The future of cars

The evolution of learning How study is changing

A sustainable passion Green graduates having an impact

Family treasures Fascinated by the family tree

Winter 2011

UniSA experts share their insights into the future of motoring

Winter 2011 UniSA Magazine 3

The future of carsUniSA experts share their insights into

the future of motoring, from electric cars to cars that talk to each other.

Q&A with Hon Dame Silvia Cartwright

The first woman appointed to the NZ High Court, and recent speaker at UniSA’s Annual Hawke Lecture.

The evolution of learningTechnology and internationalisation are playing a

significant role in changing the learning landscape for the modern student.

Finding your family historyUniSA researcher Professor Claire Woods

explores our fascination with the family tree.

22 New LeafThe latest book releases from UniSA.

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The business of sustainabilityMeet UniSA graduates who have turned

their passion into a fulfilling environmental career, while looking at the legacy their generation will leave.

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UniSA Magazine

Showcasing how UniSA’s research and teaching is making a difference in the world.

Produced by the News and Media Team of the Marketing and Development Unit at the University of South Australia:

Michèle Nardelli Katrina Phelps Kelly Stone Rachel Broadley Alex Doudy Alison Albanese

Front cover: The UniSA built, two-seater renewable energy vehicle, Trev.

Reader feedback is welcome.

Contact: unisa.news@unisa.edu.au

Website: www.unisa.edu.au/news/unisamagazine/

CRICOS Provider no 00121B

ISSN 1837-9915

Printed on FSC certified paper

UniSA Magazine Winter 20114 Looking for an expert? Go to www.unisa.edu.au/mdu/media/expert.asp

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iaView PointI was recently alerted to an interview on ABC Radio’s The Health Report with the Australian-born public health researcher, Professor Sir Michael Marmot. Sir Michael has become President of the British Medical Association (BMA), and behind this lies an interesting story. He chaired the commission that produced the report Social determinants of health for the World Health Organization in 2008. He subsequently produced Fair Society, Healthy Lives for the then-UK Labour government. Both reports argued that the principal determinants of health are not medical services but economic and social standing. To put it very crudely, people do better when they are better off.

The interesting story is that Sir Michael’s recommendations have been largely adopted by the UK Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition government, and the BMA invited him to stand for the presidency precisely because of his research, not into medicine per se, but into the social inequalities underpinning poor health outcomes. It was an appointment that Sir Michael said he found somewhat surprising, given his views.

This message about the impact of social inequalities on health is gradually being understood and accepted, not only by health researchers but by treasury and finance departments world-wide.

What does this mean for health and medical education in Australia?

Health outcomes are worst in the poorest sections of our population. The most obvious example is the dreadful difference in life expectancy between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians, but there is a health gradient across the whole of Australian society that is directly related to socio-economic status.

It is difficult to provide comprehensive medical services in economically disadvantaged communities. Governments experience difficulties in staffing medical facilities in what are considered to be less desirable locations.

Adding to this, doctors are more likely to work in the communities they grew up in. The current model of medical education (and the entry processes associated with it) results in a disproportionate number of doctors coming from, and returning to practice in, high socio-economic areas.

It is also important to integrate services, and as you might expect from the discussion above, the services may not be purely medical ones. In fact, they may not be overtly about health at all. For example, in the UK some medical practices are delivering English lessons for migrants. This is because, without command of the language, migrants are unable to participate fully in society and the economy and are therefore much more likely to experience health problems.

It is within this context that we are establishing a school of population health, which will combine our very strong group of population health researchers with degrees in nutrition and food science, dietetics, health science, public health and health promotion. We also want to establish a medical school, with a prime focus on improving the health of disadvantaged populations. The school would develop workable pathways for students from low socio-economic areas of Australia, both to ensure that those areas are better served and to enable Australia to take advantage of the talent in those communities that currently goes unrecognised. It would be based on what we call ‘inter-professional practice’ – ensuring from the very beginning that doctors and other health-related professionals are trained together.

More broadly, UniSA’s commitment to both excellence and equity means that more South Australians will receive a university education – something that we also know is a major factor in improving the health of individuals.

The ABC interview with Sir Michael can be found on the Health Report website www.abc.net.au/rn/healthreport/. The website for Fair Society, Healthy Lives is www.marmotreview.org/.

15 July – 30 September 2011 White Rabbit – Contemporary Chinese Art Collection Presented for Adelaide Festival Centre’s 2011 OzAsia Festival

Anne & Gordon Samstag Museum of Art University of South Australia

Chen Zhuo & hUAnG Keyi, China Carnival No. 1: Tiananmen, 2007, C-print, 120 x 180cm, courtesy White Rabbit Gallery, Sydney

55 north Terrace, Adelaide unisa.edu.au/samstagmuseum Open Tuesday to Friday 11– 5pm Saturday and Sunday 2 – 5pm

SMA UniSA News June 11.indd 1 23/5/11 11:18:08 AM

Prof Peter HøjVice Chancellor & President

Medical schools, universities and public health

The MBA students have been working with the Mutuka Project, which is part of the Palya Fund, a charitable foundation set up by artists in the APY Lands.

The Mutuka Project (Mutuka is modern Pitjantjatjara for motor car) will provide driver training for young people in conjunction with the local TAFE, which will teach students about vehicle care and basic maintenance and will offer them the chance to hold various levels of drivers’ licences.

Some of the students will then be employed as drivers by the Mutuka Project, providing much-needed transport for the community between cultural and sporting events across the 103,000 square kilometres the APY Lands occupy.

UniSA MBA students Richard Ray-Zwar, 29, and Stephen Lapidge, 37, spent a week in the APY Lands in late May as part of their work on the Mutuka Project.

Ray-Zwar says the experiential learning involved in the project has helped him to hone his business skills in a way he hopes will make a difference.

“Our brief was to firstly complete a seed funding application for ANZ Trustees, which distributes philanthropic funds. We also did a presentation for Philanthropy Australia, and we’re doing a full business plan that can be used for business start-up and prospective investors,” he says.

“Our goal is to give Palya Fund a business plan that’s usable for the Mutuka Project and helps them attract funding, allowing them to implement the project in a culturally appropriate way so it is successful.

“After graduating from UniSA with my first degree in 2002, I worked in Port Augusta and did some Indigenous health care work there, so I had some cultural understanding but there’s still been a lot of background information to understand.

“It’s been very interesting and hopefully we can make a bit of difference as well. It adds more meaning to a case study when it’s not just a theoretical case out of a book.”

Ray-Zwar says the trip to the APY Lands gave him perspective on the project and enabled him to reassess whether the assumptions they had made were culturally appropriate.

He says he also had some memorable experiences meeting people and visiting ancient sites.

“I met some great people on the trip, such as Keith Stevens, an Indigenous artist in his 60s who produces very sought-after art,” says Ray-Zwar.

“We watched him painting which was a real honour.

“We were very lucky to be taken to a special water hole, which was part of a Dreaming Story of the Rainbow Serpent. That was really special.”

Irene Chumak, Special Projects Manager at UniSA’s International Graduate School of Business, says the Mutuka Project was one of the projects offered to MBA students as part of an experiential learning option.

“We work with organisations that can see the value in working with MBA students. The students bring not only their professional experience and interests but are also utilising the time that they are doing their MBA with projects, consulting and engaging with the community and business,” she says.

“Even though they’re working full-time in their own environments, doing a project that perhaps isn’t in their normal sphere extends their thinking.

“They also need to consider how to work with someone externally – when you’re working in your own organisation, the group dynamics are set and you know what your

roles are, but here, you’re working outside of that known environment.

“Most of the students really enjoy it and it gives them an opportunity to try new things. Going to the APY Lands is something most students just wouldn’t get the chance to do.”

Judge Peter McCusker, one of the trustees of the Palya Fund and judge at the Industrial Relations Court of South Australia, says the project will serve an important role in the community.

“Transport in the Lands is a big issue, so this project will help with that at the same time as providing training and a sustainable livelihood for the drivers that reinforces important culture and traditions, rather than going against the cultural grain,” he says.

“This project will also strengthen relationships between elders and their communities, allowing them easier access across the region to ensure important knowledge is passed on to younger generations.

“We are delighted with the support and expertise the University has provided.”

Head of the International Graduate School of Business, Professor Milé Terziovski who first began the project discussions with Judge McCusker, says he is equally pleased with the outcome of this win-win project.

Driving benefitsfor the APY Lands

In the remote north-west corner of South Australia, the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY) Lands are home to some 2500 people. An area known for its breathtaking scenery and talented Indigenous artists, UniSA Master of Business Administration (MBA) students are now helping to connect tradition, training and commercial enterprise as part of an exciting new project.

By Rachel Broadley

5Winter 2011 UniSA Magazine

MBA students Richard Ray-Zwar and Steven Lapidge with APY Lands driver David Miller.

Artist Keith Stevens

The future of carsGet ready for the arrival of green cars on Australian roads. Low emission vehicles will become more competitive with their conventional counterparts from next year.

UniSA’s green electric car Trev completed a race

around the world on $400 of electricity.

OPPOSITE PAGE BOTTOM:

Trev visiting Michelstadt during the global race.

Winter 2011 UniSA Magazine www.flickr.com/photos/unisouthaustralia

Vehicle emissions expert Dr Rocco Zito (pictured right), from UniSA’s Barbara Hardy Institute predicts the uptake of electric vehicles will snowball from next year, as barriers such as price and efficiency are eliminated.

“At the moment electric vehicles are expensive and there are only a few Mitsubishi-produced models on the Australian market that haven’t yet been made available to the public,” Dr Zito says.

“There are about 140 in the country at the moment but they’re about $65,000 each.

“Next year is going to be a big one for electric vehicles because companies like Nissan are going to make their electric model available at a competitive price. Big manufacturers are saying that fully electric and plug-in vehicles will make up 20 per cent of their production by 2020.”

Dr Zito has been working with partners, including the Auto Cooperative Research Centre, the RAA and the SA Government, to monitor car emissions across all vehicle types and to gauge public reaction to the new technology.

“We’re trying to get a better understanding of people’s attitudes towards electric vehicles and trying to judge what the uptake rates might be in the future,” he says.

“The biggest factor so far is price, so as soon as you start to get some price parity between electric vehicles and conventional vehicles, electric cars will really start to become a larger portion of the fleet.

“It’s also about people’s mindset - if petrol was $5 a litre then all of a sudden these very economical electric cars would quite obviously become more efficient in terms of total cost of ownership.

“Our research with the AutoCRC shows that running a fully electric car costs anywhere from half to one third as much as the same type of petrol-fuelled vehicle.”

Dr Zito’s research has also busted the myth that electric vehicles can’t last the distance for a typical driver.

“One of the biggest issues around electric vehicles at the moment is range. They only go about 100-150 kilometres before you have to recharge them, and some people see that as a limitation.

“For those who travel more than 100 kilometres a day it is a problem, but our

research found that in Adelaide about 97 per cent of trips are less than 100 kilometres a day.

“We repeated that analysis nationally and discovered similar percentages in most capital cities. Sydney was the worst at 91 per cent because it’s the largest city and is very spread out, but the majority of travel is less than 100 kilometres a day.

“So, while electric vehicles can’t replace all journeys, they really can be used for a significant amount of the travel that’s happening in our major cities.”

In Australia, emissions from transport including land, sea and air, make up 14 per cent of emissions nationally. Of this, 80 per cent is generated by road vehicles.

Dr Zito says widespread use of electric vehicles using renewable energy will help slash emissions, thanks in part to their smaller and more compact design.

“Weight definitely has a significant impact on vehicle emissions, so there’s no doubt that if we were all driving lighter, smaller cars then the emissions profile would be less - but we’re not.

“It brings up the question - do you really need a two-tonne vehicle to drop off your kids at school and go to work?”

But, he warns, electric vehicles aren’t necessarily more environmentally-friendly.

“Our work with the AutoCRC shows that if electric vehicles aren’t recharged using renewable energy, their emissions are actually about the same as conventional vehicles. Just because it doesn’t come out of the tail pipe doesn’t mean it’s not coming from somewhere else.”

To gauge the green credentials of different vehicles, Dr Zito is also working with the South Australian Government and the RAA to develop a new, more real-world way of determining the environmental credentials of all types of new vehicles, whether they are powered by petrol, electricity, fuel cells, biofuel or other energy sources. This will allow consumers to better compare the emissions impact of each car and technology.

“We’re looking at conventional vehicles and some alternative vehicles which will really start to become a bigger and bigger part of our vehicle fleet,” he says.

“We want to know how we can rate non-conventional vehicles and non-conventional fuels on a level playing field with all the conventional cars that we already have.

“The current Green Vehicle Guidelines don’t actually reflect real-world conditions. The guidelines also rate non-conventional vehicles very inaccurately, so that’s part of the research as well.”

The pilot project involves testing 30 of the most popular vehicles across a range of vehicle classes.

“We’ll also look at evaluating different vehicles and different fuels, which will include how to compare a fully electric vehicle against a plug-in hybrid or a hybrid vehicle,” he says.

“Eventually, in partnership with the RAA and State Government, we want to develop an Emissions Test Centre of Excellence in South Australia that will compare all these new vehicles, conventional and non-conventional, and come up with a real-world vehicle environmental rating system.”

UniSA’s own electric car, a two-seater renewable energy vehicle known as ‘Trev’, is now back in Adelaide after taking part in a zero emissions race around the world.

The electric car project, started in 2003 by staff and students at UniSA, had a simple aim: to build and demonstrate an efficient commuter vehicle that could be powered by renewable energy sources.

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Trev more than lived up to its mission statement during the Zero Emissions Race 2010 when the three-wheeled electric green machine, driven by a team of volunteers and UniSA researchers, crossed 16 countries covering 28,000 kilometres in 80 days of driving. Even more astonishingly, Trev used just $400 worth of power for the trip.

‘Team Trev’ developer Dr Peter Pudney from UniSA’s School of Mathematics and Statistics, hopes Trev’s achievement will help to show that electric cars can be a viable and cost-effective alternative to other petrol-powered models.

“We’ve got a long way to go in Australia if you look at the CO² emissions that our cars emit per kilometre. The average new car emits 220g of CO² per kilometre, Europe’s got a target of 130g per kilometre, and Trev is zero grams,” Dr Pudney says.

“Electric cars in general can have zero emissions if you recharge them from renewable energy, which is cheaper than petrol.

“Trev shows that it is possible to use new techniques and materials to build a car that weighs substantially less than a conventional car and uses a lot less energy.

“Clean electricity for the around the world trip cost us about $400, so it’s really cheap and clean to run – it makes you wonder why we are still driving around in petrol cars because we’ve shown it is possible to do it differently,” he says.

Dr Pudney says many conventional cars are inappropriate for the typical commute.

He says their heaviness is a key concern. On average only 15 per cent of the energy that reaches the wheels is used to move the occupants, while the rest goes towards moving the machine itself.

“We drive from home and work in a car that’s capable of towing a car across the country - it’s really the wrong car for the job.

“Most of the time we use our cars to travel short distances in slow city traffic with only one or two people in the car. We need something new, something appropriate for city mobility,” Dr Pudney says.

The automotive industry may be upping its production of more environmentally-friendly electric vehicles, but the weight of these cars remains problematic.

“Electric cars are starting to come into the country now but we still think it’s possible to cut down energy use and cut down emissions by making cars a lot lighter and more suited to the purpose of commuting,” Dr Pudney says.

“When the automotive industry talks about lightweight vehicles they’re talking about reducing a 1200kg car to 1100kg, whereas Trev weighs 350kg.

“Australians are amongst the world’s highest emitters of CO² per person. Our energy use is high, and we generate almost all of that energy from fossil fuels.

“Over the next 40 years we need to reduce our per capita emissions by 95 per cent. To achieve this, we need vehicles like Trev,” he says.

Aside from a smaller carbon footprint, cars of the future will be able to communicate with each other with the aid of new technology. The technology is predicted to reduce road crashes by 40 per cent and has been developed by Cohda Wireless, a leading developer of safety-focused automotive wireless communication technology based in Adelaide.

The Dedicated Short Range Communications (DSRC) technology can wirelessly transmit

data such as location, speed and proximity to road hazards between vehicles, which is then analysed and communicated to the driver when danger is detected. It works by combining a highly accurate GPS device with wireless communications equipment that transmits data over its own bandwidth frequency, so it won’t interfere with other networks such as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth or 3G.

Director of UniSA’s Institute for Telecom-munications Research and co-founder of UniSA spin-off company Cohda Wireless, Professor Alex Grant, says the DSRC technology will dramatically improve

road safety.

“The objective is to have a significant impact on road crashes. Every year on Australian roads, about 1500 people die and approximately 20,000 people are seriously injured,” Prof Grant says. “For the past decade the number

of crashes has decreased very slowly at a rate of 1.8 per cent a year because we’ve reached the limit of what our current technology can do.

“The DSRC technology is a warning-based system designed to alert drivers to surrounding danger that isn’t necessarily in their line of sight. It allows the car to assess what’s happening behind buildings or further up the road before a driver becomes aware of it.

“For example, if a car ahead of you brakes suddenly then that information could be transmitted by that car back along the traffic to prevent a crash.

“It’s a 360-degree view of all nearby cars that can proactively prevent a crash, as opposed to mitigating the impact which is what we have now.

“Cars can communicate over hundreds of metres up to a kilometre, depending on the local physical environment.”

UniSA Magazine Winter 2011 A web version of this magazine is available at www.unisa.edu.au/news/unisamagazine/

continued from page 7

We drive from home and work in a car that’s capable of towing a car across the country - it’s really the wrong car for the job.. Dr Peter Pudney

Vehicle-to-vehicle communication safely alerts drivers to surrounding traffic. Infrastructure-to-vehicle communications alert vehicles that roadworks are ahead.

9Winter 2011 UniSA Magazine

2011 is the International Year of Chemistry, and at UniSA’s Mawson Institute and Ian Wark Research Institute, researchers are developing a new surface engineering tool, microplasma, for medical applications such as wound management. Mawson Institute Research Associate, Dr Endre Szili, tells us about UniSA’s unique Australian microplasma capability and how it is being developed for treating both human tissue and engineering smart devices to promote wound healing.

Microplasma is an emerging field in physical chemistry with huge potential to have a positive impact on our lives in the future. At the Mawson Institute we are focusing on the biomedical and biomaterials-related applications of microplasmas. Already traditional large-scale gas plasmas find use in many applications for providing coatings, for example in artificial hip implants or to improve aerodynamics.

Microplasmas can be operated at atmospheric pressure so the plasma gas itself can be used in practical applications, such as the cleaning of medical instruments, teeth whitening, sterilisations and promoting cell growth, or conversely, inhibiting cell growth.

Our current focus is on the use of microplasma as a surface engineering tool for developing new platform technologies for use in the life sciences. Here we are making use of the coating potential of microplasma. For example, we used microplasmas to manufacture small portable systems to selectively capture biological cells or proteins for therapeutic diagnostic tools.We will use these surfaces to study specific biological processes such as the growth or repair of human tissue.

Microplasmas have potential to complement the work currently being undertaken through the auspices of the Wound Management

Innovation Cooperative Research Centre. Surprisingly, wounds are the second-most billed Medicare item in Australia. Non-healing wounds affect the quality of life of more than 400,000 Australians each year.

We could envisage the use of microplasma technology in a hospital setting for treating wounds. The plasma source could be in the form of a portable plasma sterilisation unit that is used to sterilise or remove bacteria from the wound bed.

Alternatively, the technology could also be used as an engineering tool to develop cheap, lab-on-a-chip type devices to monitor wound status.These could provide an indication of how a wound is healing or even detect early infection.

In 10 years’ time I anticipate microplasmas will become important tools in the manufacture of advanced materials for a whole range of different applications in biomedical diagnostics, tissue engineering and cancer treatment.

In the recent Excellence in Research Australia rankings, UniSA was recognised as world-class in microplasma technology, achieving the highest scores possible for physical chemistry and chemical sciences. It means a lot to us to receive this recognition. Hopefully it will lead to more funding opportunities and future international collaborations.

Physical chemistry for on-target treatments

Dr Endre Szili, Research Associate

Mawson Institute

The technology may also be developed in the future to complement human vehicle control by increasing brake pressure, tightening seatbelts and preparing airbags as needed.

And while Prof Grant believes completely autonomous cars are a while away yet, the DSRC technology will be available commercially within a few years.

“Manufacturers are talking about having the device added to production by 2015 and are currently undertaking large scale trials in the United States and Europe,” he says.

“Thousands of cars have been fitted with the device and are being tested all around the world.

“The South Australian Motor Accident Commission recently sponsored a trial of DSRC technology with participation from Cohda, UniSA and the Department for Energy, Transport and Infrastructure. It’s great that Adelaide is providing leadership on these international projects.”

As well as vehicle-to-vehicle communications, the technology enables infrastructure-to-vehicle communication (pictured opposite page).

“Cars could talk to roadside units and infrastructure such as traffic lights to broadcast the state of an upcoming intersection and give information such as how long it will be before the signal changes,” Prof Grant says.

“Another important application could be to notify drivers of temporary speed limits or roadwork crews and to suggest an alternative route or a more economical engine mode.”

He says it would also be a breakthrough for traffic flow management.

“It would make the vehicle the sensor instead of the infrastructure,” Prof Grant says. “In-ground sensor loops that are currently used for monitoring traffic flow are expensive, whereas this model is more economical and precise.

“A vehicle’s position and speed can be uploaded anonymously to roadside units to allow a road manager to gauge traffic flow and assist with traffic management and congestion.”

The automotive industry has already ratified an international standardised language for cars to ensure different models and brands are compatible.

The target cost for the DSRC technology is $100 per device.

In its final guise the technology will be installed in a car’s electronics system as a small computer chip.

“It can also be applied to motorbikes, trucks and com-mercial vehicles – the future of vehicles is for them all to be equipped with this technology,” Prof Grant says.

www.facebook.com/UniSA

By Alex Doudy

Looking for an expert? Go to www.unisa.edu.au/mdu/media/expert.asp

Q&A with 2011 Annual Hawke Lecturer, The Hon Dame Silvia

Cartwright PCNZM, DBE, QSO, DStJ Trial Judge with the Trial Chamber of

the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC)

The Hon Dame Silvia Cartwright

ALUMNI ACHEIVEMENTS

The Hon Dame Silvia Cartwright was the first female Chief District Court Judge and the first woman to be appointed to the High Court in New Zealand. She went on to become the Governor-General of New Zealand. She is now one of two international trial judges in the five-member Trial Chamber of the ECCC, a court established by the Cambodian government and the United Nations to try senior members of the Khmer Rouge and those most responsible for the crimes that occurred in Cambodia between 1975 and 1989. In early June, Dame Silvia delivered the Annual Hawke Lecture, talking about building international justice in a global world.

10 UniSA Magazine Winter 2011

What do you think is a key step in building international justice?The growing determination internationally to end impunity for mass crimes.

In your role as Trial Judge with the Cambodia Tribunal, what do you hope to achieve?Fair trials for the accused and at least some accountability for the victims.

What do you find most fascinating in your work?

In these trials, Hannah Arendt’s phrase “the banality of evil” resonates strongly with me. Arendt covered the Eichmann Nazi war crimes trial in 1961 and wrote extensively on Nazism and Stalinism.

What is the most rewarding aspect of the work and the most frustrating?

The opportunity to work alongside lawyers and judges of many cultures, languages and legal systems is both the most rewarding feature and the most frustrating.

You’ve had a distinguished career – what has been a highlight for you?

Finally accepting that when a position is offered to me that I consider I am not equipped or qualified to undertake, that the person offering it sees me through a different lens. Also the support of women in my career as well as several influential men.

Do you have a breakthrough moment from your career that you would like to share?

When I was hired for my first very humble job as a law clerk after repeated refusals to employ me on the grounds of my sex.

What attracted you to law?

The love of reading, the intense human interest and the fact that it was then an extremely unusual career for a woman.

Is there any particular knowledge or experiences from your law degree that have stuck with you?

The study of law generally gave me an ability to think through complex issues.

The discrimination against me in those days made me determined to succeed, if only to pay back my many detractors.

Have you set and followed goals and plans during your career, or did you simply take up opportunities as they arose?

As indicated in a previous answer, most of my more important career moves were thrust upon me rather than sought by me. I have been a constant surprise to myself.

What advice would you give to recent graduates who want to make a difference in the world?

You can make a difference only after you become well-qualified in your field and gain sufficient experience to actually be helpful to achieve change. A poorly equipped do-gooder will cause more harm than good. Never force your views, whether they be religious, social or cultural, on other people. Help them to reach their individual potential, not to reflect your ideals or beliefs.

Dame Silvia’s Hawke Lecture is available as a podcast at www.hawkecentre.unisa.edu

Alumni shine in SA Media AwardsCongratulations to UniSA alumni who were successful at the 2011 South Australian Media Awards.

Bachelor of Journalism (2009) graduate Tom Hicks (pictured middle below), was

named Best Young Journalist for his work with Channel Nine, from a large field of metropolitan and regional contenders, while the Julie Duncan Memorial Award for Student Journalism was awarded to John Stokes (pictured middle right), a 2011 Bachelor of Journalism graduate.

Other winners included 2010 Bachelor of Journalism graduate Clare Rawlinson in the Best Rural/Regional Journalist category for her work at The Border Watch newspaper; 2006 graduate Selga Berzins from Channel Nine for the Best TV News Report Award; and 2001

graduate and Channel Ten reporter Brett Clappis for Best TV Current Affairs or Feature.

Media Alliance Branch Secretary Angelique Ivanica said the calibre of work this year was outstanding.

11 www.twitter.com/unisanewsroom

ACHIEVEMENTS

Winter 2011 UniSA Magazine

Natural disasters can elicit a range of emotional reactions. Those facing the impact first-hand will often experience shock, varying in intensity depending on whether or not there was time to prepare. For example, Rockhampton residents were warned before the January flooding, whereas there were no warnings in Toowoomba with the January flash floods, and Christchurch with the February earthquakes.

After a disaster there are no right or wrong emotions. People can have a whole range of experiences, from overwhelming devastation, stress and anxiety to disbelief and happiness that they and their family and friends are safe. Emotional reactions will be influenced by an individual’s connection to the disaster, including having friends or family caught up in the danger zones. People may even experience a sense of survivor guilt. I had family in Christchurch who reported feeling guilty after the February earthquake because they had running water and a hot shower when many didn’t even have the basics.

In the aftermath of a discrete traumatic event, where danger is not ongoing, it is expected most people will recover within two to three weeks. How quickly this recovery happens can be influenced by individual coping style, personality, and social and family supports. If people are experiencing difficulties with their day-to-day functioning, having flashbacks, and are generally very distressed more than four weeks after the disaster, then it’s time to see a GP and get a referral to a suitably qualified mental health clinician.

Recovery may be prolonged for people if they are constantly on-edge and hyper-aroused if there is risk of further danger, for example,

aftershocks. It’s advisable to avoid consuming caffeine, cigarettes, and other stimulants. Equally important is avoiding drinking alcohol to relax as this may impair your judgment and put you in further danger. As best you can, follow a healthy lifestyle (lots of rest – especially if you are experiencing sleep difficulties, eat balanced meals, exercise) and maintain a normal routine.

Aside from people with previous mental health concerns, individuals most at risk of developing problems after a traumatic event are those who bottle up their emotions and refuse to talk about them. However, research has demonstrated that forcing people to talk about their experiences can be equally problematic. If you are worried how someone is coping, the best thing you can do is provide support and encourage them to maintain a good routine and healthy lifestyle. Listen without judgment, and avoid making well-meaning statements such as “it will be okay” and “I understand how it feels” as this may invalidate their emotional experiences – it may not be okay and only they know how they feel.

Experiencing a natural disaster second-hand, through news reports and other sources, can also be stressful. Keep track of the news if you are worried about loved ones but don’t consume it 24/7. Constantly watching news coverage can become emotionally overwhelming and may trigger feelings of helplessness and, in extreme cases, can lead to vicarious trauma. It’s important to censor children’s exposure to the news. They should not be allowed to watch news coverage containing content that you wouldn’t normally allow them to see on television or in a G or PG-rated movie.

Mother Nature unleashed a furious barrage of wild weather at the beginning of 2011. From flooding and cyclones in Queensland, to earthquakes in New Zealand and Japan, it seemed like the world was lurching from one tragedy to the next. UniSA Clinical Psychology lecturer Dr Phil Kavanagh explains how to cope with the mental stress of natural disasters.

Coping with the trauma of natural disasters

Dr Phil Kavanagh, Lecturer in Clinical Psychology School of Psychology, Social Work and Social Policy

Federal Attorney-General Robert McClelland officially launched UniSA’s Legal Advice Clinic in May.

The clinic provides confidential and free legal advice to members of the community. It is staffed by law students who offer legal advice to clients under the supervision of a managing solicitor.

UniSA Dean of Law, Professor Paul Fairall, says the clinic is the first in-house university legal advice clinic in South Australia.

“The clinic not only provides a good opportunity for students to give advice to real clients, but it also provides access to justice for people who may otherwise not be able to get it,” Prof Fairall says.

“Legal experts say there is a large gap in legal aid and this clinic will help fill that void. We are hoping to take this service to the parts of SA where it will really make a difference to the community.”

Attorney-General Robert McClelland congratulated UniSA on the initiative.

“Legal professionals have a responsibility to share our knowledge with the wider community and exercise our skills for the benefit of others,” he said. “UniSA’s Legal Advice Clinic will allow students to put this theory into practice – volunteering their skills to help others.”

For more information go to www.unisa.edu.au/law/clinic/default.asp

Legal Clinic opens at City West

(L-R) Prof Paul Fairall, Federal Attorney-General Robert McClelland,

Vice-Chancellor Prof Peter Høj, Rachel Spencer, Prof Gerry Griffin.

UniSAA review of current thinking for today’s business leaders.

Out August. unisabusiness@unisa.edu.au

The evolutionof the learning landscape

UniSA’s new $95 million Student Learning Centre will offer formal and informal learning areas to create an environment which allows students to learn in different ways.

The eight-storey building will have separate areas for reflective learning, active learning, social learning and active teaching and will feature mock workplaces such as a classroom, boardroom and courtroom to encourage practical learning.

The Federal Government has contributed $30 million towards the project through its Education Investment Fund.

Work is scheduled to begin on the Hindley Street site in September 2011, and when the City West campus building opens in 2014 it will cater for an extra 1700 students.

New Student Learning Centre

THIS PAGE: Artist’s impression of the UniSA Student Learning Centre. Courtesy of John Wardle Architects in association with Philips Pilkington Architects.

OPPOSITE PAGE L-R: Professor Joanne Wright; Artist’s impressions of the new City West building; Amanda Clark.

13Winter 2011 UniSA Magazine

It is a world away from the bulky encyclopaedias and handwritten essays of years gone by. Today lectures are downloaded as podcasts and word-processed assignments are ‘handed in’ online.

Research has opened up beyond the library. At the click of a mouse the internet unravels its webs of knowledge, allowing students access to information like never before but also calling for different skills to make sense of the ever-changing technological landscape.

UniSA’s Deputy Vice Chancellor: Academic, Professor Joanne Wright (pictured above), says today’s students use technology instinctively.

“Students come to university with different sorts of skills and different sorts of preparation than previous generations did, and we have to respond to that,” says Prof Wright.

Technology has not only changed the way students research assignments and communicate, but also the way they learn.

Prof Wright says universities have to keep one step ahead of the curve to ensure they continue to support student learning in a rapidly changing environment.

“One of the ways we are responding to that is through our new Student Learning Centre at the City West campus, which is going to be a really technology-rich area,” says Prof Wright.

“In many ways we’re thinking about that building not for our students today, but for those who are currently 13 and 14 years old who are going to be entering that system in three to four years’ time when our building is finished.

“How they learn is even more technology-enriched than when current students went through school, because this technological revolution, most experts would say, is only a third of the way through.”

Technology has played a large role in broadening students’ outlooks, and access to cheaper travel now allows students to explore the world more easily.

Today’s students have a more global perspective than those of generations past, explains Prof Wright.

“Students are looking to incorporate global and inter-cultural experiences in their university study. They have a much broader perspective than students had 20 years ago, when you were very much influenced by the 50 miles around you, but that’s not the case anymore,” says Prof Wright.

“Students tweet to other students around the world, they know what’s going on all over the

world, they know what high standards are all over the world, they’re constantly comparing, and again that’s something we have to keep up-to-date with.

“We do that through things like ‘Experience Plus’, which allows students to expand their global knowledge through networks, workshops and a range of activities including volunteering, language studies, mentoring and going onexchange, as well as to develop their skills further and increase their experience.”

As travel has become easier, the student population has become more diverse as the number of international students has increased. This, together with more options for non-school leavers, has seen the student demographic change profoundly in recent years.

Prof Wright says that when she went to university in the UK in the 1980s, students were overwhelmingly school leavers, and only around 10 per cent of the population went to university.

“The student demographic has changed enorm-ously since I went to university; in some senses it was quite mono-cultural,” says Prof Wright.

“Of course, that is not the case now. The student body is much more diverse in terms of its socio-economic background, its age profile and, of course, nationalities within a classroom.

“That presents both challenges and opportunities. The opportunities are that people’s lives are immensely enriched by a diverse experience and by meeting different people and learning about different cultures. I think the positive benefits of that can’t be emphasised enough.

“In teaching terms, it presents more challenges than there would have been 20 years ago when you could have assumed that everyone would have had a very similar starting base.

“Now people do have much more diverse backgrounds and different preparations, so to accommodate and support that, and get everybody through, is much more challenging. We support those differences through a variety of online mechanisms, so if you needed to do a little bit more maths practice for example, it’s on the web and you can do it at your own pace in your own time, and repeatedly. “Increased English language support is another big area for students as well as the Learning and Teaching Unit, which offers learning advice, counselling services and careers and employment advice. That has changed quite a lot; when I started

university there would have been none of that sort of support – it was sink or swim.

“We now also have UniSA College, which gives people who haven’t taken the traditional high school to university path an opportunity to enter university. It’s nothing to do with their innate abilities, there are lots of people who are very, very able who haven’t had the right preparation and the College is designed to help them get that.”

www.youtube.com/user/UniSouthAustralia

The student landscape has changed dramatically over the past 30 years, with rapid advances in technology, increased globalisation and a changing student demographic.

continued page 14

One student for whom this changing demographic has had big implications is second-year Bachelor of Education student Amanda Clark (pictured above).Clark, 39, left school after Year 11 with hopes of becoming a policewoman, before discovering she did not meet the height restrictions that were enforced at the time.

She completed a business course instead of Year 12 and started working in a government job, where she remained for 20 years before deciding it was time for a career change.

Although she knew she wanted to become a teacher, Clark said she didn’t realise she could get into university without having to go back to school to complete Year 12 until her sister-in-law applied for a Bachelor of Nursing and she discovered it was possible to follow a different entry route.

Clark was accepted to UniSA’s Foundation Studies program three years ago, which provides a different entry pathway into undergraduate degree programs for people over 18.

She says the skills she learned during her year of Foundation Studies prepared her well for her degree after years away from education.

“Not being at school for 20 years is a long time. Foundation Studies taught us about research, how to look things up, how to reference, how to write an academic essay. Having that background and knowing about the University, such as how to put your assignments through Assign IT, gave me that little bit of confidence,” she says.

“Technology plays a large part in my learning experience. We have Learning Online so you have to be online to access information.

“It’s really good if there’s a course you want to do but just can’t get to, for example, I had some external studies and I was able to do them at home. That sort of flexibility is great when you have other commitments, and is really handy for me as a mum of two children.

Most countries and the cities, towns and organisations within them have plans to cope with disasters. Whether these work effectively becomes a central issue.

The formal process for Australian regions and states in a crisis is that the local government authority contacts the Premier’s office (at the state level) or the Prime Minister’s office. This enables due process to declare disaster or emergency status that enables government agencies to respond to those in need in the areas so declared.

In Australia each state has its own level of immediate funding. These, however, tend to be close to what each state does in a current state of emergency. When the states seek formal Commonwealth assistance, the Commonwealth acts only as an aid to the state, it never takes direct control.

We have much better cooperation and agreements between the states now. If a large or regional event happens in one of the states, neighbouring states often are already getting support teams of SES, fire services, police or even medical workers, counselling personnel and engineers together to send as support. A lot of resources are coordinated and ready to go. That’s why Australia was able to respond so quickly to the ongoing Eastern states floods in January and to the February Christchurch earthquake and, in Japan less than three weeks later. We have recently had a lot of experience in responding to disasters and are thus more

efficient in logistical coordination and speed of response.

There is also good cooperation and planning internationally.

The problem with plans is they tend to be optimistic and assume everything will work. Power and telecommunications are uncertain yet almost every crisis plan relies on mobile phones or laptops and on lighting and power for engines to undertake rescue actions.

If the disaster is limited and local (or just within an organisation), the chances are good that com-munications will work perfectly (at least in Australia). But if it happens to a city or a region, everyone tends to get on the phone and computer to let people know they are okay, which may mean the systems fail or jam. We’re so used to the internet and electronic systems that it is becoming a major issue in crisis management as we depend on it too much.

The key to crisis management for those managing large crisis events is to think not do – doing is done by the people at the coalface. It really is all about information management and how you process information to use it to make good decisions.

Crisis management is an ongoing process taking in very specific details across broad areas. The process moves from rescue to recovery and we need to improve our management of this transition. Recovery can take months and even years to achieve for large or regional events.

Crisis management

Recent months have seen floods and cyclones at home and earthquakes and tsunamis abroad. Associate Professor Robert Heath looks at what’s involvedin managing such disasters.

Robert Heath Associate Professor in Management

School of Management

“You also don’t have to physically go and hand your assignments in to a lecturer; we hand it in virtually through the Assign IT system.”

Although technology enhances her studies, Clark says there is no substitute for a good teacher, something she feels especially passionate about as a future teacher.

“In learning, I think you need a mix of people and technology to help you achieve,” she says.

“I learn by communicating with people, because I prefer that immediate feedback and expansion.

“All of my tutors here have done that, and it’s important because without the tutor’s enthusiasm for what they are teaching, students wouldn’t have it either.”

Prof Wright agrees that although the types of interaction between student and academic may change, the relationship between them remains as important as ever.

“I think it is still extremely important for the vast majority of students that they have a perception that they can have contact with the academics,” she says.

“I think students like access to academics in a role model sense, in an advisory sense, in a personal sense that they’re interested in them and, of course, in a learning sense – they want to hear it from the horse’s mouth.

“We do need to think of the value of the old-fashioned lecture. It’s been known for a long time that this isn’t the most efficient way of imparting knowledge, so maybe what we need to do is think about what sort of quality time students want with academics, for example if we made lectures available on podcasts, then we might have more academic time that we could put into small groups.

“However, it will always be the case that you will talk to people and they will always be able to single out one teacher who they found particularly inspirational or motivational, or took an interest in them or helped them out of a difficult situation.”

The evolutionof the learning landscape

continued from page 13

By Rachel Broadley

This year sees the launch of UniSA College, which has been founded to create new opportunities for students who wish to enter university through a different pathway.

Academic Director of the College, Associate Professor Stephen Boyle, says it will bring together community engagement, pathway development and the delivery of preparatory programs.

“UniSA College has been created to bring together different activities across the University to develop access for potential students to come to university and see that a university education is not beyond them, no matter what their personal circumstances may have been in the past,” he says.

“Part of the College’s aim is to give those students a sense of identity so they actually feel like part of a small, supportive group under the College banner.

“My advice for people thinking about returning to study is do it. Education is the one thing no one can take away from you. An education can lead to a different career, but you don’t have to do it for that reason.

“You can do it because you want to find out about something and you want to explore different ideas and open up your mind and be challenged. It can be beneficial in all sorts of ways.”

UniSA College

15Winter 2011 UniSA Magazine

Professor Milé Terziovski has been the Head of the International Graduate School of Business (IGSB) for nearly 12 months. The former mechanical engineer and manager with Rio Tinto, who was born in the Republic of Macedonia, is relishing the opportunity to be part of the leadership team in UniSA’s Division of Business.

What attracted you to this job?

The main one is that I wanted to get back into line management in an academic environment in a research-based university with strong links to industry. The timing was also very good with both my sons having recently married. Furthermore, I had worked with Gerry Griffin (Pro Vice Chancellor: Division of Business) previously at Monash University during the 1990s and it was appealing to work for someone who I had already worked for. Gerry has been very supportive and has been a good mentor.

What career path have you followed?

I grew up and did my schooling in Wollongong after migrating to Australia at the age of 10 with my family from the Republic of Macedonia. After finishing high school I undertook a traineeship with Rio Tinto and studied mechanical engineering part-time at the University of Wollongong. I worked for Rio for 16 years, moving within the Rio Group from Wollongong to Newcastle to Melbourne in management positions up to a project leader. After completing an MBA, I left Rio to set up my own management consultancy but I had always wanted to do a PhD in management and transition into academia. I found a good PhD supervisor and won a scholarship to study full-time towards my PhD in quality and innovation management at the Melbourne Business School at the University of Melbourne.

After completing the PhD I took up my first lecturing role at Monash University. I moved on to Senior Lecturer and established a Centre for Innovation Management focusing on European/Australian research collaboration. Four years later I was invited to join the University of Melbourne and took the centre with me. I was there for 10 years as Associate Professor and the Executive Director of the Centre for Global Innovation and Entrepreneurship before moving to UniSA.

How has the move to Adelaide been?

It’s been great. My wife and I are renting in North Adelaide which is very convenient. We like the pace, it’s a beautiful city, there’s a lot to see, traffic is good, and Melbourne is not far away. Both our sons are married and we have grandchildren in Melbourne so it’s easy to get back there for visits.

What’s been your favourite city to live in?

Over the past 25 years we’ve lived in four cities - Wollongong, Newcastle, Melbourne and now Adelaide. And I’d have to say that Melbourne is our base because our sons love Melbourne and they are there with their families. We will definitely look at retiring there when that time eventually comes.

What do you enjoy most about your work?

I enjoy the challenge and the opportunity to make a contribution to the Division of Business and the University. The IGSB at the moment is going through a significant transition with the withdrawal of the transnational programs to a more focused strategy. I like the challenge of developing a research culture in the IGSB and diversifying our Five Star MBA program in target market segments. We were rated Five Star for the third year in a row by the Graduate Management Association of Australia (GMAA) and ranked third out of about 70 MBA programs Australia-wide. However,

the challenge is how much better we can become by benchmarking ourselves with the best in Australia and internationally. We need to keep improving because others will improve as well.

Since my arrival at the IGSB we have signed an agreement with University College London which is one of the top universities in the world, to deliver a customised MBA program for employees in the energy and resources industry. Employees from Santos and ETSA are currently enrolled in the program. IGSB is currently exploring opportunities to introduce the corporate MBA model in other sectors.

What book are you reading at the moment?

I am reading an international best-seller, a very topical book titled Hot, Flat and Crowded by Thomas C. Friedman. The book is relevant to the future positioning of our MBA program because one of the things we are looking at is to create a core course for sustainability and corporate social responsibility. We really want to build on and reposition our existing Graduate Certificate in Sustainable Business.

What advice do you value?

I’ve been with my wife Liljana since high school. We originate from the same part of the world and have very similar backgrounds. I find that when I bounce ideas off her, she provides good advice. I value her feedback.

Having a mentor is also critical. I’ve had a few very good mentors in the different environments that I have worked in – in corporate life as a young engineer; and then I had a very good academic mentor in my PhD supervisor who provided appropriate advice to target US conferences and to publish in top-tier journals. A career change from corporate to academia requires good advice. Gerry Griffin’s advice over the years has also been most valuable for my successful transition.

Head of School,International Graduate

School of Business

Professor Milé Terziovski

Our People In Focus:

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UniSA Magazine Winter 201116 Looking for an expert? Go to www.unisa.edu.au/mdu/media/expert.asp

Growing up watching Sir David Attenborough documentaries and spending school holidays in the Northern Territory outback, fuelled Angi Pestell’s passion for the natural world.

The Department of Environment and Natural Resources Fire Management Project Officer loves the fact that her passion – the environment – is also her job.

Pestell (pictured top left and middle left), entered the Department’s graduate program in 2005 after completing a UniSA Bachelor of Applied Science (Biodiversity, Environmental and Park Management). Formerly an administration and customer service officer in the local government sector, Pestell says a visit to a private zoo in the UK made her determined to make an impact on conservation practices and thus she took the plunge of entering tertiary education and changing her career.

“I love that my passion for the environment is also my job,” she said. “This makes coming to work an absolute pleasure and is so different from the drudgery of my pre-uni career.

“I am lucky enough to work in fire management which is made up of a great bunch of people with different skill sets including fire ecologists and planners, and operational crew with experience in fire fighting.

“I also love that my undergraduate degree and Honours work at UniSA provided a great foundation for my employment with the Department – I still get excited whenever I make the connection between my uni knowledge and the work I’m undertaking.”

In her fire management role, Pestell looks at issues across the whole State. She says sustainability is important in the State’s fire management program as it’s a long-term requirement for the protection of our natural environment.

“Fire management must be conducted in a sustainable fashion to ensure the longevity of the ecosystems we aim to protect, as well as the management program itself,” she said. “If we get it wrong, the consequences could be catastrophic for people and the environment.

“The Australian bush evolved with fire over thousands of years however since European settlement, the natural environment has changed dramatically and it’s no longer able to cope with the changes in the frequency and intensities of fire events.

“In the face of a greater number of the population living in or near native bushland, along with increasing risk of bushfire because of climate change, the Department is working hard with the Country Fire Service and other land management agencies to protect life and property from the threats posed by bushfires, especially in highly populated areas such as the Mount Lofty Ranges.

“Conducting fire management in an ecologically-sensitive manner allows us to meet our dual purposes of protecting people and places from bushfires, as well as protecting our natural places from the very real threat of being destroyed in a single bushfire event.”

Seven years into her environmental career, and one thing is for sure – Pestell still loves her job and is passionate about maintaining a sustainable environment in South Australia.

Fellow Department of Environment and Natural Resources employee Coral Marsden (pictured bottom left and top right), also has a love for the environment and conservation that shines through in her work. A ranger in the Murraylands region and 1996 UniSA Bachelor of Applied Science (Conservation and Park Management) graduate, Marsden gets to experience our natural environment first-hand as a ranger undertaking wildlife surveys, patrolling parks, liaising with park visitors or attending a prescribed burn.

Spending a lot of time in South Australia’s natural environment, Marsden has the opportunity to observe and experience places that not many people get to see, including observing the unique flora and fauna within conservation parks. She believes that giving people access to national parks so they can observe and experience the natural environment first-hand, will help them to appreciate it and then protect it.

“By providing opportunities for people to recreate in national parks whether it is by bushwalking, camping, a guided tour, visiting the park visitor centre or liaising with rangers and park staff, it allows them to learn about the environment and generate a sense of ownership or stewardship,” Marsden said.

“This experience is taken home with them and used in their home environment or own backyard. If protection of the environment and its biodiversity can be done at this local level we are one step closer to protecting the natural environment no matter where it is.”

Marsden says that sustainability and conservation is vital for future generations to be able to enjoy Australia’s natural resources.

“Sustainability is an important issue for all of us these days,” she said. “Over time we have learnt that natural resources do not last forever.

“The natural environment and biodiversity is not renewable. We need to take action to conserve and protect it, for example, by rehabilitating or revegetating a piece a land, eradicating introduced pests or connecting fragmented habitats to allow for continual genetic diversity of native animal species.

“Everyone can start on a local level by simply protecting native wildlife in their own backyard, recycling recyclable products, conserving water, or walking to work or catching public transport to reduce your carbon footprint and greenhouse emissions.

“Our futures and our natural environments including its biodiversity, depend on sustainability.”

The business of

Winter 2011 UniSA Magazine 17 www.twitter.com/unisanewsroom 17

Marsden was undoubtedly made for the role of ranger with her passion for nature evident. She has worked for the Department of Environment and Natural Resources for close to 10 years in a variety of roles, including several years on Kangaroo Island before joining the Department’s Graduate Ranger program two years ago.

More recent UniSA graduate, James Tilly (pictured below), who completed a Graduate Certificate in Sustainable Business in 2009, is using his upgraded skills to focus on the recycling business in South Australia. Tilly is an Environmental Account Manager for Jeffries Group, a local green sector business focused on receiving recyclable organic material and processing these into environmentally sustainable compost, soil and mulch products. Tilly’s role is to secure incoming recyclable organic materials (garden and other green organics, timber, food) for recycling and re-use as soil conditioners for horticultural, landscape and home garden markets.

“I work closely with waste management companies, Local Government, non-government organisations such as KESAB and a range of other stakeholders to help create environmentally, socially and financially responsible recycling and re-use options for these recoverable organic resources,” he said.

“I am passionate about sustainability, and especially as a result of undertaking the Graduate Certificate in Sustainable Business, I understand that business has both great responsibility and opportunity in providing economically, socially and environmentally responsible products and services. By working in an innovative and dynamic green sector business, every day I participate in a value chain that is tackling planetary scale issues such as climate change, food security and sustainable land management.”

Tilly has worked at the Jeffries Group since completing the graduate certificate in 2009 as part of an MBA. Starting his career in eco-tourism, Tilly then moved into medical industry promotions where he became

interested in the concept of sustainable business, which led him to the UniSA program.

Tilly said each unit of the program provided him with the tools and ideas that he uses every day in business. And for him, the biggest take-away message was that environmental, social and economic responsibilities are fundamental and non-substitutable in modern business.

“At the core, the importance of sustainability for me comes down to the issue of inter-generational equity,” he said. “I believe that we don’t own the natural resources that we currently exploit, instead we are just borrowing them from future generations (both from our own children and the millions of other species with which we share the planet). I want my children to have the same opportunities that I have enjoyed, and not to have future generations look back and wonder how we could have been so short-sighted.”

sustainability

continued page 19

Over time we have learnt that natural resources do not last forever.. Coral Marsden

For many Indigenous Australians, the opportunity to attend University is just a dream. UniSA believes these dreams should be a reality and this is why the Gavin Wanganeen Indigenous Scholarship was established in 2005. It was the first scholarship of its kind in Australia.

Only three per cent of Indigenous Australians will achieve their dream of a university degree, compared to 18 per cent of non-Indigenous Australians. Help UniSA achieve its vision of equitable educational access by supporting the Gavin Wanganeen Indigenous Scholarship and making a donation today.

Gavin Wanganeen Indigenous Scholarship Appeal 2011

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Nursing lecturer and Joanna Briggs Fellow candidate Sherryl Gaston explains how rigorous quality systems can reduce the risk of hospital patients developing life-threatening clots, improving individual and community outcomes.

The risks of blood clots when travelling by plane are generally well-known. Air travellers are up to four times more likely to develop potentially deadly blood clots or venous thromboemoblisms forming in their veins. But it’s less well-known that hospital patients can be as much as 100 times more likely to develop venous thromboembolism, which accounts for about 2000 deaths a year in Australia, and 10 per cent of all hospital deaths.

Both medical and surgical patients can develop clots which affect blood flow, causing pain and swelling. In the worst case scenario, a clot can travel through the veins to the heart and lungs, blocking blood supply. Heat, swelling in the leg, pain in the leg without injury to the leg, and shortness of breath, especially following a hospital visit, can all be signs of a life-threatening clot and patients should present to a hospital or doctor immediately.

Many clots however are asymptomatic, or patients do not feel symptoms until it is too late. In rural settings, where it can be difficult to reach a hospital or a GP, community awareness of clots can be lower but the risks are indeed greater.

And in the majority of cases clots can be prevented through risk assessment – taking a patient’s history, checking for other health problems, and any history of clots. A raft of prophylactic measures, both pharmalogical and mechanical, can be applied to improve patient outcomes. Clotting agents can be administered, compression pumps used to keep the blood

moving and the more well-known compression stockings can be worn.

All these measures cut the risk of clots dramatically but the first step in introducing them is a rigorous quality assurance system that ensures patients are checked for risk factors on admission. Then the appropriate level of prophylaxis can be determined and applied. Once the system is in place, outcomes are improved, not only for individual patients but for the hospital and the community, lowering the burden of disease considerably.

In the majority of cases clots can be prevented by risk assessment.

As part of the Joanna Briggs Fellowship program, I have been working with nurses at a rural acute hospital to audit quality systems around checking for risk of clots, carrying out education sessions to improve risk assessment on admission, and raising awareness of the National Health and Medical Research Council’s Clinical Practice Guideline for the Prevention of Venous Thromboembolism. I hope to extend the audit of quality systems to local doctors, ensuring that all adult patients have this risk assessment in place.

More information about the risk and prevention of clotting is available from the National Health and Medical Research Council www.nhmrc.gov.au/nics/programs/vtp/stop_clot.htm, which has developed a range of “Stop the Clot” resources. Brochures are available to clinicians in 14 different languages.

Clots more frequent in hospitals than planes

Sherryl Gaston, Nursing Lecturer,Centre for Regional Engagement

UniSA Program Director of the Graduate Certificate in Sustainable Business, Don Clifton (pictured top right), says they try to send the students out from the course with things they can practically put into play inside a business operation.

“While each individual has the ability to make changes that progress the sustainability cause, the greatest capacity to drive change rests in the area with the highest level of power – and that is the corporate sector,” Clifton said.

“The corporate sector has the political power and the economic power to force change. Governments are pretty reluctant to do anything that will upset the corporate sector.

“Business ultimately has the greatest seat of power in society, and therefore they are the ones that need to do something.”

Clifton says that sustainability needs urgent attention.

“Failing a collective self-extinction decision, humanity has no choice but to live sustainably,” he said.

“The situation at the moment is worse than most people think,” Clifton said. “If we look at the renewable resources that the planet produces - the fish in the sea, land for crops and food, timber, carbon emissions and the ability of the earth’s carbon cycle to assimilate that – we are running at the capacity of about three planets.

“So we need three earth’s to maintain our current resource usage. And that’s not allowing for the expected two-and-a-half billion increase in our population between now and 2050 which will bring our population to more than nine billion.

“We also haven’t allowed for the fact that there is a fair slice of the population who don’t have enough – in the West we are resource gluttons but there are people who are genuinely destitute. We have to make sure that these people have more water, more food to eat and better accommodation. And you need resources for it.

“The worst is yet to come and the ones who are really going to cop it are one or two generations down the track. Is that really the sort of legacy we want to leave?”

South Australia’s Commissioner for Integrated Design, Timothy Horton (pictured middle right), spoke about this legacy at a UniSA graduation ceremony recently.

“We are all part of a shared future,” Horton said. “And so we’re all participants in designing that future. We know some of the challenges we face today, and we have some idea of those challenges yet to come.”

And one such challenge is meeting the world’s energy demands.

“The world’s energy future is clouded,” Horton said. “Meeting the energy needs of nine billion people world-wide asks us to step outside our traditional concept of statehood. A recent work by architects and the World Wildlife Fund suggests one answer may be a global energy masterplan with the wind, wave and deep geothermal reserves of the northern hemisphere complementing the renewable of the south to service a post-industrial, energy-intensive world from a single, cyclical pool.

“Reducing waste in fabrication, recognising the emergence of information technology as an essential tool for connection and community; enhancing the food security for both developed and developing economies, and reducing our post-war dependency

on the car are also important.

“These are the challenges and choices we need to make if we are to confidently embrace change. We value the legacy of generations past. But ensuring ours is a legacy of ingenuity, of step-change innovation, that delivers a sense of place, can only

be achieved if we have a clear, agreed goal.”

Clifton says when dealing with sustainability, what we don’t talk about quite enough is the question of where our values lie and what matters to us as society.

“We should find our purpose in life through things that are lasting and durable, not through thinking that we can feel better by consuming more stuff,” Clifton says.

“To me it’s a fundamental moral and ethical decision about what’s right and wrong in the world. And to me what’s wrong is living our lives in a way where we don’t live with the consequences of our own behaviour.

“That is why it’s so important for business to do something substantial and very quickly. They need to stop beating around the bush, and stop saying ‘we can’t do it because of dollars’. My view is that if we can’t do something sustainably, then we shouldn’t do it at all.”

19 www.flickr.com/photos/unisouthaustralia

Across the Pacific Ocean, UniSA alumni are also making a difference when it comes to sustainability.

Jacky (Wen-Chang) Lin (pictured bottom right), a 2005 Master of Advanced Technology Management graduate, established a business in Taiwan that is dedicated to providing green energy solutions.

Epoch Energy Technology Corporation specialises in oxy-hydrogen generations that change ordinary soft water into a clean burning fuel that can be used to replace traditional gas fuels.

“Before Epoch I was in the business of recycling industrial gas cylinders but after witnessing a friend’s death that was caused by an explosion of an industrial gas cylinder, I thought about developing equipment that can replace traditional gas fuels,” he said.

Company founder and president, Lin says his development philosophy is to reduce the pollutants for the environment and to give Mother Earth cures in return, based on creating a safer and cleaner living environment.

“The vision for my commitment of providing alternative energy sources can be summed up in one sentence – give me a glass of water and I will give you a safe, clean and renewable fuel in return,” he said.

Meanwhile, in China, UniSA alumnus Wender Yang quit his Wall Street job in 2006 to establish the Hima Foundation which is focused on creating a sustainable environment for a rural community in the Taklimakan desert in the Loulan area of Xinjiang in China.

The 2007 UniSA Doctor of Business Administration graduate has transformed the desert community, finding solutions to ecological problems of the area while addressing widespread poverty.

“In a few short years a mutually beneficial relationship has devel-oped between the native tribe, the indigenous plant life and the environment.

“This is the most challenging work I have ever undertaken but it’s extremely rewarding.”

Under the Hima Foundation, Dr Yang is now implementing an initiative, the Million Trees Project, which is calling on 100 cities around the world to plant one million trees. Dozens of cities are already participating and hundreds of thousands of trees have already been planted, with planning underway for more than two million trees to be planted in the coming months.

The business of sustainability continued from page17

Sustainability across the seas

It’s a fundamental moral and ethical decision about what’s right and wrong in the world.. Don Clifton

By Katrina Phelps

Black sheep and lost princes,

The first time I saw Capoliveri, a hilltop town on the small island of Elba off the Tuscan coast (illustrated right), I was drawn into its colours. There was such a resonance in the soft peaches, sandstone golds, and pure whites of the two and three-storey houses. The hundreds of green wooden shutters made the place look quaintly dozy in the afternoon sun of a late Italian winter. I felt inexplicably at home.

discovering the family tree

The trip was somewhat of a pilgrimage. It was the birthplace of a grandmother and grandfather I never knew. They came to Australia in the 1920s, they never returned home and died young in their new country.

In the village graveyard I found their parents’ tombstones and in the local council, their birth certificates.

The tiny Catholic Church in the Piazza di Garibaldi has a wall-mounted stone memorial – much like the ones that mark the dead from World War I and World War II in Australia – and there was my great grandfather’s name, Andrea Silvio, listed under the civilian casualties of World War II. A newly acquainted relative told me Andrea was helping to diffuse mines when one went off.

The whole experience was tantalising and somewhat frustrating because it left me wanting to know more.

Why did they leave this little piece of picture postcard? How did they cope without family and friends, what did they make of their new country?

I needed an interpreter. I needed access to more records. I needed the swat team of researchers that back up the TV show Who Do You Think You Are?

A fascination with ancestry, or at least the family history of some of the world’s modern celebrities, is enjoying a comeback thanks to this BAFTA award-winning BBC TV series which has been adapted in Australia by SBS and drawn millions of viewers world-wide.

UniSA researcher in literary practice, autobiography, creative non-fiction, biography and narratives of war,

Professor Claire Woods, says it is very much a reflection of this generation that TV producers have focused on celebrities to revive a notion of the importance of history and biography.

“In this reality TV format, it is the drawcard of a Stephen Fry, Nigella Lawson or indeed our own Magda Szubanski, that brings in the viewers,” she says.

“But it is their emotional and historical journey that keeps us watching.”

And, far from being a search for royal connections or a prestigious past, these days people are equally fascinated by their mad, bad and sad ancestors.

“We have become more forgiving, more open to understanding people within their historical contexts, more interested in the causes and effects and much less likely to want to relegate the black sheep of the family to the back paddock,” Prof Woods says.

“A curiosity about our ancestors comes to most of us at some time.

“That fascination with family history is likely to emerge a little later for generation Ys and millenials because the trend is to delay having children and it is often when people have their own children that they become more curious about their roots.

“For young people today social networks revolve around school and virtual interfaces such as Facebook – there is not the intimate connection with family that children brought up in the 1950s, 60s and 70s had.

“Back then you knew all of your first cousins, your grandparents usually lived nearby and, more often

Winter 2011 UniSA Magazine 21

• Neverrelyononesource. Cross-reference data, check the spelling of names and the accuracy of birth, death and marriage dates.

• Uselocalresourcessuchas the SA Genealogy and Heraldry Society www.saghs. org.au, the Mortlock Library, the Australian National Library, military archives, ships’ manifests.

• Collectstoriesfromparents, aunts, uncles and grand- parents while they are alive.

• Ifyouarewritingupthe history of the family, don’t be bound by a chronological approach – go with what is most interesting.

• Seekoutlettersanddiaries; they often hold the most interesting reflections.

• Don’tforgetnewspaperscan be a great source of infor- mation. Many Australian papers are now online at a free database called TROVE in the National library. www.trove.nla.gov.au

• Useoldphotos,takephotos of artefacts to give your history some personality.

• Makethemostofonline resources to source information and to share it with your family.

• Startadiarynowtoleaveto your own descendants.

Tips for family history hunting

than not, Christmas and other important days were a big coming together of aunts and uncles, cousins and extended family. The story of the family was often all around them.

“Today we live in more fractured times. Families are not as traditionally structured, often dispersed and people are time-poor right up until they retire so there is not the same atmosphere of engagement with family.

“It makes family history all the more important because it is not a given that it will be passed on.”

Prof Woods says delving into personal history gives people insights into very different times.

“Their parents and grandparents lived their lives before the world-wide web, before mobile phones, before the women’s movement and the changes that made to our social structures, and they lived through periods of great global challenge such as World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War and the Cold War.

“In discovering family history, you get a very personal snapshot of world history.”

But she is quick to point out that it would be wrong to consider that the only significant family histories are about tough times or thieves and lost princes.

“We tend to think that ordinary lives have nothing of interest for us, but that is not true,” she says. “Some of the most fascinating letters and diaries from the past describe very ordinary daily domestic things: the morning routines, what was eaten at breakfast, the detail of washing day, and in that detail a whole picture of the pattern of life in the past opens up. Through that we learn about changes in technology, changes in health and wellbeing, and the very social fabric of communities.”

Our lives, she says, will throw up different sorts of stories.

“Our challenges may not be wars but they will be fascinating to our grandchildren and

great grandchildren. They may find it hard to contemplate how we ever lived without mobile phones, why we worked such long hours, how we managed as single parents – there are a range of things that will be fascinating in the future.”

Prof Woods says it is probably most important to decide what you want out of your family history research before you start.

“If you are simply interested in gathering the genealogy and building that family map, it is quite a different thing from exploring the personalities in your family,” she says.

“Getting the facts straight is important for both projects and it is always wise to check more than one source for your information. There are a surprising number of errors in the records, different birthdays, and different spellings of names. So a great rule of thumb is to try to cross-reference things, for example, check church and birth records against newspaper notices.”

Prof Woods says there are some very exciting ways to approach a family history if you want to be creative.

“Sometimes a simple object - a hat, a walking cane, a piece of tapestry, a piece of jewellery or an ornament - can become the start of your historical journey to find out more about the family members that owned or created them.

“The important thing is to tell a story. Find a way into the lives of others. The starting point may not be chronological; it might be a point or place along the way. How you weave the narrative is all-important.”

Prof Woods says in this digital age, documents are often ephemeral, so it is all the more important that community and family researchers make every effort to collect oral histories, the stories that family members tell each other, and the photos that need to be carefully labelled and identified so that the records are made for future generations.

“The time to start is now,” she says.

ABOVE: Reporter Michéle Nardelli captured her impression of her ancestors (pictured right) home town, Capoliveri.

By Michéle Nardelli

22 UniSA Magazine Winter 2011 A web version of this magazine is available at www.unisa.edu.au/news/unisamagazine/

New Leaf Gender and RuralityBy Lia Bryant and Barbara Pini

Published by Routledge

RRP $110

The book examines the concepts of rurality and gender, and argues that these cannot be examined in isolation from other social locations.

Co-author of Gender and Rurality, Dr Lia Bryant from UniSA’s School of Psychology, Social Work and Social Policy, says the book employs the concept of intersectionality to explore the ways in which gender co-exists or melds with indigeneity, ethnicities, class, sexuality, disability and age for people living in rural Australia.

“There has been very little research undertaken about what gender means in a rural setting. I really wanted to understand the complexities that make up rural societies,” Dr Bryant said.

“I wanted to focus on questions of social justice for the diverse populations of rural people - to take into account various issues that create both tensions and opportunities in rural spaces.”

These issues are explored within the book’s chapters. The target audience for the book is students and academics interested in diversity and rurality.

Making feminist politics: transnational alliances between women and laborBy Suzanne Franzway and Mary Margaret Fonow

Published by University of Illinois Press

RRP $49.95

UniSA Associate Professor Suzanne Franzway and Professor Mary Margaret Fonow from Arizona State University have combined their gender studies knowledge and research in this new book.

The book is a detailed examination of the intersections of feminism, labour politics and global studies, revealing the ways by which women across the world are transforming labour unions in the contemporary era.

“We wanted to connect the diversity of women’s experiences around the world, both inside and outside the home, and highlight the innovative ways that female workers attain their common goals,” Associate Professor Franzway said.

“In a world where women are the fastest growing segment of the labour force, unions must rethink traditional approaches to stay relevant in a global economy.

“Feminism and the trade union movement can benefit from making alliances which have the capacity to make substantial contributions to global and local social justice campaigns.”

The fearsome flute players: Australian magpies in our livesBy Philip Roetman and Christopher Daniels

Published by Crawford House Publishing Australia

RRP $29.95

If you live in Australia, it’s virtually impossible to go a day without encountering a magpie – they’re ubiquitous and conspicuous!

This book examines magpie society and our relationships with these intriguing birds. Read about their songs and mimicry, their territories and social hierarchies, how they parent and how they play. It includes many personal anecdotes that convey how people experience and connect with this iconic Australian bird, whether it’s feeding them or avoiding their swooping during nesting season.

The book contains material from the Citizen Science project ‘Operation Magpie’, run by UniSA in partnership with ABC local radio. During the project, close to 2000 South Australians submitted observations of local magpies.

It is the second book in the Barbara Hardy Institute’s Citizen Science series. The first book, The Possum-tail Tree, was awarded a 2010 Whitley Award for Urban Zoology.

For more information: www.unisa.edu.au/barbarahardy/books/magpie.asp

The Method of Shared Concern – a positive approach to bullying in schoolsBy Ken Rigby

Published by ACER Press

RRP $29.95

UniSA Adjunct Professor Ken Rigby explores an approach to bullying in schools that not only empowers students, but brings both the bully and the bullied together to sort out the problems.

Prof Rigby says the method of shared concern is a multi-stage process in which suspected bullies and their victims are individually interviewed and eventually brought together to discuss the issues and reach an agreed resolution.

“What you will find in the book are case studies that show how the method can be applied in any school environment to combat bullying and harassment,” he said.

“It is a tool for teachers and principals but it is also invaluable for parents who want to understand the dynamics of bullying more clearly and then the psychological factors that can contribute to stop bullying behaviour and protecting the victims.”

23Winter 2011 UniSA Magazine www.facebook.com/UniSA

21 Years of Regional Nursing 1990-2010By Julie Watkinson and Bronwyn Elliss

Published by the Centre for Regional Engagement

RRP $10

In commemoration of 21 years of UniSA’s regional nursing program, a book has been released showcasing a pictorial record of events.

It outlines some of the key dates, beginning with preparatory work in the late 1980s. It then provides an overview of the years since, through photographs and newspaper articles.

It concludes with a complete list of 841 graduates, ranging from the first cohort, who began their study in 1990, through to the 2011 graduands.

Head of nursing at Whyalla, Dr Julie Watkinson, said the past two decades have seen nursing education shift from an apprenticeship-style system to university education and the subsequent professionalisation of nursing.

“The book is a wonderful record of the human face of that change, and recognition of UniSA’s contribution to the education of registered nurses in rural areas, here in Whyalla and, since 2005, in Mount Gambier,” Dr Watkinson said.

The book is available from UniSA’s Whyalla Campus Central.

A Brilliant Touch, Adam Forster’s Wildflower PaintingsBy Christobel Mattingley

Published by the National Library of Australia

RRP $39.95

In her 50th book, UniSA Honorary Doctorate Christobel Mattingley celebrates Adam Forster’s wildlife paintings.

Forster (1848-1928), who was born in Germany and migrated to Sydney in 1891, was a skilled, self-taught botanical artist whose goal was to paint 1000 species of Australian wildflowers. To this end, on weekends he travelled all over the Sydney region and country New South Wales to sketch and collect plant specimens.

The book features 90 of his superb watercolours, along with Mattingley’s biography of Forster.

Meanwhile, Mattingley is the only Australian nominated for the 2012 Hans Christian Andersen Award, for her other books that have contributed to children’s literature.

COLGAN’S CRYPTIC Len Colgan was a Senior Lecturer of Mathematics, working at UniSA for 37 years. His love of solving problems continues with Colgan’s Cryptic.

For your chance to win a $40 voucher, send your completed crossword to Len Colgan by July 21st to len.colgan@unisa.edu.au or fax (08) 8302 5785. Answers will be published online at www.unisa.edu.au/news/unisamagazine/ on July 28th, 2011

ACROSS

1. Unless you initially advise, … (6)4. ... they’ll be assigned work clothes (6)9. Returning gift, a pound, always causes complaint (8,5)10. Square matches – nervous time for cricketer (8)11. Surrounded by a grey westerly (4)13. One countryman, holding back tears, is arousing (13)14. Heath rejected opportunity (4)15. Small computer accessory, one having great speed (8)18. Villa’s base I covered with small pebbles, much to everyone’s amazement (13)19. Jet and ship ends with luxury hotel (6)

20. Revolutionary, going ahead, abandons one member of group (6)

DOWN

1. This name is only for females (5)2. Recruiting agent brought loads of money once to Harry (6,7) 3. Tree receives serious treatment (5,3)5. Blow causes bad mood (4)6. Recklessly interpreting fun, give flanks little warning before yacht race (4-6,3)7. Pastry whose centre is arranged by unrefined novice (7)8. Expired train-ticket cancelled one’s movement in Rugby (7,4)12. Marvin Gaye’s death involved one group of detectives in row (8)13. Popular drives make headway (7)16. Skate over synthetic material (5)17. A speed joint? (4)

Your journey begins now.

Growing up in Belfast, Joanne Wright attended a very average school where, if you were a girl, you were taught typing, cooking and hairdressing.

But she wasn’t going to let that stop her becoming the person she wanted to be.

As soon as she finished school, she made the decision to begin a journey that would take her into a world that was completely foreign to her.

Determined to improve her career prospects, she fearlessly put on a backpack, got on a boat, got on a train, and travelled across London in the Underground to university.

But the one thing she learned along life’s road was that deciding when to start your journey was as important as the journey itself.

You can learn a lot from Joanne’s experience.

Consider commencing your education journey at a world-class University that blends academic expertise with real-life experience.

Because as Joanne learned, every great journey in life has a beginning.

And yours starts now.

unisa.edu.au/experience

Professor Joanne Wright, PhDDeputy Vice Chancellor: Academic

Professor of International Relations

BA (Hons) in Politics & Government and History (University of Kent)

M.Litt in Strategic Studies (University of Aberdeen)

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