Initiatives in science education and research at Griffith University would have impressed the great Thomas Alva Edison, says Queensland Chief Scientist Dr Geoff Garrett AO.
Dr Garrett visited Griffith’s Nathan campus this week to officially open the University’s new Chemistry Teaching Laboratory in the School of Biomolecular and Physical Sciences.
The ceremony was held at the Sir Samuel Griffith Centre and guests included the Federal Member for Moreton, The Honourable Graham Perrett MP, Griffith University academics and industry partners, and staff and students from Whites Hill State College and Cavendish Road State High School.
Pro Vice Chancellor Science, Environment, Engineering and Technology, Professor Debra Henly, said the $2.4 million refurbishment of the laboratory had created a state-of-the-art facility befitting initiatives such as the new and comprehensive Bachelor of Science degree to begin at Griffith in 2014.
“A further $600,000 was spent on new equipment and the very generous donation of high-end analytical equipment by Waters Australia makes this laboratory a standout example in the field of science education and research in Australia,” Professor Henly said.
Dr Garrett said one of the joys of his position as Chief Scientist was discovering all that was happening in science in Queensland.
“Things are moving fast in these exponential times of change and there is plenty of exciting information just waiting to be known,” he said.
“Thomas Edison said that vision without implementation is hallucination. This laboratory is an important act of implementation and Thomas Edison would be proud of all you are doing here.”
The Chemistry Teaching Laboratory is divided into two spaces, one for first-year students and another for second/third-year students. In 2014, the laboratory is expected to cater for more than 600 students.
Teaching topics include analytical chemistry, organic, inorganic and physical chemistry, with students experiencing practical chemical techniques covering traditional wet chemistry, complex instrumentation and chemical synthesis.
Dr Garrett and Professor Henly with students from Whites Hill State College and Cavendish Road State High School at the Sir Samuel Griffith Centre
The laboratory is open to Griffith undergraduates and students from the Queensland Institute of Business and Technology, although it is also being used for activities such as the Royal Australian Chemical Institute titration competition, secondary school outreach sessions, seminars, instrumentation demonstrations and instrumentation training.
The instrument room is open to research groups from within Griffith and other institutions, as well as external industry bodies.
Instrumentation within the laboratory features a mixture of traditional and emerging technologies, including Inductively Coupled Plasma Optical Emission Spectrometry, Triple Quadrupole Mass Spectrometry (High Performance Liquid Chromatography and Gas Chromatography) and Convergence Chromatography.
The facility also incorporates specialised exhaust extraction systems, modern fume cupboards and chemical storage facilities.
Professor Henly said the goal of the laboratory was to equip graduates with hands-on experience of the types of complex analytical equipment they were likely to come across when in the workforce, as well as provide cutting edge analytical tools to assist research.
After the official opening, guests were escorted on a tour of the new laboratory and the Sir Samuel Griffith Centre, where they viewed the range of technology supporting a building already granted a 6-star Green Rating from the Green Building Council of Australia.
The transformation of a modern Brisbane café into an underground, after-hours scene reminiscent of the film noir 1950s has earned Griffith University’s Callena Brenchley a prestigious photographic award.
The 21-year-old Queensland College of Art student’s evocative image, captured at the New Farm Deli in Brunswick Street, was voted the best of the 38 finalists in the 2013 Sanpellegrino Café Society Photography Competition.
Callena received her award at a chic cocktail party on the terrace roof at the Gallery of Modern Art.
The brief for the 2013 competition was: “One of the many reasons Café Society has become an integral part of modern life is because we can count on its constant and reliable accessibility. But what happens when the doors are closed? Capture the essence of your café after hours.”
Callena’s photograph depicts a woman sitting on the café’s interior steps and either oblivious or ambivalent about smoke and steam billowing through an open door behind her. In one hand, she holds a cigarette; in the other, a bottle of the sponsor’s product. Her bowler hat rests on a banister upright.
An excited Callena said she had hoped to take the “after hours” concept into a completely different setting.
“I really wanted to push the idea of contrast and transformation, the feeling that a cafe that operates normally by day could become this almost underground world existing in another time when the doors are closed,” she said.
Callena said she hoped to work as a freelance photographer and operate her own photography business after graduating from Griffith.
While the Sanpellegrino competition has been running for 14 years in Melbourne and Sydney, 2013 was its second year in Brisbane. It connects QCA photography students with the coolest, quirkiest and classic cafes in Brisbane and on the Gold Coast.
Callena Brenchley (second from right) with representatives from New Farm Deli and sponsor company, Sanpellegrino
Brand manager for Sanpellegrino, Ms Manuela Capponi, said: “It’s great to see how this year’s brief really captured the imagination of students, which resulted in some wonderfully unique images that tell a story behind the scenes.”
Judges included Julie Ewington (Curator, Queensland Art Gallery), Madeline Healy (Editor, Brisbane News) and Fiona Donnelly (Queensland editor for Australian Gourmet Traveller‘s annual Restaurant Guide).
The 2013 results were:
1st Callena Brenchley, New Farm Deli, New Farm ($1500 and a Sanpellegrinio gift box);
2nd Eloisa Riley, Pompidou Café, Balmoral ($500 and gift box);
3rd Claire Williams, Moose & Gibson, Woolloongabba ($250 and gift box);
The Creativity Award went to Natalie Brockett, Two Cups Espresso, Spring Hill ($250 and gift box).
Sanpellegrino will produce a 2014 diary and calendar which will include all 113 images submitted to its various competitions.
Griffith University research projects have been awarded just over $6m in research funding by the prestigious National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC).
Vice Chancellor Professor Ian O’Connor has warmly congratulated all the academic staff involved in achieving this tremendous success.
Professor Wendy Moylefrom the university’s Centre for Health Practice Innovation received the largest funding of $1,115,684 for her study looking at the effects of robotic animals on engagement, mood states, agitation and antipsychotic drug use in people with dementia.
Dr Lara Farrellfrom the Griffith Health Institute’s Behaviourial Basis of Health programhasattracted $285,000 for her studyCombined d-Cycloserine and Intensive Behaviour TherapyTherapy for Children and Youth with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder.
Professor Wendy Chaboyerfrom the University’s Centre for Research Excellencein Nursing has received $1,071,077 forher trialINTroducing A Care bundle To preventpressure injury (The INTACT Trial).
Professor Yaoqi Zhouhas received$340,171for his studyDiscriminating disease-causing from neutral insertion/deletions in human genetic variations.
Professor Vicky Averyfrom the Eskitis Institute has been granted $632,402 forInvestigating the therapeutic potential of FTY720 for Human African Trypanosomiasis.
Meanwhile Professor Suresh Mahalinghamfrom the Institute for Glycomics has been granted a research fellowship of $601,420.00 to studyViral Inflammatory disease: new mechanisms and approaches to therapy.
Translating research
Under the category of Translating Research into Practice Fellowship, Dr Brigid Gillespie from the Centre for Research Excellence in Nursing has been granted $170,689 forImproving surgical safety in the operating room.
Early Career Fellowships under the title of ‘Peter Doherty Biomedical’have been granted to Dr Mehfuz Zaman for theDevelopment of a Group A Streptococcus vaccine candidate($304,596 granted) and to Dr Adam Taylorfor How alphaviruses cause disease and identifying new therapeutics($304,596 granted).
Australian/EU Collaborative Research Grants include the following:
Associate Professor Katherine AndrewsNew drugs for parasitic diseases$266,353 granted.
Congratulations to the following Griffith University staff who were successful through other institutions:
Professor Suzanne Chambers from the Griffith Health Institute(through Edith Cowan University)Improving sexual health in men with prostate cancer: randomised controlled trial of exercise and psychosexual therapies,$561,845 granted.
Associate Professor Glen Ulett(through University of Queensland)‘A matter of life and death: defining novel interactions between uropathogenic E. coli and macrophages that influence UTI pathology, $621,894 granted.
Professor David Lloydfrom the Griffith Health Institute (through University of Sydney)Randomised controlled trial of hip arthroscopy for femoroacetabular impingement, $968,257 granted.
Travel is known to open minds and broaden horizons and for Griffith business student, Shannon Baldwin, travel also sharpened her critical faculties.
A trip to South Africa — and her acute observations there — underpinned a university assignment that has just won her $1000, courtesy of AirAsia.
The 21-year-old Gold Coast double degree student was struck by the unforgiving, in-your-face style of an AIDS-awareness campaign while in Durban last year.
“It was known as the sugar daddy campaign,” she recalls. “The billboards depicted men enticing young women into cars, with the implication that if they got into the car they got AIDS.
“I found it extremely interesting on a number of levels. Firstly, it’s an issue treated with greater importance in South Africa than in Australia where AIDS would not be commonly marketed in such a way. In South Africa the campaign was driven by a different set of political and social factors.
“The use of billboards to promote the campaign was also interesting. In Australia I believe there would be restrictions on that type of confronting content and I would only expect to see advertisements like this on late night television or in niche health publications.
“I was struck by how straightforward the campaign was. The billboards literally read ‘Older Men + Young Girls = AIDS and Teen Pregnancy’. That’s pretty confronting, but wildly effective.
“They had the billboards in the more rural areas to target people in villages whose second language is often English. So they used basic words coupled with strong pictures to get their message across.”
When the capstone Marketing course required students to write a 3000-word critical reflection, the fourth year marketing and hotel management student had a forum to explore her South African experience.
Her reflections and insights caught the attention of the Griffith and AirAsia judges who selected her piece from about 400 submissions from marketing students across Griffith’s Gold Coast and Nathan campuses.
Judges said Shannon’s reflection demonstrated a broad and continual learning process, where she transferred her learning within the classroom to experiences both on and off campus through her life and academic career.
Course coordinator Mitchell Ross said the assessment task asked students to reflect on their entire academic experience inside and outside of the formal classroom.
“It’s an interesting challenge for marketing students. This kind of reflective learning builds on connecting theory with practice and moves towards a deeper level of understanding.”
“I will be graduating soon so this is a fantastic pre-graduation surprise,” she said.
Shannon hopes to work in Sydney on completion of her studies with marketing options in hotel chains among her potential job targets.
AirAsia has got involved with Griffith’s Department of Marketing in recent years, giving some guest lectures and sponsoring the critical reflection component of the capstone Marketing course.
The company has indicated an intention to extend this involvement in the future and possibly fly the winning students to AirAsia headquarters in Malaysia.
Griffith University has welcomed two V8 Supercar drivers to the Gold Coast campus ahead of the Armor All Gold Coast 600.
Drivers, Shane Van Gisbergen and Lee Holdsworth took to the red couch at the Learning Commons Grass Forecourt to talk about their success in this highly competitive sport as well as the career path that took them there.
Staff and students also had the opportunity to ask V8 supercar engineers about the science and engineering that keeps the high-speed action on track.
Track marshals for the event were Professor Michael Blumenstein from Griffith’s School of Information and Communications Technology, and Professor Paul Burton from Griffith’s Urban Research Program.
They interviewed not only the V8 team members, but also introduced other Griffith experts who provided vital insights into the pathways and study options that could lead to a fast-paced career in this industry.
They also investigated other study-related opportunities linked with large-scale events including tourism, event management, environmental health, engineering and technology.
But it wasn’t all just lounging on the couch for our guests. The drivers were also put to the test with a rigorous slot car race against students to decide who really is the King of the Track at Griffith.
Fortunately for all… the race was declared a draw.
Dr Peter Knight was awarded the 2013 Queensland ConservatoriumGriffith University Alumnus of the Year at the 2013 Arts, Education and Law Gala Dinner and Awards Night this month.
Composer, sound artist and trumpet player, he is a multidisciplinary musician renowned for his eclecticism.
In late 2012 he was appointed Artistic Director of the Australian Art Orchestra, one of the leading and most innovative ensembles in Australia. He has received a number of prestigious national awards, most recently the Australia Council Music Fellowship and the 2012 Bell Jazz Award for ‘Most Original Jazz Album’. Internationally, he also received the Rolston Music Fellowship from Banff Centre for the Arts. He received his Doctor of Musical Arts from Queensland Conservatorium Griffith University in 2011.
ABC Radio National’s Paul Barclay hosted the Awards evening, with performances by 2012 AEL Outstanding Alumnus of the Year Katie Noonan and her string quartet, and third-year Queensland Conservatorium Musical Theatre students.
Humanities schools must do more to demonstrate the value of their teaching and research to prevent being an easy target for university funding cuts, says a leading Queensland academic.
The founding director of the Centre for Critical and Cultural Studies at the University of Queensland, Emeritus Professor Graeme Turner, said the Humanities had endured years of under-funding and presented a soft target for governments looking for savings.
Professor Turner will be the keynote speaker at the Griffith Centre for Cultural Research and School of Humanities Combined Research Day at Brisbane’s South Bank tomorrow (October 25).
He will also participate in a panel discussion, The Future of the Humanities, alongside Griffith University’s Professor Mark Finnane, University of Sydney’s Professor Margaret Harris and the Australian Academy of the Humanities’ Dr Christina Parolin.
Professor Turner said justification for tertiary funding had become so closely linked to commercial imperatives and employment outcomes that questions were constantly raised about the merit of Humanities degrees.
Professor Andy Bennett
He added that consistent enrolment figures — more than half of all tertiary students choose degrees in the Humanities and Social Sciences — fostered misconceptions about the health of the Humanities and this too affected funding and resources.
Director of the Gold Coast-based Griffith Centre for Cultural Research, Professor Andy Bennett, said the Humanities and Social Sciences needed to better present themselves in today’s virtual landscape.
“The Humanities and Social Sciences are vital because they offer critical knowledge about the world in which we live and explain what it is to be human,” he said.
“However, we need to resonate with the zeitgeist and be increasingly active to ensure our value is acknowledged and supported.”
The Combined Research Day will be held at the Shore Restaurant, South Bank, from 9.30am-5.30pm.
Professor Andrew O’Neil responds to an article in the Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s Blog, The Strategist, on Australia as a middle power. Read the full article and responses here.
Queensland ConservatoriumGriffith University graduating popular music students showcase their original music at The Basement in their farewell performance next month.
The line-up includes The Orchard (2013 winners of the national Campus Band Competition), Jessie Ryan Allen, Brodie Graham Band, Leteye, Renee Jones and more in a showcase of music ranging from blues, rock, folk and pop.
The students are emerging artists within the local, national, and international music industry arena.
Through the Bachelor of Popular Music they have performed at diverse venues including QPAC, Brisbane Powerhouse, Queensland Conservatorium and venues all around the country.
Tickets are available at the door at The Basement, The Arts Centre Gold Coast.
When: Thursday 14th November, 7:00pm
Where: The Basement, The Arts Centre Gold Coast
Tickets: $10:00
A new book by the former Head of Griffith University’s School of Humanities, Associate Professor Jock Macleod, challenges long-held thinking on the influence of liberalism on English literary culture at the turn of the 20th Century.
While many political movements were established and spread during the Victorian Era, most notably socialism and liberalism, investigations of the latter’s place and impact have tended to be limited to classic mid-century liberalism.
However, in Literature, Journalism and the Vocabularies of Liberalism (Politics and Letters 1886-1916), Associate Professor Macleod finds a set of cultural vocabularies that, while clearly related to classic Victorian liberalism, are just as clearly distinct from it.
By exploring ways in which the vocabularies of advanced or ‘new’ liberalism permeated English literary cultural discourse from the late 1880s to World War One, Associate Professor Macleod reveals a closer and more complex relationship to the emerging modernist culture of the 20thCentury.
“Because literary critics and literary historians have tended not to be well-informed in the details of political history, this has affected their understanding of liberalism’s effect on literary culture at the time,” Associate Professor Macleod said.
Drawing on a range of Victorian autobiographical and biographical material, Associate Professor Macleod reconstructs an extensive network of advanced liberal journalists, men of letters and political theorists associated with key organs of the daily and weekly press.
Through careful analysis of essays and book reviews published primarily in the liberal press, Associate Professor Macleod demonstrates for the first time the network’s importance in the literary cultural world at the turn of the 20th Century.
“This network formed over a decade or so from the mid-1880s. It began through membership of progressive debating societies and radical associations, but ultimately became influential through newspapers, once members took on key editorial roles,” Associate Professor Macleod said.
“The development of a more progressive liberal press was the mechanism by which these advanced and progressive liberal figures conveyed their ideas and theories.”
Now the Dean Learning and Teaching (Arts Education Law) at Griffith, Associate Professor Macleod has written extensively on 19th and early 20th Century literature and cultural history.
Literature, Journalism and the Vocabularies of Liberalism (Politics and Letters 1886-1916), will be officially launched at the Griffith Centre for Cultural Research and School of Humanities Combined Research Day in Brisbane on Friday (October 25).
For more information or to order the book online, go to http://www.palgravemacmillan.com.au/palgrave/onix/isbn/978023039146
