MUSSE

Professor Gareth Evans, Professorial Fellow at the University of Melbourne, former Australian Foreign Minister and recently-retired President and CEO of the International Crisis Group has been awarded the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute’s Freedom from Fear Medal.

The Medal recognises Professor Evans’ pioneering work to further international understanding of the Responsibility to Protect Concept (R2P) and nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament.

According to R2P, national sovereignty can no longer serve as a protective shield for nations which allow their own citizens to be the subject of atrocities and genocidal crimes.

 Since 2008 Professor Evans has been co-chair (with former Japanese Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi) of the International Commission on Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament (www.icnnd.org) and was named a Professorial Fellow at Melbourne in August 2009.

 The Freedom from Fear Medal is one of the annual Four Freedoms Awards presented to individuals who exemplify President Roosevelt’s vision and who have demonstrated their commitment to that vision through their life and work.

Former recipients of the Four Freedoms Awards include Aung San Suu Kyi, the Dalai Lama, Nelson Mandela, Kofi Anan, Desmond Tutu and Richard von Weizsäcker.

 The awards originated in New York in 1950, and since 1982, the Four Freedoms Awards have been presented in conjunction with the Roosevelt Stichting in Middelburg, the Netherlands.

 Mr Evans will receive his award, most probably from Her Majesty Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands, on 29 May.

A Melbourne graduate in Arts and Law (Honours), Gareth Evans lectured in law at the University from 1971 to 1976 and welcomed his return to the campus last year.

 Over 21 years, Professor Evans served in the Australian Senate and the House of Representatives as a Cabinet Minister in both the Hawke and Keating governments including appointments as Foreign Minister and Leader of the Opposition.

 At the time of his appointment to the University, he said:  ”With its strong, long-standing and growing international reputation, the University of Melbourne is a wonderful base from which to work over the next year on the global nuclear commission.”

The Melbourne Model continues to get a big tick of approval from Australian students as the University’s tertiary offer outcomes reflect growing demand.

Just over 5700 excited students received the offer of a Commonwealth-supported place to study at Melbourne in 2010 in the Victorian Tertiary Admission Centre’s first round offers.

Nearly 5000 or 87 per cent of the University’s offers for this year are for the New Generation degrees – Arts, Biomedicine, Commerce, Environments, Music and Science.

Provost Professor John Dewar says the increased demand and consequent rise in ENTERs for courses such as Arts, Science and Biomedicine is a strong endorsement of the New Generation degrees and the Melbourne Model.

“It is quite clear that students have embraced the Melbourne Model,” he said.

And responses from the students themselves show this is true.

“Absolutely stoked,” was Torie McWilliams-Murray’s excited response when asked how she felt about receiving the offer of a place at Melbourne as an New Generation Arts student in 2010.

Torie’s particularly interested in studying art history and taking up a language from beginner level though she hasn’t decided which one yet. She acknowledges that University will be a big change from Swan Hill College, but that’s what starting at University is all about – exploring all your options.

“Stoked” is also the way that Luke Plant described his feelings at being accepted into the Bachelor of Biomedicine. He chose the course because of the broad range of possibilities it opens up to him. He can’t decide between Medicine and Physiotherapy, so Biomedicine is the ideal course at this time.

Luke chose the University of Melbourne because, as a member of the University’s Kwong Lee Dow Young Scholars program, he has spent time on campus and now “just likes the feel of the place”. This hopefully will assist in offsetting any culture shock in moving to the University from Newhaven College in Cowes.

His sentiment is shared by fellow Kwong Lee Dow Young Scholar Katherine Petros. “I just feel like I belong here,” she says.

As a brand new Environments student, she is looking forward to continuing Japanese language studies as her breadth subject, to going on exchange through Melbourne Global Mobility, and she is considering studying Architecture as a graduate.

“I’m also really excited about learning in a new way, going to lectures.” she says.

Former P-12 Laverton College student Dat Cao is on his way to being a health professional in the western suburbs with the offer of a place in Biomedicine and an Access Melbourne Scholarship.

“I’d like to be a doctor or dentist,” he told the Star newspaper. “I want to help people who are disadvantaged in their health.”

Wangaratta High School graduate Jackson Harnwell told the Wangaratta Chronicle that he was really excited to receive an offer for the Bachelor of Music. “It’s a great university.”

Girton Grammar student Sophie Chandler says getting her first preference of Biomedicine – with an ENTER of 99.75 – means she will have time to decide on a specialty.
“It’s three years – and then I can go into medicine, anything else in health sciences, or even journalism or law.”

Four of the New Generation courses at Melbourne are represented in the five most popular courses – based on first preferences – in the VTAC system.

Arts at Melbourne continues to top the ‘pop polls’ with its ENTER moving up from 88.3 to 89, and 1636 offers – an additional 100 offers on 2009.

Increased ENTERs for New Generation science-based courses – Biomedicine and Science – follow a sharp rise in first preferences (up 45 per cent and 32 per cent respectively) after the December change of preference

This exceptional demand has resulted in increased offers and an ENTER for Science of 89.05 up from 85 in 2009 and 97.90 for Biomedicine from 95 in 2009.
Dean of the Faculty of Science Professor Rob Saint is delighted with the growing popularity of the Bachelor of Science.

“Despite national concerns about a decline in students embracing science, students are flocking to the Melbourne Model approach to Science which offers strong employments outcomes on graduation plus clear pathways to graduate study in Engineering, a range of Health fields and Veterinary Science.

“Science is vital to Australia’s nation-building and these students will be fine contributors to the future well-being of our society.”

There have also been increased offers for the New Generation Bachelor of Environments degree and Bachelor of Commerce at Melbourne.

Access Melbourne is also a success story. A University priority is to broaden the mix of its students from diverse backgrounds. In November, to encourage more students from rural and financially disadvantaged backgrounds to study at Melbourne, the University announced guaranteed ENTERs into New Generation degrees.

This year Melbourne has made 25 per cent of offers to students who applied through Access Melbourne with large increases in offers to rural and financially disadvantaged applicants.

Professor Sue Elliott, Deputy Vice-Chancellor with responsibility for access and equity, says these are high-quality students who have experienced educational disadvantage during their schooling. “The undergraduate experience at a good university is a level playing field where students from all backgrounds have the opportunity to flourish,” she explained.

The University’s success in the 2010 student selection extends to graduate programs such as the Master of Teaching which has made 17 per cent more offers this year – a total of 849 – following a similar rise in demand.

Staff from the University’s Centre for Indigenous Education and Academic Enrichment Services, the Victorian Aboriginal Education Association Incorporated and the northern metropolitan office of the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development (DEECD) gather to sign the STEPP Memorandum of Understanding.

A revolutionary new program to mentor Koorie youth will be implemented following the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between the University’s Centre for Indigenous Education and Academic Enrichment Services and the Victorian Aboriginal Education Association Incorporated and the northern metropolitan office of the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development (DEECD).

The Seamless Transition Education Pathway (STEPP) program will lock into place with existing government initiatives to foster a culture of high expectations among Koorie students in Victoria’s north.

By building long-term relationships with communities and supporting students from Year 9 into VCE and beyond, STEPP will encourage more Koorie youth to see higher education as a worthwhile and attainable goal through a mentoring program and on-campus events.

The crucial difference and greatest strength of STEPP, Manager of the University’s Academic Enrichment Services Dr Pat McLean says, is the time already spent gradually building relationships with the Koorie community and the government departments to form this fully integrated program.

“It’s about building trust, building relationships through careful nurturing,” she explains.

“We’re building relationships with the schools in the region, with the teachers, the schools and the individual students.”

Chris Heelan, General Manager of the University’s Centre for Indigenous Education explains that program is an all around win – for the University, which will foster a new culture of region, school and community engagement, for the teachers and school principals who will receive invaluable resources to better support Koorie students, for the community, who receive the opportunity to be more strongly engaged with their children’s educational journey and for the students themselves, who will receive more classroom engagement and support from their University mentors.

STEPP is unique to the University in the way it’s tied to the to the schools, the communities and most importantly to the parents, Mr Heelan says.

“If you can convince parents, you not only help the student, but their brothers, sisters, cousins, friends – it’s about accessing those community relationships.”

STEPP will engage the Indigenous members of the University alumni to be mentors for the school students.

“It’s about convincing students that university – any university, not just the University of Melbourne – is an achievable and desirable goal,” Mr Heelan continues.

‘We’re in it for the long haul, but we think that by starting small and building strong community ties, we will be able to create something fantastic.”

Professor Joe Trapani – an Honorary Professorial Fellow in the University’s Department of Microbiology and Immunology – has been appointed as the new Director of Research at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre.

Professor Trapani took up his appointment in the new year on the retirement of Professor David Bowtell.

He is well known to the Melbourne research community, with research interests that include the cellular and molecular biology of cancer cell death induced by the immune system, the immunopathology of viral and auto-immune diseases and adoptive immunotherapy of cancer.

“The past several decades of cancer research have taught us an enormous amount about the genetic and molecular basis of cancer,” he says, reflecting on the advances in cancer research.

”The coming decade holds the promise of many more targeted therapies and the hope that ultimately, cancer therapy will be individualised according to the molecular profile of that patient’s own disease.”

Professor Trapani has worked at Peter Mac since 2000, as Head of the Cancer Cell Death Laboratory and Co-Head of the Cancer Immunology Program. He was also Deputy Director of the Research Division from 2000 to 2008.

The Australian Government has awarded funding of $42 million to a University of Melbourne-led consortium for the development of a bionic eye capable of restoring vision to the blind.

Bionic Vision Australia includes the University of Melbourne, the University of New South Wales, the Bionic Ear Institute, Centre for Eye Research Australia and the National Information and Communications Technology Australia (NICTA) centre of excellence.

Professor Emeritus David Penington and Bionic Vision Australia Chairman says the consortium is honoured to have been selected by the Australian Research Council for this funding.

“This opportunity will allow our team to use its outstanding know-how and expertise to develop a functioning retinal implant that will deliver profound benefits to sufferers of degenerative vision loss such as retinitis pigmentosa and age-related macular degeneration,” he says.

The new device will use a video camera – fixed to a patient’s glasses – to capture images which are then translated into electrical impulses that stimulate electrodes inserted into the retina.

The resulting electrical impulses stimulate the same area of the retina usually activated by visual cues, and over time the patient learns to interpret these nerve signals as useful vision.

Research Director of Bionic Vision Australia and Professor of Engineering at the University of Melbourne, Professor Anthony Burkitt, says the research program to develop a retinal implant is ambitious but that the expertise in the team makes it achievable.

Head of the Macular Research Unit at the Centre for Eye Research Australia (CERA), and Professor of Ophthalmology at the University of Melbourne, Dr Robyn Guymer says the new device will provide a greater benefit for patients than existing bionic eyes.

“This advanced bionic eye will not only provide users with increased mobility and independence, but hopefully also enable them to recognise faces and read large print,” she says.

The first human implant is likely to occur in 2013 and take place at the Royal Victorian Eye and Ear Hospital in Melbourne.