare of lucerne pellets at a depth of 30-40 cm at Ballan resulted in yield increases of more than sixty per cent for three successive crops,’ he said.

‘Research carried out in September 2009, more than four years aft er the organic material was incorporated in the subsoil, reveals that the tilth and aggregation in the clay subsoil has been substantially improved, indicating the method seems to have a long-lasting eff ect.’ Dr Sale says the transformation of the subsoil’s physical and chemical properties is most likely due to an increase in bacterial and fungal activity in the subsoil.

‘Improving the physical properties in the subsoil enables the crop roots to enter and explore the clay and extract soil water in these layers – water that would otherwise not have been available to the crop.’

Th e researchers are now evaluating the technology in a higher rainfall zone in south west Victoria. Th is is being done with the aid of funds from the Grains Research and Development Corporation.

Studies on crops in Winchelsea and Derrinallum following hot conditions in November revealed real diff erences in the colour of the crop. Th e control plots were yellow and mature, says Dr Sale, while those using the new technology with deep organic treatments were still green and growing.

‘Th is indicates that the crops on the deep organic plots are able to continue growing and extract water from the subsoil. Higher yields will certainly be expected from these plots.’

Other members of the research team are Dr Jaikirat Gill and Professor Caixian Tang from La Trobe University, Dr Renick Peries from the Victorian Department of Primary Industry, and Mr John Sheahan from Rentiers Machinery. •


BOOKS


Challenge for government at time of epochal changeHumanity has evolved through a series of major epochs separated by periods of upheaval. We are now facing another such point of transition.

Marked by a frenetic cycle of invention, construction, consumption and destruction, there is more to this transition than globalization.

So says a new book written by La Trobe University’s Professor Joseph Camilleri and Professor Jim Falk from the University of Melbourne.

Worlds in Transition: Evolving Governance Across a Stressed Planet was launched in February by Helen Clark, Administrator of the United Nations Development Program and former Prime Minister of New Zealand.

Professor Camilleri says the book argues that the last century has seen rapid and exponential growth in many areas of human activity, much of it unsustainable.

It examines the growth of fl ows of fi nance, atmospheric pollutants, information, pathogens, security threats, and the challenges they pose for governance at all levels.

Concepts of boundaries – either between states or between government, market, and civil society – are no longer useful because of the interconnected way the modern world operates across them, he says. Modern governance is outgrowing previous structures, developing a new architecture – but there’s no single institutional architect.

So rather than a having a steadying hand at the helm at this time of transition – ‘as critical perhaps as any of the six or seven most signifi cant transitions of the last 100,000 years’ – chaotic voices are pulling us in diff erent directions.

During such critical periods of transition, prevailing worldviews, practices and institutions are called sharply into question, says Professor Camilleri.

‘Th e “Modern period”, as we have known it, is rapidly coming to an end. Th e capacity of Modern institutions – developed in 17th and 18th century Europe – to respond to contemporary challenges has been in steady decline.

‘Copenhagen and the fate of the Rudd Government’s ETS scheme are merely portends of things to come.’

Reconciling the one and the many

In a world that is simultaneously bordered and borderless, more and more of the key decisions are bound to cut across the boundaries of states.

As Copenhagen has shown, powerful voices are calling for democratic global decision-making. But it is not simply a case of allowing more states to have a say.

Th e book concludes that the important thing is to create an environment in which diff erent voices can be heard and listened to – ‘the voices of the powerful and the weak, the North and the South, East and West.’

‘Reconciling the one and the many’ is the supreme challenge confronting contemporary governance. ‘Future human adaptation depends on it,’ the authors say.

Professor Camilleri is Professor of International Relations and Director of the Centre for Dialogue at La Trobe University. Professor Jim Falk is Director of the Australian Centre for Science, Innovation and Society at the University of Melbourne.

Worlds in Transition is published by Edward Elgar, UK. It is aimed at a wide international audience, as well as scholars, researchers and students of the physical and social sciences concerned with understanding the complexities of the human predicament. •

Melbourne

Professor Camilleri with Helen Clark


PEOPLE


talk about their history and religion. Almost nothing is ever said about their science.

‘When I read about the songs at corroborees, it seems that seventy per cent are about animal behaviour, plant properties and other natural phenomena. Th e Navajo had a knowledge to three levels of classifi cation for more than 700 insects – all kept in memory.’

Australian Aboriginal ‘Dreaming Tracks’, says Ms Kelly, map the landscape, record ownership and link sacred places visited. ‘Th ey’re a table of contents to a huge indigenous knowledge base. Each place becomes a subheading for the songs, story or ceremony performed there.

‘In Central Australia, for example, songlines commemorate the location of every waterhole. Almost every feature on Ayers Rock is named, acting as a mnemonic for mythological stories.’ Ms Kelly says her research indicates the sequence of structures

at Stonehenge is consistent with the changing role of knowledge, from the elders of egalitarian hunter-gatherer cultures, to a restrictive knowledge elite of a more settled society.

When she went to England, she realised Stonehenge was perfectly set up with mnemonics for the annual cycle of ceremonies to ensure the knowledge of the culture was retained. ‘Similar to a representation of the Aboriginal Songpaths, but reduced as the mobile hunter-gatherer culture started to settle,’ she says.

Her theory, she says, also explains other things that have not been explained before. For example, why are the ditches so deep and fl at-bottomed in ‘superhenges’ such as Durrington Walls and Avebury?

Informative and entertaining

‘Oral performance must be both informative and entertaining to increase the chance of the content being remembered.

Th e ditches and banks would enhance the sound eff ects of the chants, and provide cover in bad weather. Th e solid walls would cause resonance and echoes.’

Eventually, as we move into the Metal Ages, Stonehenge fell into disuse. ‘Both metallurgy and agricultural skills are specialist skills, best taught by apprenticeship. With individual wealth and a warrior class, the control associated with traditional knowledge elites would have been lost as the community was no longer dependent on their knowledge system enshrined in places like Stonehenge,’ Ms Kelly concludes.

‘By the end of the second millennium BC, virtually nothing seems to have remained of a tradition of communal monument construction that had existed for some 3,000 years. In the end, the monuments simply lost their meaning.’ A meaning she is now trying to verify to help solve the long-standing mystery of Stonehenge. •

of the battlefi eld site. Some participants in the campaign, says Professor Mackie, evoked Achilles and the Trojan war in their writings. ‘We will explore the strong tradition of classics in education in the pre-World War One period, especially in Britain, and the way that this infl uenced some Gallipoli writings.’

Professor Mackie is the sole author of two books, Rivers of Fire: Mythic Th emes in Homer’s Iliad, (2008) and Th e Characterisation of Aeneas (1988) and has co-written and edited several other works.

Th e La Trobe Research Centre for Greek Studies which he will head was set up last year to support the University’s

long-standing commitment to Greek Studies. Its integration within the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences will promote multidisciplinary research related to Greece, its language, modern history and the Greek Diasporas around the world.

Professor Mackie said as a lifelong admirer of Greek culture he was delighted to take up the post. ‘Th ere is much excellent work to do, including with the Greek community with whom I have had many links,’ he said.

Working with the community

La Trobe Vice-Chancellor, Professor Paul Johnson said Professor Mackie was committed to community engagement and had extensive experience in university

administration, including operational policy and strategic planning.

‘I am delighted with this appointment as Chris is ideally qualifi ed to lead the Research Centre for Greek Studies. His appointment will deepen our close relationship with the Greek community. He will be instrumental in initiating programs to extend Greek studies and increase higher education access for students from Greek backgrounds.’

Professor Johnson also paid tribute to the enormous contribution of volunteers and donors from the Greek community who have generously contributed their time and money over the years to supporting La Trobe’s Hellenic programs. •

SciTech leadership role for library headLa Trobe University Librarian Professor Ainslie Dewe has been appointed head of the International Association of Scientifi c and Technological University Libraries. She is the second president from Australia, and the third from outside Europe, in the organisation’s fi ft y-fi ver year history.

Professor Dewe says during her two-year term of offi ce her priorities will be to continue to deepen connections with university libraries in Asia and boost collaborative opportunities among existing members. With access to innovation, and knowledge from similar universities around the world, her appointment will also benefi t La Trobe.

‘Collaborating with other universities is important as we move from print-based libraries into the digital realm,’ says Professor Dewe. ‘By joining forces we can learn and teach one another.’ Th e association has members from more than fi ft y countries, including twenty-one Australian and seven New Zealand libraries. •

from PG03

Iliad to Internet

from PG07

Stonehenge

Clark


VIEWPOINT

La Trobe University Bulletin Autumn 2010

WHY is this small island-state in the Eastern Mediterranean still divided despite nearly four decades of UN eff orts to bring about a negotiated settlement? Is there anything new in this confl ict which explains why Cyprus should be hitting the headlines – including enticing our former foreign minister Alexander Downer’s foray into confl ict mediation?

Why the recent feeling of optimism, followed by failure and anxiety for an eventual solution, especially within Europe? And what lessons can we learn from Cyprus about the nature of protracted confl icts and ways of resolving them?

Th e importance of Cyprus and what this long confl ict teaches us lies in a complex web of interacting historical factors – internal and external to Cyprus – that have shaped the negotiating process.

Th e inter-communal talks – conducted, intermittingly, by the UN since 1968 – treated the Cyprus problem as an ethnic confl ict, and sought its resolution on this basis. Although the two communities have been politically, economically, socially and psychologically separated over time, the 1974 partition gave this separation a geographical, demographic and military dimension. Th is deeply entrenched separation constitutes the main impediment to any eff ective rapprochement.

Th e physical division of the island hampers communication, interaction and contact, not only between the two communities but even between forces which were prepared to pursue, or at least explore, common interests and objectives. In addition, postponement of a solution led, at diff erent times, to one or both parties resorting to unilateral actions outside the process, exacerbating confl ict and further impeding negotiation and third party mediation.

One of the key conclusions is that both communities have, for diff erent reasons and in diff erent ways, become supporters of the status quo. Th ey view this as, if not ideal, at least preferable to the uncertainties of any future regime that does not incorporate their maximum expectations.

On one side, the Turkish Cypriots feared that reunifi cation within a strong federation would see them revert to the pre-1974 situation as an isolated minority dominated by a larger and more powerful Greek Cypriot community.

On the other side, Greek Cypriots view any federal solution that does not encompass a strong central authority and the withdrawal of the Turkish troops as no better than their existing predicament. Th ey would be sacrifi cing their legitimacy as the sole recognized Cypriot state and would be risking total occupation of the island.

Paralyzed by fear of worst case scenarios

Th ough the motivation and the rationale may diff er, the position of both parties has been similar in one important respect: they both considered incentives for change to be weaker than the security of the status quo. Fear of worst case scenarios paralyzed their will and capacity to pursue

a riskier – but ultimately more promising – course. Confl ict resolution contains no certainties. It is thwarted by unknown variables and internal and external change. Besides security, the confl ict’s nagging presence becomes a constant reminder of the impossibility of sealing off one epoch from the next. Such things as inequality, disparity, inclusion and exclusion continue to defi ne and redefi ne inter- and intra-communal relations, underscoring class, gender, generational and other social cleavages.

New trends have also pegged Cyprus’s particular predicament to regional and global transformations. Europeanization is but one manifestation of Cyprus’s modernization as it is caught between Western expansion and its own search for self-defi nition.

Th e challenge confronting Cyprus ultimately lies in its capacity to transform itself into a postmodern society with a political arrangement that transcends its historical insecurities. Oft en a climate of uncertainty and ambivalence demands risk-taking. In this sense the EU off ers itself as a surrogate for creative politics.

As Cypriots need to overcome their past and create their own future, there is the danger that continual rejections will prolong stalemate – and that stalemate will entrench partition. •

Michális S. Michael is a Research Fellow, in the Centre for Dialogue at La Trobe University.

His book Resolving the Cyprus Confl ict: Negotiation History (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009) was launched by Senator Kim Carr, Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science last December.

Australia has the world’s second largest Cypriot emigrant community after the UK. While our links with this island go back to the gold rush, for much of the last half century Cyprus has been riven by inter-communal confl ict. So what can the world learn from Cyprus about protracted confl icts and ways of resolving them?

The task for CyprusTake risks – or entrench partition By Michális S. Michael


VIEWPOINT


Paying for a smarter country By Paul Johnson

Australia needs to encourage more of its young people to complete high school and go on to higher education if it has any hope of increasing the skills within our workforce.

Following Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s call for productivity growth, the government has recognised – by setting a target of very signifi cant expansion within the sector – that we need to start with education. While there is a technology element to productivity growth, the main requirement is to increase skills.

In a nation that doesn’t have massively unmet demands for tertiary education, the biggest challenge will be how to expand given the relatively high personal costs of tertiary education for students and their families.

Another consideration is secondary education where there needs to be more attention to fundamental reform. Clearly, if you want to turn on the tap and have more tertiary educated graduates, you have to increase the fl ow down the pipe.

Th en, we need to look very carefully at the process of transition from high-school to university. At the moment, we have high

school exams and a high school curriculum focused on ranking students rather than preparing them for tertiary study.

Th ere is a lot that could be done to change the senior high school curriculum and how it is taught – and likewise the fi rst-year university curriculum – so that they fi t together like pieces of a jigsaw rather than remain as they are now, two worlds separated by a high wall.

It’s a diffi cult policy challenge for the government because the higher education sector in Australia is primarily a Federal government concern and the secondary school system is run by state governments. But if we are serious about productivity growth and skills development we need to look at changing the supply chain.

For the Tertiary sector, one challenge is how to fi nance a signifi cant expansion of students. Even though students pay a lot themselves, taxpayers pay a lot too, and it’s not clear to me that current and future tax payers want to contribute more for higher education.

But, if they aren’t going to pay, what are the alternatives? Either you put more of the cost onto our students, who by OECD standards are already overburdened, or you reduce resources – and Australian universities already spend less than their counterparts in

many OECD countries and now Asian countries.

Relationship between cost and quality

Th at raises the question of quality. Most people would say that beyond some limit there is probably no relation between quality and resource. However, I think in education there is a relationship even if a causal relationship is not immediately apparent.

Th e unit of resource per student has declined dramatically over the past fi ft een years and the ratio of students to academic staff has gone up a lot. As a result, Australia now ranks at the bottom end among OECD countries.

Is that aff ecting quality? Perhaps. Certainly it is aff ecting perceived quality – and such perceptions have the potential to damage Australia’s vast $15 billion international education industry.

Th e resource issue needs to be addressed. Th e government must look at the costs for students against the benefi ts they receive. Can students bear any more costs?

Arguably one way of squaring the circle – and this is as much a business concern as it is for government – is to explore encouraging more students without increasing the burden on the taxpayer. You can do it by promoting competition, because competition will increase both quality and reduce price.

At present there is competition between institutions, but this is extremely circum-scribed by the government which decides which ones can play in the market. If the government were to allow all universities to operate ‘for profi t’ (not only private universities like Bond and Notre Dam which are non-profi t in any case) it might see movements in the quality-price ratios.

But here’s the rub; this would probably destroy the existing university system – a system that produces an extraordinary spread of public goods. Key among these, and critical to national well-being, is research which is a loss leader and would typically not be undertaken in private universities. •

Professor Johnson is Vice-Chancellor of La Trobe University. Th is article was fi rst published in the on-line journal Business Spectator in January 2010.


NEWS


Have coconut, will travelThe video clip is engrossing and entertaining – even for people who do not fi nd octopuses attractive. In one shot, a small veined octopus sits in half a coconut shell, pulls another half over the top, and peers out like a child playing peekaboo.

Further sequences show the ungainly movement as octopuses hitch up coconut shell halves underneath them, drape their arms over the sides, and take off walking along the sea fl oor.

Th e behaviour of these photogenic animals is signifi cant. It’s the fi rst known example of tool use in invertebrates, animals without backbones – and it has disrupted the life of La Trobe PhD graduate Julian Finn who works at Museum Victoria.

When a release on the coconut-carrying octopuses was mounted on the web last December by the Museum, the traffi c to view the video pushed the website to its limit. And Mr Finn spent nearly two days non-stop on the phone answering media inquiries from across the globe – Canada, France, the US, Japan, and Finland among others. Articles appeared almost everywhere, including the Himalayan

Times, the Hawaii Star Bulletin and the Seychelles Weekly.

Th e BBC website featuring the story and video received more than 1.3 million hits. YouTube posted more than 1 million. But it all started by chance. Julian Finn stumbled on the coconut-carrying individuals while tracking a completely diff erent octopus.

While his La Trobe doctoral thesis is on paper nautilus and he is now studying octopus behaviour in Port Phillip Bay, Mr Finn has fi nanced much of his research by acting as a scientifi c consultant to fi lm and video crews working on wildlife documentaries.

‘I was assisting with a BBC documentary looking for mimic octopus in the shallow, silty environments of northern Sulawesi, when I came across a half coconut shell on the sea bottom. It moved, and underneath

was a little veined octopus peeking out. Th en the octopus stuck out an arm, climbed out from under the shell, fl ipped it over, and ran away.’

For the next ten years, Julian Finn and Museum colleague Dr Mark Norman accompanied other crews to Sulawesi and to Bali, spending more than 500 hours underwater and studying the coconut-carrying behaviour of more than twenty individuals of the veined octopus, Amphioctopus marginatus. But it was only when they talked to Dr Tom Tregenza of the University of Exeter that they became aware of the signifi cance of what they had seen.

Th e ability to use tools has long been regarded as mark of intelligence. It was originally held that only humans used tools, but then it became apparent that other primates did so, as well as an expanding array of mammals and birds.

A genuine tool

Recently, for instance, there has been a lot of work by groups at the universities of Auckland and Oxford on how the New Caledonian crow fashions and employs tools in the pursuit of food. But no-one had reported tool use in invertebrates until Finn, Norman and Tregenza published their recent paper on the activities of the veined octopus in the journal, Current Biology.

Th e point is that, unlike hermit crabs which live in borrowed shells permanently, the veined octopus carries a coconut shell with it – at considerable cost in terms of energy and restricted movement – so that it can occasionally deploy it for defence against potential predators. Th e shell provides no benefi t until it is used. It is a true tool.

Th e behaviour may have started, Finn thinks, with octopuses crawling into large clam shells to avoid being eaten. But when humans began discarding light, durable, half-coconut shells into the water, the octopuses appropriated them, he says. And now they’ve provided the web with a memorable video clip. •

Too

muc

h te

xt


NEWS


iPods keep future teachers ahead of the gameEducation students at the Shepparton campus are using a University iPod Touch to help them with their studies.

The La Trobe University Bulletin is published by Media and Communications, La Trobe University.

Articles may be reproduced with acknowledgements. Enquiries and submissions to the editor:Ernest Raetz, La Trobe University, Victoria 3086, Australia, Tel: (03) 9479 2315, Fax: (03) 9479 1387, Email:[email protected]

Text: Ernest Raetz, James Ayers, Tim Thwaites, Mark PearcePhotos: La Trobe University PDIDesign: Creative Services, La Trobe University (CS 21233)Print:

latrobe.edu.au/bulletin

FSC\ logo for print to be placed here

program, he won a full residential scholarship to cover the cost of on-campus accommodation. Before that, he says he used to struggle to buy text books and aff ord weekend transport back to Melbourne. •

from PG06Support for refugee students

Four people and their pods, from left, Emmanuel Cahill, Sophie Lloyd, Carly Burness and Alli Konig on the Shepparton campus at the launch of the new initiative.

Photo: Ray Sizer, courtesy Shepparton News

Diploma of Education course co-ordinator, Dr Caroline Walta, says eighty-eight students from the middle years of the Graduate Diploma in Education are using the machines as part of their course.

Th e $55,000 initiative has been funded by the University. Students return the iPods aft er their studies.

Th e iPods, says Dr Walta, will provide access to course material through podcasts and other on-line information, enhancing distance learning aspects of the course.

‘Also, by using cutting-edge technology now, our students will be better equipped to incorporate new learning technologies into their teaching in the future,’ she says.

Th e results of the initiative will be monitored for potential use in other courses.

Apple iPod and iTunes soft ware is used by more than 250 million people world-wide. Th e recent addition of ‘iTunes University’

(iTunesU) – an open learning resource – allows access to educational information and courses from some of the best universities in the world.

La Trobe is the eighth Australian university to join iTunesU. It signed up last August and has attracted phenomenal interest internationally.

Visitors from more than 120 countries regularly access La Trobe material. Downloads of pod and video casts have so far averaged about 60,000 per month. •

Win in US web site social media award

La Trobe University has won a silver medal – and come in at 15th place ahead of such venerable universities as Harvard and Princeton – in a recent US-based website’s survey of the top ‘50 Social Media Innovators in Higher Education’. It was the

only institution outside the US to score a mention.

Th e site, Collegesurfi ng.com, helps American students in their college search. According to its website, it spent weeks scouring social media to select leading institutions for its ‘College Olympics’ for using social media in a creative way.

Th e citation noted La Trobe’s ‘lively and random feed that includes lots of fun photos’ and that our ‘Facebook page has close to 5,000 fans’.

It said La Trobe had ‘embraced social media as a tool for communicating to its 30,000 staff and students in a big way (and its) podcasts and videocasts are very popular, receiving thousands of downloads every day.’

www.collegesurfi ng.com/content/web-20-colleges


COMMUNITY


To Melbourne with less pollutionHealthier wetlands for future generations

La Trobe University’s Wildlife Sanctuary contains uniquely restored urban wetlands. Adjoining these on the Melbourne campus at Bundoora is a series of stepped lakes.

These two systems have long served the wider community as a natural fi lter to improve the quality of water that fl ows down Darebin Creek and on into the Yarra River. To take the next signifi cant step – and kick off the United Nations’ Year of Biodiversity – the University recently installed two new state-of-the-art ‘Gross Pollutant Litter Traps’.

Sanctuary Head Ranger, George Paras, says the new traps play an important role in ensuring the health of the wetlands for future generations. They fi lter all large pollutants and oil from storm water that reaches the campus, via two main drains, from nearby suburbs.

About a billion items of litter, such as plastic, paper and metal, reach Melbourne’s waterways each year, he says.Added to this are a hundred thousand cubic metres of organic material such as leaves and twigs.

‘Stormwater treatment and management is critical to the health of wetlands. Protecting aquatic and marine ecosystems should be a major part of any human activity in water catchment areas.’

Andrew Stocker, Sanctuary Education and Information Co-ordinator, says fewer pollutants will mean a greater diversity of animals in the Sanctuary – and in suburbs along Darebin Creek. ‘And greater biodiversity has benefi ts all round,’ he adds. ‘Healthier water systems mean healthier people.’

The traps were designed and built by Ecosol. The company installs water fi ltration devices throughout Australia and Asia. They were unveiled in February by Colin Brooks MP, State Member for Bundoora and Professor Carol Adams, Chair of the University’s Sustainability Taskforce and Acting Dean of Law and Management. •


Documents

STONEHENGE Internet of another era? · Victoria through its four regional campuses. Th e University recently commissioned Compelling Economics to analyse both its direct output and