Arts News
Monash researchers are collaborating with the Australian Federal Police (AFP) on a new training program as part of a broader research project on counter-terrorism policing.
A one-week pilot course on investigative interviewing techniques has been launched, incorporating linguistic as well as psychologically-based approaches to interviewing. Inter-cultural communication issues will also be addressed.
A ceremony was held last week at the Monash Staff Club to recognise excellence in teaching within the Arts Faculty. For the first time, there was also recognition of the work of sessional teaching staff.
Dr JaneMaree Maher, Associate Dean (Education), School of Political and Social Inquiry, said the Faculty of Arts contained many passionate and committed teachers and those receiving awards exemplified all the best attributes; concern for students, innovative and engaged teaching practices and a vision of education as transforming the world everyday in small yet significant ways. Nominations were made by Heads of schools and undergraduate coordinators, drawing on unit evaluations and other evidence of curriculum quality.
In her address, Professor Rae Frances congratulated all the awarded staff and said that decisions between excellent teachers were always challenging; she noted that “the number of awards today reflects the depth of talent in teaching in the Faculty of Arts”. Professor Frances said that “teachers in classrooms are Monash University’s most important ambassadors and memories of great teaching will stay with students for all of their lives”.
Professor Bruce Scates Director of the National Centre for Australian Studies has secured over $300,000 in funding in the latest ARC linkage round. His project involves the first extended study of soldier settlement in New South Wales, which ‘opened up’ vast tracts of the state in the aftermath of the Great War. ‘A Land Fit for Heroes’ involves collaboration with Department of Veterans’ Affairs and State Records NSW. Based on recently opened archives it will address emerging themes in transnational and environmental history, enrich regional/community histories and recover the largely forgotten experience of soldier settlers and their families as they battled with the land.
“The digger has an iconographic status in Australian society”, Professor Scates commented “and thousands of families have charted the service records of relatives who served in the first AIF. This project will recover the returned soldier as important an historical entity as the men (and women) who went to war. It will look at ways our society tried to recover from the trauma of war, examine veterans’ return to Australia and their difficult readjustment to civil society”. The project is perfectly placed in the National Centre for Australian Studies addressing as it does issues of national significance. “Like many in regional NSW today soldier settlers struggled against isolation, drought and financial hardship. This project will evaluate the role soldier settlement played in populating remote districts and assess its long-term environmental impacts”.
Included in the grant is an Australian Postgraduate Scholarship and amongst the projected outcomes is a website charting the fate of some 9000 settlers. Professor Scates’ fellow chief investigator is A/Professor Melanie Oppenheimer.
Applications are now open for the 2009 Vice Chancellors Ancora Imparo Student Leadership Program. All first year students studying at Victorian Campuses of Monash University are encouraged to apply for a postion in the this program. Visit the website for more information.
Dr Kate Murphy was awarded the Mollie Hollman Doctoral Medal for the best thesis submitted in the Faculty of Arts in 2007. The medal was presented by the Dean at a reception organised by the School of Historical Studies. Entitled ‘Gender and the rural-urban divide: fears and fantasies of the Australian elite, 1900-1930′, the thesis explores the different ways in which rural ideals functioned within early 20th century elite culture. The Dean commented both on the importance of the topic and on the very high praise that the thesis received from its examiners.
Press Release
The Australasian Theological Forum (ATF) Ltd awards an annual prize for outstanding theological books published in the area of Christian theology in the past year. Recently it announced the recipients of the 2007 prize for books published in 2006.
Rev Dr Paul Babie, Associate Dean of Law (Research) at the University of Adelaide Law School, Priest of the Eparchy for Ukrainian Catholics of Australia, New Zealand and Oceania, and Chair of the Board of Directors of ATF Ltd, announced the winners at the ATF Office in Adelaide on 2 May 2008.
Rev Dr Babie said that ‘the criteria used by the panel of judges require that a book be well-written, of international standard, and that it be challenging and constitute an original contribution to its field of theology.’
‘In awarding its prize the ATF aims to recognise and encourage theological work of real quality in Australia and New Zealand’, Rev Dr Babie said.
Professor Emeritus Gary D Bouma has been awarded the first prize for 2008 for his book Australian Soul: Religion and Spirituality in the 21st Century, published by Cambridge University Press. Professor Bouma is an Anglican Priest and Emeritus Professor of Sociology in the School of Political and Social Inquiry at Monash University and the UNESCO Chair in Interreligious and Intercultural Relations, Asia Pacific.
In awarding the prize, Rev Dr Babie said that ‘Professor Bouma’s research has primarily focussed on the interaction between religion and society in Western societies including Canada, the United States, Australia, New Zealand and Europe. His current work includes a major study of religious plurality in multicultural Australia making strategic comparisons with other societies and an attempt to delineate Australia’s religious institutions and continuing work on Post-Modernity as a context for interfaith dialogue and theological reflection. In Australian Soul, Professor Bouma challenges the idea that religious and spiritual life in Australia is in decline, arguing instead that far from petering out, religion and spirituality are thriving. This makes a very important contribution to contemporary political and social dialogue.’
Rev Dr Babie also announced the second prize, highly commending Aloysius Rego, OCD, of the Discalced Carmelite Friars in Victoria, for Suffering and Salvation: The salvific meaning of suffering in the later theology of Edward Schillebeeckx, published by Peeters Press and WB Eerdmans. Rev Dr Babie said that ‘Fr Rego’s book is a challenging and significant work exploring the deeper questions of God’s role in suffering and salvation through the lens of Edward Schillebeeckx’s later theology. The project ultimately builds a contemporary soteriology.’
Further information:
Mr Hilary Regan
ATF Press
0411 876 099
Sixteen Monash University leaders will be among 1000 people attending the Australia 2020 Summit later this month.
Australia’s leading scholars of war and memory joined together for the launch of a new edition of Ken Inglis’ multi-award winning work.
- Explore the meaning of Australia’s war memorials with:
- Bill Gammage: author of The Broken Years: Australian Soldiers in the Great War
- Hank Nelson: author of Chased by the Sun: The Australians in Bomber Command and Prisoners of War: Australians Under Nippon
- Kate Darian Smith: author of On the Home Front: Melbourne in Wartime 1939-1945
- Bruce Scates: Director of the National Centre for Australian Studies, author of Return to Gallipoli: Walking the Battlefields of the Great War
- Katti Williams: doctoral research student.
An Honours graduate ensemble from Monash University’s Academy of Performing Arts has plunged into the richness of the literary classics for their first show for 2008.
The Sir John Monash Medal for Outstanding Achievement was awarded to Emma Nicholls, a Historical Studies student this week. This was the first time any faculty has awarded this medal. Five Arts students also received Certificates of Commendation at the presentation.