4 July 2012 Macquarie academics awarded National Teaching Fellowships

significant contributions to educational Dr Lisa Wynn leadership in the field. and Dr Mitch Lisa is investigating how university ethics committees are assessing undergraduate Parsell are research in social science disciplines; and barriers teachers and universities face celebrating after in expanding undergraduate student research, particularly in obtaining ethics they were each clearance for human research. Meanwhile, Mitch will be developing awarded a highly standards for distance learning to ensure that students studying online, or via competitive distance education or online blended learning, receive a quality experience Learning and comparable to face-to-face students. The fellowship includes a self-assessment Teaching Mid- of Macquarie University against these standards and an evaluation Career Fellowship. of the potential for their use in intra- The fellowships, part of an $8 million institutional benchmarking. grant program, recognise prominent In addition to the Fellowships, there Photo: Dr Lisa Wynn. scholars who have the capacity to make were three highly competitive national

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Desert sounds A step ahead of the rest The listen lady Peter Ring is helping make music in the Our Dean of ASAM is putting his best Meet Danielle Frances, one woman on great Australian outback. Foote forward. campus who’s heard it all. Page 1 best Foote forward “Well the next hardest thing to get into was Law at . I with another recently arrived post-doc. Together they began to involved with several projects, including research with the Tiwi Simon Foote joined us at guess I would have been a lawyer,” he confesses. create a physical map of the Y-chromosome, but even as they people to find a genetic association for renal disease. He is still the beginning of February Getting into medical school was not quite as he imagined and, were about to publish they were unaware of the significance of interested in the malarial parasite and works to develop new at the beginning, the course wasn’t really interesting to him what they were about to achieve. antimalarial drugs, and he’s excited by the opportunities that as Dean of the Australian at all. “It was at the very beginning of the human genome project and working with ASAM will provide. “During my first few years of medicine, it was the most tedious we were largely oblivious to the politics that surrounded the “It’s a fantastic opportunity with this hospital here to do some School of Advanced Medicine. and boring course and I became sick of it to be honest,” he says. project. We weren’t fully conscious that this was the case until really exciting research. The ability for clinician and researchers the whole thing was released in a blaze of glory,” he says. Disillusioned, he took a year off to work in France as an intern in to work closely together means we have the potential to do With several significant A blaze of glory it was, making front page news around the a biochemistry laboratory. It was here doing pure research that things no one else can,” says Simon. world. The Washington Post compared the accomplishment to achievements in his résumé, he found his true passion. “early exploration of the American frontier.” “It changed what I wanted to do. I ended up spending two For Simon, one of the highlights of the project was working with we find out how a boy from years doing research there and I had an absolute ball. It was the man he describes as “God in terms of molecular biology”: Fast Foote facts probably the best two years of my life,” he says. the farm became the head of a James Watson. Best known as a co-discoverer of the structure * Father of three. His eldest son stayed in Hobart After returning to Melbourne and finishing the remainder of his DNA, Watson came to Simon and his team just as they were to finish school, while his daughter is in Melbourne prestigious medical school. course, he decided that research was what he wanted to focus writing up their final paper. Simon recalls the meeting well: on. He began looking into drug resistance and malaria, and it’s studying Law / Engineering. His youngest son, 14, is Though he has worked hard to get where he is today, in some “We were putting together this physical map. We had a print a topic that continues to interest him today. in school in . respects it was all down to chance. At the end of high school he out on the table with all of the latest corrections. We showed it had no idea what he wanted to do, so when it came down to Simon’s most famous research project to date was in 1992 at the to Watson and as he had this picture in his hands it was one of * Amateur furniture maker. He’s made several applying for university courses he did what any pragmatically Whitehead Institute at Massachusetts Institute of Technology the first times we realised what we had. You could tell he was pieces over the years and recently finished an ‘arts minded boy of 18 would do: (MIT). As a postdoctoral fellow he began developing the first phenomenally excited. And then he folded it up and put it in and craft’ style writing desk and chair. “I just put down the top four courses in order of how hard they map of the human Y-chromosome. It was the first significant his pocket. This is our working version. There were a total of ten * His father was a vet, and had a profound influence were to get in,” he says. “The hardest thing to get into at the time success out of the American genome project, but he says again hours worth of corrections all done by hand. No one had the on his choice of career: he knew he never wanted to was Medicine at Melbourne University, so that’s what I put first”. that it was all down to chance. guts to ask him for it back. So he walked out with it and we lost work in veterinary science. Luckily, Simon had the entrance scores required and the rest is “The only reason I was involved at all really was because there two days of work!” history. But had it been for a few points where would Simon was nothing else for me to do,” he says. His original project at While Simon is proud of his past achievements, his focus is * Despite all the charms of Sydney, Hobart remains be today? MIT fell through just as he arrived, so he decided to team up on the future and research remains central to his work. He is his favourite city. Page 2 Page 3 the Our Olympic hopefuls get ready to compete Hopes are high for five of Macquarie’s LISTEN elite athletes who have been selected to represent at the 2012 London and LADY Paralympic Games. On 29 February, we Sport Scholar joins the 10-member Australian introduced you to a staff diving team. She has been selected to compete in the 10m member whose birthday platform event. In athletics, Joel Milburn will be part of the men’s 4x400m men’s rolls around just once relay team while Holly Lincoln-Smith will compete with the every four years. Stingers women’s water polo team. Elisa Barnard will compete in women’s archery, and paralympian and Macquarie graduate For today’s 4 July edition, we started Tina McKenzie will be playing on the Australian women’s searching for a staff member with wheelchair basketball team, the Gliders. another famous birthday. Danielle Frances may not share much in common with the USA except a birthday (“I celebrated with some Americans Macquarie and OUA students with “There’s all sorts of subtleties to what we once, on a Contiki tour in Venice on my limited English reading skills and/or do. I’d encourage lecturers to think of 20th birthday?”) but she has more in hearing impairment. us occasionally,” she says. “For example, common with the rest of us than you when you mention an author, perhaps win an Olympic medal in diving when she and her partner might think: she may just have been “The feedback we get from students use their full name – eg David Lucie, competed in the 2008 Beijing Olympics in the listening in on your lectures over the last is that they’re overjoyed with the rather than just ‘Lucie’ – or we’ll spend synchronised 10m platform event. service we provide them at Macquarie six years. hours trying to find the context around Since that time, Melissa, who is studying for a Bachelor of Accessibility Services (MQAS). They tell Raunch culture, philosophy, history, all the Lucies in the discipline area!” Arts-Media at Macquarie, has notched up some notable us that we’d have no idea how much linguistics and psychology - Danielle achievements in the pool. In 2010, she won a silver medal at this is helping them to participate and Generally, though, she says the majority has heard it all while transcribing the World Cup in China in the 10m synchronised platform learn,” she says. of lecturers speak clearly and into the lectures into a variety of formats for the microphone, so the system’s working with partner Alexandra Croak and a bronze medal in the 10m It’s an interesting time in the world of accessibility of students. As the leader well. Danielle’s own system includes individual event. transcribing at Macquarie, especially in of Macquarie’s audio transcribing team, accessibility support too - as a vision At the Delhi Commonwealth she has a unique chance to hear what’s the area of live transcription. In current impaired staff member, MQAS have As a world-class wheelchair basketballer, Tina has already played Games, she won gold with her happening across campus. trials, automated software operates set her up with a CCTV set, a portable over 100 games for the Gliders, winning silver at the 2004 partner in the synchronised “It’s normally in one ear and out the alongside Danielle, who provides magnifier and a supportive and Athens Games, a bronze with her team at the World Cup and 10m event and silver in the 10m other, but I did find my perfect subject a ‘control’ with the traditional diverse workplace in their Lane Cove bronze in Beijing in 2008. individual. She was awarded the once – a history of romantic love. It transcribing method. Road office. In her studies, Tina has also achieved excellence receiving the Female Sport Athlete of the Year was so beautiful, and the texts, like Mists As the automated system faces “I’ve found myself a wonderful niche Chancellor’s Award for academic and sporting excellence in and Chancellor’s Award at the of Avalon and The Name of the Rose – major issues with comprehending here over the last six years, and love this 2005 and 2006 and a nomination for Australian University Sports 2011 Macquarie University Blues oh, they were so nice to listen to as the Australian accent – “up to 70% job. The technology will eventually catch Athlete of the Year. She now works as a primary school teacher. Awards. we worked.” gibberish!” - Danielle’s work has proved up and mean that I’m not needed in this Melissa Wu first sprang to national attention when she Joel Milburn, who was named Danielle and team transcribe between considerably more accurate than the particular role, but I’m excited to keep competed in the 2006 at the tender Macquarie’s Male Sport Athlete 60-70 hours of lectures a week for technology so far. learning until then.” age of 13. She became the youngest Australian in history to of the Year in 2011, has an Page 4 continued page 9 Page 5 desert sounDs “Angela had done some great work with indigenous Peter Ring is no stranger to communities and so she was aware of their need for help. She working in the studio. As radio found out that I had the skills they needed and approached me to get involved,” says Peter. facilities manager he has spent Peter jumped at the chance, first travelling into Papunya to set up the equipment needed to revamp the studio, then returning years helping students to record in April this year to improve recording quality with acoustic Peter with Warumpi band member Sammy Butcher. treatment. “It was such an amazing opportunity to work with on campus, and he recently took Sammy Butcher who is a musical legend and at the same time a trip to the remote Indigenous really help out,” he says. With the help of PACE, who provided the funds for Peter to community of Papunya where he travel, and the Central Australian Youth Link-Up Service, a community access organisation who funded the equipment, helped a different group of young Peter was soon on his way to help out. Peter says the importance of music in the community was people make music in the desert. evident the moment he arrived. “Every young kid there learns how to play music. It’s everywhere you go,” he says. The latest 250km north-west of Alice Springs, Papunya has a long and band to come up through the ranks is the Tjupi band. Recently rich history of cultural creativity. If you search for the town winning the prestigious ABC Triple J Unearthed competition, on Google Earth, you will even see it in the town planning. they have been described as ‘a musical inspiration for people The township is designed with a ring road around the centre across Central Australia’. surrounded by four semi-circular tracks. What looks like a flower They are part of the new wave of uniquely Indigenous from the air is the Honey ant-dreaming pattern - an iconic Australian music known as desert reggae. Singing in Luritja as symbol for the people of Papunya - and in the 1970s it was this well as in English, the influence their success has had on the design that began the western desert art. community is apparent. Creativity was at the core of the town throughout the 1980s, “The band recorded their last album out of the community producing the legendary Warumpi band. At the height of their studio and they have had a really positive impact on the success the band had a hit with the song ‘My Island Home’ and community,” says Peter. “It’s a way for them to express toured with Midnight Oil. themselves and to have a voice.” Band member Sammy Butcher still lives in Papunya and has remained heavily involved with the community. He encourages The Tjupi band will visit Macquarie in November to do some the youth to follow in the footsteps of the great artists and more recordings with Peter, who plans to provide support to musicians of their parents’ generation. the community by managing the studio remotely. In July 2003, Butcher and the Papunya Community Council, in Peter’s ultimate goal is to teach the community the skills collaboration with World Vision, launched a program to give the needed to support their own music industry. He has already people of Papunya a creative outlet. A $250,000 recording studio begun teaching some of the studio users how to fix equipment, was built to give the youth an opportunity to record their music. and plans to offer further skills training. Almost ten years later, the studio fell into disrepair and the “By teaching these skills it’s helping them so much more than community was in search of someone with the skills to revive simply going up and doing it for them,” says Peter. “It’s about it. It was Angela Voerman, Manager, Student Engagement, who independence rather than relying on an outsider to come and made the connection and sought Peter Ring for the job. do it for them.”

Page 6 Page 7 Warriors@Work takes a holistic approach For your diary Apology to health, ensuring that members of the In our last edition we featured staff who were successful campus community are aware of all of during the February round of academic promotions. Unfortunately we missed Dr Kira Westaway from the the options the University offers in terms Department of Environment and Geography who was of social, physical and mental wellness. july promoted to Level C. Our apologies Kira and congratulations. music on winter sundays: Your FREE Warriors@Work activities include: ku-ring-gai male choir • Weekly walking groups Sunday 8 July (2.30pm) • Chiropractic spinal screening The Ku-ring-gai Male Choir is one of the oldest performing male • Healthy eating workshops voice choirs in Australia. Founded by ex-servicemen following • Nutritional seminars the Second World War, the choir has been in harmony since • Mental wellness presentations 1946 and today has over 45 performing members. • Staff-only social sport Location: Lotus Theatre • Personal trainer office visits Tickets: Free but registration is essential. for rent • In-house health assessments balmain sinfonia concert (blood pressure, heart rate, BMI, etc) two-bedroom flat Sunday 15 July (2.30pm) About: Available 29 August -27 October. Fully furnished, free Join conductor Gary Stavrou and soloist Cassandra Horsman for internet and non-smoker preferred. Ideal for academic visitor Jump online for more information: staff.mq.edu.au/warriors_at_work an afternoon with Weber (Oberon Overture), Mozart (Sympony (and partner, if applicable). Owner overseas during this period. No. 31 Paris), Hummel (Variations for Oboe) and Sibelius Location: Bronte. 15 minute walk to Bondi Junction train (Symphony No. 3). station, 5 minute walk to closest bus stop and 10 minute walk Location: Lotus Theatre to beach. Tickets: $20 (adult) and $15 (concession) by calling 9810 5080. Rent: $550pw (including internet and electricity; phone extra). continued from page 5 Contact: Britta at [email protected] or call impressive competitive history in athletics. In 2008, he won the Crimes and Torts ext. 8047. Australian National 400m championships. He was selected for Wednesday 25 July (1pm) the 2008 Olympics in Beijing where he made the semi-finals The Centre for Legal Governance and Centre for Agency, for rent of the individual 400m event; and at the 2010 Commonwealth Values and Ethics are proud to welcome special guest speaker, Modern three-bedroom villa Games in Delhi, he and his teammates garnered gold for Professor Antony Duff, University of Minnesota, who is a leading Australia in the 4X400m relay. Joel received his Bachelor of Arts expert on the philosophy of punishment and is internationally About: Villa features two bathrooms, lock up garage with in 2011. recognised for his expertise in criminal law and its structure. internal access,open plan lounge and dining with new timber Archer Elisa Barnard, who will make her Olympic debut in floor and tiled kitchen. Location: Room 501 (W3A) London, won the 2012 Oceania Championships qualifying her for Location: Eastwood. Walk to Eastwood train station, bus at door a spot on the Australian team. In 2011 she won gold in the teams Tickets: Free but registration is essential by 19 July. to Macquarie Shopping Centre and University. event at the Australian Open, defended her title and also won macquarie colloquium lecture: Rent: $590pw plus bond. gold in the individual event. Internationally, Elisa represented Australia in two World Cups. Elisa is currently undertaking a what the australian community thinks Contact: Thu at [email protected] or call ext. 1510. about climate change Bachelor of Arts (Psychology) with Bachelor of Laws. for rent Thursday 26 July (6pm) Holly Lincoln-Smith, who graduated with a degree in Human Macquarie’s Professor Tim Flannery, is an internationally Up to four rooms in a large Five-bedroom Resource Management at Macquarie this year, also makes her acclaimed scientist, explorer and conservationist, he has house. Olympic debut in London with the women’s water polo team, published more than 130 peer-reviewed scientific papers. the Stingers. Her previous career highlights include winning the About: This three-storey modern house features air- After 16 months as Climate Commissioner, Tim made 16 visits to gold medal at the Junior World Championships in Portugal 2007 conditioning, three bathrooms, four toilets, pool, two covered and winning the silver medal at the World Cup in New Zealand regional Australia to engage with the community about climate patios and family room. Walk or direct bus to train stations. in 2010. In 2011, she placed 5th in the World Championships change. What he learned was unexpected, and very different Current tenants ride bikes to the University via cycle route held in Shanghai, China and this year took first place in the Pan from what you read in the media. through the national park. Available from 30 June. Pacific Championships in Melbourne. Location: Level 3, Campus Hub (C10A) Location: Warrawee With the Olympic Games and Paralympics beginning later this Tickets: Free but registration is essential. Contact: Karu at [email protected] or call ext. 9141. month, keep an eye out for our five sport stars and cheer them Submit your diary entry by emailing [email protected]. Submit your classified by emailing [email protected]. on. We’ll continue to keep you updated on their progress. Page 8 Page 9 continued from cover grants award to Macquarie academics: • Ms Sharon Kerr from Learning and Teaching for ‘The impact of accessible eBooks on learning outcomes for Indigenous Three Minute Thesis (3MT) Competition Students,’ The Macquarie University 3MT Finals will be held on Thursday • Dr Abhaya Nayak 20th of September during Learning and Teaching Week from Science for (17-21 September). Eight finalists from the faculty heats will ‘Academic integrity Photo: Dr Mitch Parsell. be presenting their thesis in three minutes. The Macquarie in Australia,’ University finalist and the winner of the People’s Choice Award • Associate Professor Leigh Wood from the Faculty of Business will be announced at the end of this event. and Economics for ‘Implementing direct measurement of Please encourage your students to get involved in this graduate capabilities at program level.’ competition. To register to attend the finals, please visit the Learning and Teaching Centre website. “This is an excellent result and is indicative of learning and teaching excellence right across the University. One of the best Professional Staff Development Grants across Australia,” says Judyth Sachs. Do you need to acquire knowledge, skills and experience from The University would like to congratulate all these staff and their outside the University to support and improve performance in your current role? Then our staff development grants may help mentors for their success. pay for this. Applications for Round 2 of the Professional Staff Development Grants Program are now open and close at 5pm on 27 July 2012. Application form and guidelines are available on the Organisation and Staff Development website. PACE Development Grant Scheme We welcome your comments and Applications are now open for the second round of the PACE suggestions. For all enquiries please (Participation and Community Engagement) Development Grant Scheme for 2012. contact the Communications team by The Scheme 2012 aims to encourage: calling 9850 6766 or email (a) The development of new and / or expanded local and [email protected]. regional PACE partnerships with a range of organisations that can provide appropriate Participation activities for our students and For more information about how to (b) The development, documentation and evaluation of submit content, please visit innovative and sustainable modes of delivering Participation activities. staffnews.mq.edu.au. The Scheme is a competitive fund, offering grants of $5000 – $10,000 for projects tied to accredited or nominated Contributors Participation Units. Golda Mitchell Joanna Wheatley For more details regarding the funding parameters, eligibility Lyn Danninger criteria, selection criteria and application information please visit the Participation and Community Engagement website. Editors Applications should be lodged by 5pm Wednesday 11 July 2012 Paul Wild Peter McDonald by email to [email protected]. Submit your bulletin board notice by emailing Art director [email protected]. Peter McDonald Page 10