2013 Annual Report Contents
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2013 ANNUAL REPORT CONTENTS REFLECTING ON 2013 2 From the CEO APPOINTMENTS 4 Delivering excellence VISITORS 6 Fresh perspectives EDUCATION 9 Leading American Studies THINK TANK 15 Driving the debate RESEARCH 24 International scholarship PUBLIC KNOWLEDGE FORUM — Special Feature 29 The future of journalism MEDIA 33 Interpreting, analysing, informing AMERICAN REVIEW 35 Global perspectives, global reach THOUGHT LEADERSHIP 36 Community links PERTH USASIA CENTRE 38 Building foundations ABOUT US 39 FINANCIAL REPORT 44 PARTNERS AND SUPPORTERS 46 REFLECTING ON 2013 FROM THE CEO In 2013 the United States Studies Centre continued its We are especially pleased that in 2013 the Centre took up the commitment to our core goals: to increase understanding of role as administrator for the interdisciplinary American Studies America in Australia and around the globe and become one major at the University of Sydney. We look forward to working of the world’s leading institutions for the study of the United with our partners in departments across the university to States. In perusing this review of our activities in 2013, you will further strengthen its reputation as one of the world’s leading see we had an active and exciting year in meeting those goals academic institutions for the study of the United States. through teaching, research, and public outreach. Supported by governments and the private sector, the Centre’s Taught by our outstanding faculty, more than 1,200 students think-tank programs continued to thrive, helping drive public policy debate across a range of issues including on future enrolled in our undergraduate and postgraduate units in 2013. cities, groundwater resources, soil security, sustainable fuels, We were also delighted to expand our unique intern and evidence-based policymaking, women in leadership, and study abroad program to include students from the University prospects for Australia–US relations in the 21st century. of Western Australia (UWA) —more than 38 UWA students joined 89 others from the University of Sydney to experience Of particular note, the Centre launched the inaugural Public our programs in Los Angeles and Washington, DC. Knowledge Forum in November, a major international event 2013 Annual Report 2 Malcolm Binks and Bates Gill United States Studies Centre 2013 Annual Report 2 REFLECTING ON 2013 held at the iconic Sydney Opera House, to explore how in I would also like to extend my gratitude to former US our current technological age citizens inform their political Ambassador to Australia Jeffrey Bleich, who stepped down in choices. At the end of 2013 we were honoured to learn that 2013, and extend a warm welcome to the new ambassador, the Chicago-based MacArthur Foundation would provide a John Berry. These gentlemen have been enormously significant grant to the Centre to support a project examining supportive of the Centre and its work and we greatly expanding US ties with Burma, Indonesia, and Vietnam. appreciate working with them and their teams to promote our shared goals. All told, over the course of 2013 we had some 128 high- level visitors from America and Australia at the Centre, and Looking ahead, watch for the Centre to continue its steady convened close to 100 events on both sides of the Pacific. expansion — within Australia, in the Asia–Pacific, and in the And we had one of our biggest years yet in the media, with United States — across our various portfolios of teaching, a significant expansion of our profile in international media research, and public outreach. We look forward to working outside of Australia. with our excellent board of directors and our many other stakeholders and supporters in 2014 and beyond. In another important milestone for the Centre, 2013 also saw us take part in the international search for the founding CEO of our sister institution, the Perth USAsia Centre at UWA. The Sincerely, US Studies Centre, along with the other founding members of the Perth USAsia Centre — the American Australian Association and UWA — are pleased and proud that L. Gordon Flake, then-CEO of the Maureen and Mike Mansfield Foundation in Washington, DC, accepted our offer to lead the new centre in Perth. He took up the reins in the new position in January 2014 and we are very much looking forward to working closely with the Perth USAsia Centre in the years Bates Gill ahead. Chief Executive Officer United States Studies Centre 2013 Annual Report 3 APPOINTMENTS DELIVERING EXCELLENCE As the Centre’s global reputation grows, so too does its staff and associates, and in 2013 the Centre made a number of outstanding appointments. THOMAS J. ADAMS RODNEY TAVEIRA Lecturer in History and American Studies Lecturer in American Studies In late 2013, Thomas Jessen Adams accepted a position Centre lecturer Rodney Taveira was awarded his PhD as lecturer in History and American Studies, a joint in English from the University of Sydney in 2010 and appointment between the US Studies Centre and the now teaches undergraduate units Global America and Department of History at the University of Sydney. American Foundations, and the Board of Studies– endorsed unit for year 11 and 12 high school students, Adams received his PhD in US history from the University America: Prophecy, Power, Politics. of Chicago and has taught at the University of Chicago and Tulane University where he was American Council of Taveira has published on contemporary American fiction, Learned Societies New Faculty Fellow and Andrew Mellon literary responses to 9/11, and the interrelation of cinema, Postdoctoral Fellow. photography, painting, and literature. He is currently working on a book manuscript which examines how His research focuses on a variety of topics in US history, violence, sexuality, and the way writing makes meaning including the history of political economy and labour, are observed in the works of Thomas Pynchon, James urban history, social movements, legal history, and race Ellroy, and Don DeLillo when they are read through the and gender. Recently his work has begun to examine lens of visual culture. the contemporary history, politics, and culture of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. Taveira’s work also includes a comprehensive analysis of James Ellroy’s writing career, the American genre of crime Adams is currently completing a book titled The Servicing fiction, and the place of Los Angeles in American culture of America: Work, Value, and Inequality in the Modern and recent history. United States. His coauthored book, Working in the Big Easy: Labor in New Orleans from Slavery to Post-Katrina Taveira was previously a lecturer in English at the will be released in 2014. University of New South Wales. United States Studies Centre 2013 Annual Report 4 APPOINTMENTS LINDA JAKOBSON: HUW MCKAY AN EXPERT IN US–CHINA RELATIONS US ECONOMICS COMMENTATOR Visiting Professor Visiting Scholar On the world’s leading scholars on China and US-China The Centre welcomed Huw McKay aboard as a visiting ties joined the Centre in 2013 to add expertise and scholar in 2013 to comment on economic and financial deepen understanding of the relationship between the issues related to the US. McKay is executive director and two superpowers. senior international economist at Westpac, as well as the spokesperson on pan-Asian economic and market issues Linda Jakobson, who is also a non-resident fellow at the and a widely sought-after expert on the state of the Lowy Institute for International Policy, is researching the global economy. US–China relationship, focusing on societal engagement, economic interdependence, and political and strategic In 2013, McKay’s activities for the Centre included joining competition. an Alliance 21 panel discussing President Obama’s trade policy titled Trans-Pacific Partnership and Beyond, which A fluent Mandarin speaker, Jakobson lived and worked examined how the US-led multilateral deal could affect in China for 20 years and has extensively published on the balance of power in the Asia-Pacific. China’s foreign policy, energy security, and science and technology development. McKay also led a presentation on the economic consequences of the October US government shutdown Jakobson is currently developing a course for University of as part of a Centre media briefing and is working on an Sydney students on US–China relations. Alliance 21 paper on the economic dimensions of the Australia–US alliance. Before his appointment, McKay was involved in a number of Centre events, including a 2012 forum looking at the impact of the US presidential election on Australia and the Asia-Pacific. United States Studies Centre 2013 Annual Report 5 VISITORS FRESH PERSPECTIVES In 2013, the Centre welcomed 128 high-level visitors to contribute to our leading education, research, and outreach programs. These included current government leaders from Australia and the US, prominent public intellectuals, and a diverse range of experts and academics, all of whom added to the debate surrounding the key issues facing the US and the world. BONNIE GLASER: JOHN HOWARD: IMPLICATIONS OF US–china RELATIONS GUN CONTROL IN THE US Senior advisor at the Center for Strategic and Former prime minister of Australia International Studies With the US gun control debate heating up in the wake In May, Bonnie Glaser, one of the leading US analysts of the deadly shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School on China’s foreign policy and security, gave a series of in late 2012, Centre council of advisors member and lectures around Australia on the implications of the US– former Australian prime minister the Hon. John Howard China relationship for America’s other partners in Asia. AC penned an opinion piece for the New York Times in early 2013. Headlined “I Went After Guns. Obama Can, Glaser is a senior advisor for Asia in the Freeman Too,” Howard argued, “few Australians would deny Chair in China Studies at the Center for Strategic and that their country is safer today as a consequence of gun International Studies (CSIS).