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New council members welcomed
The University Council has started the year with four new members joining its ranks. At the Council's first meeting last week, chancellor Mr Jerry Ellis welcomed the Council-appointed members, Professor Colin Bourke and Ms Penelope Hutchinson, and elected postgraduate student member Ms Eleina Tava. Professor Bourke was a part-time professorial fellow at Monash in 1999 and was director of the Aboriginal Research Centre at Monash University from 1977 to 1981. Ms Hutchinson is now director of Arts Victoria and was previously a partner and director of management consulting group BDO Consulting Pty Ltd. Ms Tava is currently completing a Master of Education and is president of the Monash Postgraduate Association. Also joining the Council is elected undergraduate student member Ms Manisha Blencowe, who is currently undertaking an arts/law degree and is also an elected member of the Monash Student Association Education Affairs Committee. The four new members join the Council in making decisions to lead the university into the future. |
New Monash staff from all campuses and affiliated hospitals are invited to attend the next 'Introducing Monash' session from 9 am to 12.30 pm on Thursday 1 March.
The half-day orientation program, offered at regular intervals throughout the year, is designed to officially welcome new staff and introduce them to the university from a number of perspectives.
Presenters, including senior management, will speak on topics including the university's strategic plan, Leading the Way: Monash 2020, and the services and facilities available to staff and students.
During morning tea, an information session will enable participants to speak with key staff service providers and meet other staff.
The 'Introducing Monash' session will be held at the Unicomm Cinema and Conference Centre, Campus Centre, building 10, Clayton campus.
To register, contact Staff Development on extn 56800 or for more information visit www.monash.edu.au/personnel/sdu/
2001: an art odyssey
The exhibition, Low-down, features painting, photography, sculpture, and works on paper and video by contemporary Australian artists, acquired over the last three years. Among them is John Meade's sculpture 'Set of Holds' (pictured), based on the holds used in indoor rock-climbing centres, and Louise Weaver's crocheted 'Rock Wallaby', made from a taxidermist's mould. Also on show will be two paintings by Archibald Prize winner Adam Cullen, and David Noonan's video work and screen print 'Saturn Return', based on Stanley's Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. Artists' talks on 14 March at 1.30 pm will feature John Meade, Lauren Berkowitz, Vera Moller and Louise Weaver. Other artists represented in the exhibition are James Angus, Ian Burn, Eugene Carchesio, Virginia Coventry, John Dunkley-Smith, Dale Frank, Guan Wei, Brent Harris, Rosemary Laing, Geoffrey Nees, Susan Norrie, Robert Owen, Mike Parr, Patricia Piccinini, Kerrie Poliness, Jacky Redgate, Neil Roberts, Simone Slee and Ricky Swallow. The Monash University Collection, established in 1961, comprises more than 1000 works by 330 artists and has focused on showcasing artwork by emerging Australian artists. For more information, contact the University Gallery on extn 54217. |
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Southern Health CEO Mr Stan Capp, Medicine dean
Professor
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Monash University is a major stakeholder in the recently launched Monash Institutes of Health (MIH), which brings together more than 1000 health and medical researchers now working in the Clayton precinct.
The new organisation, launched by Federal Health Minister Dr Michael Wooldridge, will consolidate expertise in the fields of DNA sequencing, biotechnology, embryonic stem cells, diabetes, drug discovery, cancer research, population health statistics and clinical practice.
Set to become one of Australia's largest medical and biomedical science research complexes, MIH will pool the research expertise of Monash University, Southern Health, Prince Henry's Institute of Medical Research and the International Diabetes Institute.
Researchers from these institutions will work collaboratively on research initiatives to share expensive infrastructure, develop bids for joint research funds, build links with commercial partners, and develop new research and training facilities.
Faculty of Medicine dean Professor Nick Saunders said the strength of the new institute lay in the combined expertise of the individual members.
"This is the way forward for medical and health organisations who want to position themselves as global leaders in the rapidly expanding biotechnology industry," he said.
"MIH is a full-service facility, taking research from the molecule through to the clinical stage, to ultimately be of major benefit to the broader community."
Dr Wooldridge said the creation of MIH was an important step for Monash, which would enable it to remain at the forefront of the biotechnology revolution.
"Monash is on the threshold of extending the biotechnology revolution that will define this century, and there is no better time to be working in biomedical research here in Melbourne."
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Mr Jeffrey Wrathall and Dr Cherrie Zhu. |
The Faculty of Business and Economics will deliver Monash's first course in a foreign language and country this year.
The Department of Management has developed the Executive/Graduate Certificate of Business (Management), to be offered in China in both Mandarin and English by supported distance education.
The course has been recommended for a grant under Monash's Strategic Innovations Fund (SIF).
Project leader Professor Owen Hughes, project manager Mr Jeffrey Wrathall and management lecturer Dr Cherrie Zhu have been working towards offering the course this year, first in Shanghai and later in Beijing and other parts of China.
Mr Wrathall, who has previously been involved in teaching management in Chinese universities and companies, said previous teaching experiences in China had always been conducted through an interpreter.
"As Monash's strategic direction is tied to a global approach, and hence the need to get past cultural barriers, it makes sense to offer a course in their language," he said.
"Most of the managers who would do the course are likely to be 35 and above. They generally don't have good English language skills and would never contemplate starting a postgraduate qualification in English at that age. Yet there's huge pressure on them to gain a Western qualification."
He said almost all programs from the United States and Britain are only available in English.
The course will not only be translated into Mandarin, it will also take into account differences in culture, language and the business environment.
"If you are teaching management and covering a topic such as motivation, you find that virtually every theory in the West emphasises the individual - satisfying individual needs and making the individual feel important," Mr Wrathall said.
"Trying that approach in a collectivist society is bound to be problematic - you are asking for something that's not traditionally acceptable or culturally consistent with the Chinese way of doing things.
"In Australia, managers are generally called by their first names, but it's quite different in China, where power distance is maintained. If you reduce that power distance, you tend to lose respect or even insult people."
He said it was important to adequately address language differences because common management terms did not always translate easily into Chinese.
For example, the management terms 'responsibility' and 'accountability' are represented by the same character in Chinese, which can cause confusion in translation.
"It doesn't mean we radically change what we are offering in management subjects, but we need to tailor the material to a Chinese context," he said.
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A
selection of contemporary artworks from the Monash University Collection
is now on show at the University Gallery until 17 March at the Clayton
campus.