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Latest News: University of New England |
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A year of achievement and change at UNE
Wednesday, 26 December 2007
December 24, 2007
2007 has been a year of achievement and change for the University of New England: achievement that confirms the UNE's widely-recognised strengths in research and teaching, and change that will enable the University to build on those strengths in a rapidly changing higher education environment.
UNE achieved top rating (five stars) for "overall graduate satisfaction" in The Good Universities Guide 2008. It has maintained this rating for eight of the nine years from 2000 to 2008 – an achievement in this regard unmatched by any other university. UNE also maintained its five-star rating in the Guide for "teaching quality".
The outstanding quality of teaching at UNE was recognised by awards – including Carrick Institute Citations for Outstanding Contributions to Student Learning to all eight of the UNE individuals and groups nominated for this national award. Over the past two years, UNE has received more than $1.77 million from the Carrick Institute in achievement awards and grants for innovative projects. One of the Carrick Citation recipients, Dr Jennifer McDonell, also received a highly-prized Quality Teaching Award from the NSW Minister for Education and Training and the Australian College of Educators.
This year saw the Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) supporting the Australian sheep industry establish its base at UNE as the new "CRC for Sheep Industry Innovation". (The CRCs for the beef and poultry industries are also based at UNE.) It also saw the launch of Phase II of the Primary Industries Innovation Centre (PIIC) – a collaborative venture of UNE and the NSW Department of Primary Industries – and the appointment of Professor Bob Martin as the Centre's Director.
UNE's many other research centres have continued their ground-breaking work throughout the year. Among them, the Centre for Applied Research in Social Sciences has attracted funding of more than $500,000 in 2007. This Centre's large-scale report on The Social Costs and Benefits of Migration into Australia (showing that the benefits of migration far outweigh any costs) was published in July. The project was overseen by the Joint Commonwealth, State and Territory Research Advisory Committee of the Ministerial Council of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs.
Another of UNE's research centres, the Australian Centre for Agriculture and Law (AgLaw Centre), completed a year-long study (commissioned by the Australian Farm Institute and Land and Water Australia) of Australia's environmental regulations. The report on the study, launched in Canberra in September, recommends a major overhaul of environmental regulations to make them fairer and more effective.
A team of 30 science and policy researchers from UNE and the NSW Department of Primary Industries won a $480,000 grant from the NSW Government to develop technologies for the production of biofuels. This "Climate Action Grant" is the first part of a larger "Biofuels Initiative" program developed through the PIIC and led by the Director of the AgLaw Centre, Professor Paul Martin.
The many achievements of the UNE-based National Centre of Science, ICT and Mathematics Education for Rural and Regional Australia this year were crowned by the success of its tender for UNE to manage two of the five new national Summer Schools for teachers to be held in January 2008. UNE will manage both the Mathematics Summer School (to be held at UNE) and the Science Summer School (to be held at Flinders University in Adelaide).
UNE's strong reputation in many research fields resulted in its hosting a diverse range of national and international conferences in the course of the year. These included the Second International Art in Early Childhood Conference, "Narrowing the Gap" (an international education conference), the annual conference of the Australasian Association of Philosophy, the annual conference of the Australasian Association for the History, Philosophy, and Social Studies of Science, Recent Advances in Animal Nutrition in Australia 2007, the annual conference of the Australian Mammal Society, the Regional Conference of the Australian Historical Association, "Adaptation and Fitness in Animals" (an international symposium in honour of UNE's Emeritus Professor Stuart Barker), and the 17th conference of the Association for the Advancement of Animal Breeding and Genetics.
In July the University launched a new academic structure, in which two new Faculties – the Faculty of Arts and Sciences and the Faculty of The Professions – replace the previous four, and a realignment of disciplines has resulted in a reduction in the number of Schools from 16 to 10. The aim here has been to increase opportunities for academic cooperation in teaching and research by locating related disciplines within the same school. The launch of the new structure marked the culmination of a period of consultative planning that began in 2006 at the instigation of the Vice-Chancellor, Professor Alan Pettigrew, and continued in 2007 through the work of a Reorganisation Planning Group. The planning involved submissions from – and discussions with – a broad range of staff members.
"By aligning and focusing its academic strengths," Professor Pettigrew said, "and by simplifying its academic and administrative structures, the reorganisation will help UNE to realise the vision of its Strategic Plan for 2007-2010."
In maintaining its role as a leader in quality education, and ensuring that it delivers courses that are relevant to students and their prospective employers, UNE is introducing 20 new courses in Semester 1, 2008. These include Bachelor of Criminology and Bachelor of Medicine degree courses. (The Bachelor of Medicine course, in UNE's new School of Rural Medicine, is part of the Joint Medical Program being conducted by the University of Newcastle, UNE, and Hunter New England Health.) "We are delighted with the response to these new courses," Professor Pettigrew said.
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