MUM – April 2007

Melbourne University Magazine APRIL EDITION 2007 Y THE STEM CELL DEBATE Y Parliament passes stem cell bill Y Jihad course books banned Y Australia, a multilingual society with monolingual mindset Special Feature: The Melbourne Model – the University of Melbourne leads the way in education reform page 2. Melbourne Model Human Rights in Jihad course books 02 04 Tough Terrain 06 banned at Baillieu Melbourne University Magazine 2007 Editorial Board April Edition Sean Cubitt – Director Media and Melbourne University Magazine is a Communications Program Faculty of Arts publication for alumni and friends (Chair) of the University of Melbourne. All Silvia Dropulich – Writer & Editor, Marketing correspondence relating to the editorial & Communications (Editor/Managing Editor) content of the magazine should be addressed to: Campbell Bairstow – General Manager, Alumni Relations, Advancement The Editor: Silvia Dropulich Dr Elizabeth Presa – Head and Academic Cover Art: Chris Dyson Coordinator, Centre for Ideas, VCA Melbourne University Magazine Dr Philip Batterham – Associate Professor and Marketing and Communications Reader, Bio21 Institute of Molecular Science The University of Melbourne and Biotechnology Victoria 3010 Dr Douglas Parbery – Committee of Convocation Phone: +61 3 8344 7999 Fax: +61 3 8344 4921 Yee Fui Ng – International Law Alumna Email: [email protected] Views expressed by contributors are not necessarily endorsed by the University ISSN: 1442–1349 Melbourne University Magazine Stem Cell Research A multilingual society with a costly 10 16 monolingual mindset Contents 2 Melbourne Model 4 Human Rights in Tough Terrain 6 Jihad course books banned at Baillieu 9 From the Vice-Chancellor 10 Stem Cell Research 16 Australia: a multilingual society with a costly monolingual mindset 18 Carry Me Down brings M.J. Hyland up 20 Plastic note inventor wins Victoria Prize 21 Alumni News 23 Giving to the University 30 University News 37 Honours Melbourne University Magazine 1 2 MelbourneUniversityMagazine CLOisters. PHOTO: JOE VITTORIO MELBOURNE MODEL These are exciting times for the University. Melbourne has a clear and nation-leading educational vision, which integrates bold aspirations in teaching, research and knowledge transfer. Remarkable Foundations students to grapple with different community support. Melbourne will ways of understanding the world. be a valued leader and contributor to Melbourne alumni are on the move University-wide subjects will create high-level thought and debate in the all around the world and their alma a number of common conversations community, and will be more involved mater is moving with them. Our new across undergraduate degrees. in the world of industry and business, curriculum builds on the 150-year as investment in commercialisation tradition of excellence in teaching and Many students will stay on for a brings expanded opportunities for research that informed your studies. We graduate education, taught with the knowledge and technical transfer. know that these remarkable foundations rigour and to an intensive timetable will support some of the most important appropriate for educating the best and Philanthropy will play a larger role and far-reaching developments the brightest. Professional graduate in University life, bringing more in the University’s history. schools will be established across the independence from government, University. They will build impressive more scholarships for students in As a Melbourne graduate, your degree international reputations and draw need of financial assistance, more is highly regarded both nationally students from Melbourne’s own endowed positions for outstanding and internationally. Our graduates graduates, from other Australian teachers and researchers, and more have high-profile roles across the universities, and from the region. opportunity to fund capital works. globe and are admired as important contributors to their communities. The Melbourne will still be the strongest Launching the Melbourne changes under the Melbourne Model research university in Australia. Model – Dream Large will further improve the standing of Its capacity and outreach will be your already impressive credentials, enhanced by two or three new The University of Melbourne challenges particularly through expansion of first- institutes in emerging areas of cross- alumni and prospective students to class postgraduate education, which disciplinary Melbourne strengths, such ‘dream large’ with groundbreaking we encourage you to investigate. as material sciences, sustainability, educational reforms in research, immunology, Middle Eastern teaching and learning and knowledge A Snapshot of the Future studies and Asian interaction. transfer. Central to the Dream Large campaign is a highly focused The undergraduate education offered Melbourne will build a profile for promotional campaign beginning at Melbourne will be one of the finest knowledge transfer and wider public in April and targeting television in the world. Courses will offer both engagement by tackling national and and cinema, print media, outdoor immersion in a discipline and require regional issues, with business and advertising and the world wide web. continued on page 26… Melbourne University Magazine 3 Human Rights in Tough Terrain by Silvia DROpulich In a thought-provoking address on human rights, Amnesty International Executive Deputy Secretary General, Kate Gilmore, has asserted that Australia has become an ambassador for the violation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Ms Gilmore, a Melbourne alumnus, According to Ms Gilmore, the Australian She said universities existed to develop, was delivering the 2006 Chancellor’s government had also introduced preserve and impart knowledge and Human Rights Lecture at the University preventative detention and control orders, understanding. Universities should be of Melbourne. and reserved the right for its security exemplars of respect for universal rights, agency ASIO to veto a defence lawyer and concrete illustrations of what can be Fifty-eight years ago, the Universal appointed by a person it had arrested. achieved through respect, knowledge, Declaration of Human Rights information and critical exchange. expressed the international “While no government today would “Some who thought the ‘war on terror’ community’s dare deny the existence of human would be fought with drone aircraft moral rights, not all of them are willing to and cluster bombs are belatedly coming observe human rights standards,” Ms to the view that it is in fact a battle of outrage Gilmore said. “In far too many ideas,” Ms Gilmore said. [See also book of ‘never again’, places, in far too many ban story on page 6] following the horrors of ways, human the Second World War, Ms Gilmore rights are The university’s methods of teaching said. and debate should help equip students abused to understand the importance “Its preamble states that in order for not promoted, are of debate and decision- people to be protected from unbearable undermined not lead, are making in a tyranny and oppression ‘human rights ignored and eroded. pluralistic should be protected by the rule of law’,” she said. “In our century, in every country in society. the world – from Australia to Zimbabwe “In this regard “Some of the same countries that led – governments have sought to expand Amnesty International efforts to frame this powerful statement powers – lawfully and unlawfully congratulates the University of human dignity – Australia among – to limit freedom’s space.” Numbered of Melbourne for the work it is them – have become ambassadors for among them were countries once undertaking in regard of graduate its violation, breaking its provisions, counted as the firm friends of freedom. attributes,” Ms Gilmore said. undermining its protections or Western democracies had taken severe betraying it with sophistry.” measures to undermine the freedoms But, she added, intellectual freedom of that were the ecology in which a just this kind could be a dangerous business. Ms Gilmore cited the example of and civil society could flourish. These counter-terrorism laws introduced measures had passed into public policy In Turkey, academics had been in Australia in recent years. The with little or no public debate or protest, prosecuted for expressing critical laws had created offences relating to because their impact was largely on opinions. And as part of China’s terrorist activity without adequately people at the margins of society. efforts to control the Internet, major defining many of the activities they are universities had been ordered to lock supposed to prohibit. She said the laws Ms Gilmore said Australians needed down bulletin boards, restricting compromised long-standing protections Australia to re-engage the discourse of discussion among students and in the Australian legal system, including human rights, and the world needed prohibiting access to IP addresses off the right to silence, the right to a public Australia to mount a clear and vigorous campus. hearing and the right to choose a lawyer. defence of universal rights. 4 Melbourne University Magazine health and culturaldiversity. and health women’s women, against violence of areas the in published has She Melbourne. of University the at Work Social in qualifications professional her obtained she and studies gender and sociology psychology, in is background around all offices in staff 450 than more of operations the oversees she London in Based work. International’s Amnesty of

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