Former headmaster of Sydney Grammar School and respected classical scholar Dr John Vallance will join UNSW as honorary professor for the public understanding of the humanities.

In his position, Vallance will work with the deputy vice-chancellor, education, professor Merlin Crossley and the School of Humanities and Languages in UNSW Arts and Social Sciences. Crossley said: “John is a highly respected intellectual and a formidable champion for educational quality and access.

“I am delighted that the university has given me the opportunity to support its work in this exciting new way,” Vallance said.

UQ physicist royally acknowledged

University of Queensland School of Mathematics and Physics quantum physics researcher emeritus professor Gerard Milburn has been elected as a fellow of the Royal Society.

Head of school professor Joseph Grotowski said the honour recognised professor Milburn’s “sustained contribution to physics at the highest level”.

Milburn has worked in quantum optics, quantum stochastic processes, atom optics, quantum control and engineered quantum systems, including optomechanics and superconducting quantum circuits.

USC elects new deputy chancellor

The University of the Sunshine Coast has elected local small businessman and philanthropist Scott Williams as its new  deputy chancellor.

Williams was first appointed to the USC council in 2012 and is currently the chairperson of its Planning and Resources Committee.

“It’s a privilege and an honour to be appointed deputy chancellor of USC,” Williams said.

“I have a commitment to education for my philanthropy and I want to contribute to its governance.

“Because the university is very fast-growing and therefore exposed to disruptive technology changes, I think future planning will be a focus for me in this role.”

New Indigenous lead at CDU

Professor Adrian Miller has been appointed to head Charles Darwin University’s Indigenous Leadership portfolio.

Miller was born, raised and educated in northern Australia, and is currently academic director of Indigenous education and research at Griffith University.

“Since completing his undergraduate and postgraduate education at James Cook University, professor Miller has held research, teaching and senior leadership roles in four universities,” CDU vice-chancellor Simon Maddocks said.

“We are looking forward to professor Miller applying his extensive experience to our enterprise.”

USQ names Vice Chancellor

Professor Geraldine Mackenzie has been appointed the University of Southern Queensland’s new vice-chancellor. She was formerly the DVC (research) at Southern Cross University.

“USQ is highly regarded across the university sector for the aspirational opportunities it gives to students no matter their background or circumstance, and it will be my priority to foster those initiatives, to build on the collaborative research partnerships it has and to work closely with its extraordinary staff in building its future as one of Australia’s leading regional universities,” Mackenzie said.

Award-winning architect heads to bond

Bond University’s Faculty of Society and Design has appointed award-winning Queensland architect and academic Michael Keniger to its Abedian School of Architecture.

Keniger, the former Queensland Government Architect who helped deliver public projects such as Brisbane’s Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA) and State Library, was recognised in May with the 2017 National President’s Prize at the Australian Institute of Architects’ annual convention for his commitment to education and the improvement of quality of life through architecture and urban design.

“I look forward to assisting with strategic matters, and to increasing the profile of the school globally,” Keniger said.

Like many scientific terms, it is derived from Ancient Greek: petros, meaning stone or rock; and ichor, which was the name for the fluid that was supposed to run through the veins of the gods.  So it could be translated as stone-essence, a descriptive term with richly allusive qualities.

Smell is the most primeval of our senses, and is directly processed by the brain, unlike sight and hearing for example. It is deeply connected with memory. A stray aroma from a plant, person or place can plunge us instantly back into long-lost recollections.

So it is appropriate that petrichor features in Doctor Who, that most nostalgic of sci-fi series; its main character being a homeless, time-wandering alien. In one episode, petrichor is the telepathically transmitted password that allows access to the Doctor’s hijacked Tardis. Like the Tardis, some words are bigger on the inside.

Internationally renowned cardiologist professor John McMurray, a leading authority on the epidemiology and clinical management of heart disease, has joined the Australian Catholic University’s Mary MacKillop Institute for Health Research.

McMurray’s seminal body of research has led to major advances in the way heart disease is managed and has significantly improved the outlook and life expectancy of millions of people around the world.

He has also held many prestigious positions, including being past-president of the Heart Failure Association of the European Society of Cardiology.

QUT academic now ACS fellow

The director of the QUT Design Lab, professor Marcus Foth, has received a prestigious honour by being named a fellow of the Australian Computer Society.

Foth founded the Urban Informatics Research Lab at QUT in 2006.

In its citation of Foth, the Australian Computer Society said the professor “has made a sustained and distinguished contribution to the field of computer science that directly coincides with a historic moment: cities house major infrastructures and most of the world’s population”.

Uni of NSW installs PVC international

The executive director of UNSW’s International Office, Laurie Pearcey, has been appointed, and installed, as the university’s pro-vice-chancellor (international).

Pearcey joins the university’s executive team with the job of implementing its global impact strategy aimed at driving key international partnerships.

A graduate from UNSW’s International Studies program, Pearcey joined the Australia China Business Council in 2007, becoming its chief executive officer two years later. He returned to UNSW in 2012 to take up the role of director of the university’s Confucius Institute where he has since been heading up development of UNSW’s first pan-university plan for China and later India.

Commonwealth uni network selects SG

Dr Joanna Newman is the new secretary general of the Association of Commonwealth Universities (ACU).

Newman joins the ACU from King’s College London, UK, where she was vice-principal (international).

Newman has previously represented the UK higher education sector as director of the UK Higher Education International Unit (now known as Universities UK International) and, before that, was head of higher education at the British Library.

The ACU was established in 1913 and is the world’s first and oldest international university network.

Foundation fellow for USC timber centre

Australia’s National Centre for Timber Durability and Design Life, based in the University of the Sunshine Coast, has appointed its foundation fellow.

Professor Philip Evans, leadership chair in the Faculty of Forestry at the University of British Columbia – which boasts the world’s largest university wood and forestry program – will take on the position while maintaining an ongoing role at UBC.

“I’m there to establish the centre and set the initial research direction, which will be handed over within five years or so to a new generation that we will train,” Evans said.

Monash appoints new arts dean

Professor Sharon Pickering, an internationally recognised expert in criminology and winner of numerous awards, including in human rights, has been appointed as the new dean of Monash University’s Faculty of Arts.

Since joining Monash in 2003, Pickering has distinguished herself in a number of leadership roles in the Faculty of Arts, including as head of criminology and head of the School of Social Sciences.

Pickering is scheduled to commence her new appointment on 29 May 2017.

The professor said she was delighted to be asked to lead Monash’s Faculty of Arts, which she added had “an enviable record of cutting edge research, teaching excellence and community engagement”.

In various sciences, it refers to the point where curved lines meet, for example, the end of a spear-shaped leaf, the projecting point in a gothic arch, or the horns of the crescent moon.

Yet the earliest record of cusp was in the more speculative context of astrology, to refer to where stars cross paths with changing influence on people’s personalities and fortunes.

The phrase 'on the cusp' still carries some of this meaning when it refers to being poised between two progressive states of being, for example, on the cusp of Gen X and Gen Y.

In examples like these, the before-and–after states are both mentioned and connected by on the cusp. But it’s increasingly used with reference to the after-state only, and the before-state is barely implied, as in: we're on the cusp of a wages breakout.

There, the phrase mostly serves to dramatise a phenomenon, and cusp seems to be little more than a clichéd synonym for brink or threshold. This one-sided use of cusp is not yet recognised in current dictionaries such as the Macquarie or the Oxford English Dictionary Online, but perhaps there’s no need, especially if it’s “on the cusp of a dead end”, to quote a certain science journalist.

Margaret Simons.

Award-winning journalist, author and academic Margaret Simons will join the Journalism Department as an associate professor in Monash University’s School of Media, Film and Journalism in July 2017.

Simons, who has taught journalism for approximately 25 years while working as a freelance journalist, said academia, through teaching, research, industry practice and engagement, gave her the ability to make a difference to the future of the journalism profession.

“It is a privilege to be involved with young people and to have the opportunity to study why and how journalism matters,” Simons said.

First PVC Indigenous for UNSW

Megan Davis.

Law professor Megan Davis has been appointed UNSW’s first pro-vice-chancellor Indigenous.

She will take up the role from 1 June 2017 after her obligations in leading the Referendum Council Aboriginal Constitutional Dialogues are fulfilled.

In her role as PVC Indigenous, Davis will have overall responsibility for ensuring that UNSW delivers on its agenda for Indigenous students.

Davis is a Cobble Cobble Aboriginal woman from the Barrungam nation in southwest Queensland and is one of Australia’s most highly regarded lawyers specialising in public law and public international law.

Langton heads to UniMelb

Marcia Langton.

One of Australia’s most respected Indigenous academics, professor Marcia Langton, has been appointed as the first associate provost at the University of Melbourne. Langton is one of the most significant voices in public debate on many issues relating to Indigenous Australia, and is well known to many at the university as a teacher and research leader in Indigenous studies. She gave the 2012 Boyer Lectures, titled The Quiet Revolution: Indigenous People and the Resources Boom on ABC Radio National, and was a member on the Expert Panel on Constitutional Recognition of Indigenous Australians.

The role will have a remit to provide leadership in relevant areas of engagement, cultural collections and other heritage issues and in the development of Indigenous teaching and research activities.

Whitlam names new fellows

Margret Wilson.

Edward Nik-Khah.

Professor Margaret Wilson and associate professor Edward Nik-Khah have joined the Western Sydney University-based Whitlam Institute as honorary fellows.

Institute director Eric Sidoti said he was “very excited to have professor Wilson and associate professor Nik-Khah formally recognised as such valued members of our extended family.

“Professor Wilson is not only an acclaimed legal academic but is also one of New Zealand’s most respected public figures, having served in several key ministerial portfolios in Helen Clark’s Labour government, including attorney-general, and been elected as speaker of the New Zealand parliament.

“Dr Nik-Khah, an associate professor of economics at Roanoke College in Virginia, has gained an international reputation for his work on the history and philosophical underpinnings of neoliberalism, notwithstanding his relative youth.”

In a statement, the institute said that while both positions were honorary appointments, “our fellows are actively involved both as advisers and contributors to the institute’s public policy program”.

The Whitlam Institute was established as a national centre for dialogue and debate on public policy under an agreement between WSU and former Australian Prime Minister Gough Whitlam in 2000.

UC welcomes Olympian mentor

Beki Smith.

Olympic race walker and Indigenous woman Beki Smith has been announced as the University of Canberra’s 2017 Athlete in Residence. In a statement regarding the role, the university advised that Smith, a Yuin woman, “will work side by side with staff and students, giving them an opportunity to learn from her experiences as a professional athlete. The Olympian will be involved in projects embedded within a host of disciplines and across all faculties." This is the program’s third year.

Smith made her Olympic debut at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, finishing 28th in the women's 20 kilometres walk. She is currently preparing for the IAAF World Championships in London later this year.

Flog, of course, has a rich set of meanings. Apart from the standard sense of to beat, perhaps related to the Latinate verb flagellate, there are the slang uses of to sell, and to steal. A less established and more scabrous use of the word in Australia is as a synonym for wanker. There are plenty of phrases too, including the evocative Australianism to flog a flea, as in Joseph Furphy’s memorable usage: “The famine was sore in the land. To use the expression of men deeply interested in the matter, you could flog a flea from the Murrumbidgee to the Darling.” (Such is Life, 1903).

The advertising sense is no longer commonly seen, perhaps because the strategy gained a bad reputation. Anyone writing a flog these days would probably be considered to be flogging a dead horse.

Air Chief Marshal Sir Angus Houston AK, AFC (Ret’d) will become the University of the Sunshine Coast’s new chancellor on April 1.

Houston said he nominated for the role because he was impressed by USC’s positive culture and performance.

Houston retired as chief of the Australian Defence Force in July 2011 after 41 years of service in the military.

He was awarded the Knight of the Order of Australia in 2015 for extraordinary and pre-eminent achievement and merit in service to Australia, through distinguished service in the Australian Defence Force, and commitment to serve the nation in leadership roles. U OF A hires tech head

The University of Adelaide has appointed a new chief information officer to progress the ongoing transformation of its information technology services and systems.

Bev McQuade will lead the university’s 250-person Technology Branch, driving the IT strategy to improve the education experience of its students and to support world-class research. She will join the university in the coming months.

McQuade has been the CIO at SA Water for the past eight years where she has developed its IT strategy and driven the modernisation of SA Water’s IT infrastructure and support functions. Smart pick for Swinburne

Professor Mark Burry has been appointed the new foundation director of Swinburne’s Smart Cities Research Institute.

Burry joins Swinburne from the Melbourne School of Design, University of Melbourne, where he was professor of urban futures. He is also the executive architect and lead researcher at the Sagrada Familia Basilica in Barcelona, Spain.

“The Smart Cities Research Institute will focus on the grand urban challenges facing Australia and the world, on reducing congestion, improving economic productivity, reducing our current dependency on fossil fuels and improving human health and mobility,” said Swinburne’s professor Aleksandar Subic. Calma to stay on at UC

Respected human rights campaigner professor Tom Calma will continue in his role as chancellor of the University of Canberra for another three years.

Calma, who has held the position since January 2014, was the first Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander man to become chancellor of an Australian university.

The 2013 Australian of the Year finalist has tirelessly campaigned on health, social justice, inclusion and equality issues during a career in tertiary education dating back to 1980.

Calma is an Aboriginal elder of the Kungarakan tribal group and a member of the Iwaidja tribal group. His second term as chancellor began on January 1. CAPR names new team leader

In August, Professor Emmanuel Kuntsche will lead the team at the Centre for Alcohol Policy Research (CAPR) in Melbourne, a joint initiative of the Foundation for Alcohol Research and Education (FARE) and La Trobe University.

CAPR is a unique research facility with the sole focus of building the evidence base on alcohol issues and exploring policy measures that would prevent alcohol-related harm.

Kuntsche has a background in health and developmental psychology, and quantitative social research. He is currently a senior researcher with Addiction Switzerland and an associate professor at Radboud University Nijmegen in the Netherlands. ARC appoints Arts Director

Professor Joanne Tompkins has been named as the Australian Research Council’s new executive director for humanities and creative arts (HCA).

Tompkins will join the ARC in April from the University of Queensland, where she is currently associate dean (research) in the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences.

Acting ARC chief executive Leanne Harvey said of the appointment: “Professor Tompkins is a distinguished researcher and university leader … [whose] research has assisted the development of cultural spaces for theatres, galleries and museums through 3D visualisation and modelling of theatre spaces.”

The University of Western Australia has elevated one of its senior executives to vice-chancellor.

Professor Dawn Freshwater, who was acting vice-chancellor after professor Paul Johnson announced his departure from the role, has been selected as his permanent replacement.

While at UWA, Freshwater has championed the university’s participation in the Science and Gender Equity’s Athena SWAN program, which awards institutions bronze, silver and gold awards based on workplace gender equity. Prior to this, she was pro-vice-chancellor for staff and organisational effectiveness at the University of Leeds in the UK. Vann renews CSU contract

Charles Sturt University vice-chancellor professor Andrew Vann has renewed his contract till 2021.

Vann, who has a background in civil engineering in industry and academia, became CSU vice-chancellor in 2011, taking over from professor Ian Goulter. During his first term he opened the Port Macquarie campus, started up the School of Engineering, and oversaw carbon neutrality for CSU.

Vann said he would now work to ensure that CSU’s new Port Macquarie campus thrived and that he would also continue lobbying, alongside La Trobe University, to establish the Murray Darling Medical School. Art luminary heads to FedUni

Federation University Australia has announced that Bryce Ives, a renowned artistic leader with extensive experience in strategic planning and community development, will be the new director of the Arts Academy Ballarat and Gippsland Centre of Arts and Design (GCAD).

Along with having worked with the BBC in the UK, Ives has previously worked as an executive producer at the ABC and was general manager of SYN – Australia’s largest community youth creative project.
He has also facilitated community engagement projects across Australia, and performed teaching and director roles at the Victorian College of the Arts. USYD welcomes famed composer

Australian composer Liza Lim has joined the University of Sydney’s Conservatorium of Music.

The highly acclaimed musician has been commissioned by some of the world’s pre-eminent orchestras, including the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Bavarian Radio Orchestra and the BBC Symphony, and was composer-in-residence with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra from 2005 to 2007.

Lim will work alongside a renowned team of Australian composers, including professor Matthew Hindson, Carl Vine and Dr Paul Stanhope, and will help develop the next edition of the national women composers’ development program set up at the Conservatorium last year. Noted scholar joins ECU

Professor Stephen Teo has joined Edith Cowan University’s School of Business and Law as the university’s 10th professorial research fellow.
One of the leading scholars in the field of human resource management, Teo joins Edith Cowan University from RMIT University, where he was the interim director of the Global Business Innovation Research Platform.

His most recent research projects have focussed on the impact of organisational change on the wellbeing of public sector employees.
Teo’s current research focuses on workplace bullying and psychological capital. New science dean for Monash

Professor Jordan Nash has been appointed as Monash University’s next Faculty of Science dean. Nash will join Monash from Imperial College London, where he is currently head of the Department of Physics.

An experimental particle physicist for more than 25 years, Nash also leads significant global scientific collaborations, including at CERN, which operates the world’s largest physics laboratory.
Nash said he looked forward to “working with the faculty to support it in continuing to bring in top researchers and students pushing the boundaries of our scientific knowledge”.
He will take up his new role in July.

Yet by their origins, such booze words were once more specific. Plonk (from World War I) was based on French (vin) blanc = 'white (wine)', while grog is an allusion to C18 Admiral Vernon, known as 'Old Grog' by his grogram (grosgrain) cloak,  and for the watered-down rum he issued to sailors. His name thus became an early byword for inferior liquor, especially in Australia and New Zealand.

The same semantic dilution seems to have happened to North American hooch, originally the name for a frontier whisky made by the Hoochinoo Indians of Alaska, which was sought after by Canadian and American pioneers in the late 1800s.  Since then, hooch has become American slang for any alcoholic liquor, "especially of low quality or illegal provenance”, according to the Oxford English Dictionary.

Hooch is at home in New Zealand in this general sense, but has yet to become naturalised among the general booze words in Australia. This leaves marketing space for a specialist hoochery in Australia’s Ord River region to produce an artisan range of rums, which can be marketed to discriminating tourists.  Forget the thirsty pioneers desperate for any kind of spirit.

The digital magazine technology requires no special software and loads quickly in your web browser. Just click on the magazine cover to begin reading now!

Volume 34 | 2024

Volume 33 | 2023

Volume 32 | 2022

Volume 31 | 2021

Volume 30 | 2020

Volume 29 | 2019

Volume 28 | 2018

Volume 27 | 2017

Volume 26 | 2016

Volume 25 | 2015

Volume 24 | 2014

Volume 23 | 2013