Site Navigation
ACU Update - Issue 4
ACU Update is produced fortnightly for staff, students and friends of Australian Catholic University (ACU). To submit a news article or event, please email editor@acu.edu.au or call 02 9739 2514.
• New ambassadors
• The art of caring for asylum seekers
• Man of letters speaks on Epistles
• ACU Games 2007
• Call for papers on spirituality
• Interfaith and Life: Sharing, working, celebrating
• Organs and ethics
• Wagging in focus
• Mission Engagement news
• Support for education in East Timor
• Orientation Week 2007
• Students find their way
• Luna Lashes
• School’s in for Shepparton graduates
• Upcoming Events
ACU’s Student Recruitment Team has begun training Student Ambassadors to represent the University at school visits and career expos during 2007.
Student Ambassadors in Brisbane and Sydney took part in workshops aimed at improving their knowledge of course content and public speaking and presentation skills. In Brisbane, they also attended the Vice Chancellor’s address to staff at the Brisbane Campus (McAuley at Banyo).
Training for ambassadors at the Ballarat, Canberra and Melbourne campuses will begin shortly.
Deputy Vice-Chancellor Professor John O'Gorman and Vice-Chancellor Professor Peter Sheehan with Brisbane Student Ambassadors
The art of caring for asylum seekers
A children’s art competition run by the Melbourne Campus (St Patrick’s) Gallery Committee has raised more than $1,200 for West Melbourne’s Asylum Seekers Resource Centre (ASRC).
The competition involved primary and secondary school students designing Christmas cards. Winning entries were produced and sold to the University’s staff and students in Melbourne.
ASRC is a leading Australian organsiation, assisting more than 3,000 asylum seekers with health care, advocacy and other services with the help of more than 700 volunteers.
Head of School Arts and Sciences (VIC) Associate Professor Margot Hillel with Community Campaign Co-ordinator of ASRC Pamela Curr
Man of letters speaks on Epistles
A fresh look at the writings of the Bible will be presented by visiting Biblical specialist Dr Jens Herzer of the University of Leipzig on Friday 2 March at the Melbourne Campus (St Patrick’s) from 10am to noon.
Dr Herzer will speak on Constructing pseudonymity: The pastoral epistles as a test case of New Testament, and Rearranging the “House of God”: Ecclesiological patterns and a new perspective on the Pastoral Epistles.
The School of Theology is hosting the presentations in Room 4.03. For more information please contact Margaret Blakeney on (03) 9953 3136 or at margaret.blakeney@acu.edu.au.
The ACU Games, a sporting event open to all students of ACU, will be held at the Canberra Campus (Signadou) from 12 to 15 April. There will be Dodgeball, Ultimate Soccer, Mixed Netball, Ultimate Frisbee, social programs, sight seeing and more.
Students will compete in 15 mixed-gender teams of 12. Participants will receive merchandise including a backpack, visor, water bottle, beanie, wrist band, team shirt and registration booklet with discounts. The cost of participation is $375, which includes travel, accommodation, meals, insurance, medical support and free entry into the social venue.
To register and for more information visit www.acu.edu.au/ang.
Enthusiastic students and their campus sporting mascots preparing for ACU Games
Call for papers on spirituality
Papers are invited for the annual conference of the Australian Association for the Study of Religion (AASR), to be held at the Melbourne Campus (St Patrick’s) from 6 to 8 July.
The theme is The end of the world as we know it? New directions in Australian spirituality. Abstracts of 200 words on spirituality and health, ageing, children, youth, religious education, different faith traditions and secularism and alternative spirituality are especially sought.
For more information, please contact Flagship for the Quality of Life and Social Justice Director Associate Professor Ruth Webber at Ruth.Webber@acu.edu.au who will chair the conference with Monash University Lecturer in Sociology Dr Andrew Singleton.
Interfaith and Life: Sharing, working, celebrating
Political and social affairs broadcast journalist Rebecca Gorman will speak at the Canberra Campus (Signadou) on Tuesday 6 March from 6pm to 7pm in the Blackfriars Building B10. She will discuss her recent quest to pursue her love of singing, acting and performing.
Rebecca’s address is part of a series of public talks held in partnership with the Young Catholic Women’s Interfaith Fellowship, ACU’s School of Theology and the Australian Catholic Bishops’ Conference Office for the Participation of Women (OPW).
For more information, please contact the University’s Asia-Pacific Centre for Inter-religious Dialogue Director and Graduate Certificate in Interfaith Relations Coordinator Professor Raymond Canning at raymond.canning@acu.edu.au, or telephone the OPW on (02)6201 9867.
ACU Head of the School of Philosophy Associate Professor John Ozolins and the University’s Plunkett Centre for Ethics Director Associate Professor Bernadette Tobin were among a number of academics to participate in a recent colloquium on Ethics and the use of human tissue, hosted by the John Paul II Institute and the Australian Association of the Order of Malta.
Professor Tobin spoke on The development of future care directives, while Professor Ozolins and Rev Dr John Fleming of Campion College led the final session, on the ethics of trade in human organs and tissues.
In other news, Professor Ozolins was a guest speaker of the Psychology and Spirituality Society, a Metanexus-funded Local Society Initiative, at the University of Western Sydney's Bankstown Campus earlier this month, speaking on Spirituality - A conceptual analysis.
Faculty of Education PhD candidate Robert Rennie will present his final research findings on The phenomena of problematic school-related absenteeism at a presentation on Friday 30 March from 11am till 12.30pm at the Melbourne Campus (St Patrick’s) in Central Hall Room 1.1.
To assist with catering, those planning to attend should email k.smith@patrick.acu.edu.au.
Mission Engagement at the Strathfield Campus (Mount Saint Mary) has recently welcomed new Campus Chaplain Fr Jack Evans SSC and new staff members Colleen Malone and Lisa Boys, both of whom have backgrounds in education and social justice.
During Orientation Week, the Mission Engagement team was joined by representatives from Caritas, Mary Mackillop East Timor and Catholic Mission. They set up stalls to raise awareness and encourage students to get involved in social justice. Some 100 staff and students gathered in the Chapel for Ash Wednesday Eucharist to mark the beginning of Lent.
Mission Engagement was formerly known as Campus Ministry on each campus.
Social Justice representatives Teresa Georges and Melody Gardiner
Support for education in East Timor
The Rotary Club of Glenhaven has continued to work with ACU to support the successful Teachers for Timor project.
Among other initiatives, an East Timorese Cultural Night hosted by the club late in 2006 raised approximately $9,000 for teachers’ scholarships for students of Baucau Teachers College in East Timor. The guest speaker was School of Educational Leadership Lecturer Professor Tony D’Darbon.
Catholic Teachers College Baucau Director Br Fons van Rooij has thanked the club, saying that the funds and long term support enable the college to continue providing quality primary teachers for the young people of East Timor.
ACU Lecturer Professor Tony D'Arbon and other supporters join to celebrate money raised for the Teachers for Timor project
Last week's Orientation events gave Student Associations their best opportunity to sign up new members following the abolition of universal membership of student associations in 2006.
Student services staff ran workshops to prepare students for academic life while the Student Associations promoted extra curricular activities such as the ACU Games and provided commencing students with an ACU student diary.
Classes for first semester commenced this week. The University wishes all new and continuing students success for the 2006 Academic Year.
President Brisbane Campus Student Association Maddie McBarron joins in the activities during Orientation Week
An Orientation Camp for new students at the Melbourne Campus (St Patrick’s) was run primarily by second year students with some support from the Melbourne Campus Student Association.
The University’s Mission Engagement team spent a day at the camp with the students. They held a session on ACU’s Mission as well as creative small group workshops on students’ hopes for their time at the University.
“The camp went really well, with all the first year students and leaders embracing the opportunity to meet new people,” said one of the student organisers, Laura Thorne.
ACU graduate Brad Thompson has been selected as a finalist for the inaugural $100,000 Moran Contemporary Photographic Prize (MCPP).
Brad, a Bachelor of Teaching/Bachelor of Arts (Visual Arts) graduate has interpreted contemporary life in Australia with his image Luna Lashes.
Run in conjunction with the Doug Moran National Portrait Prize, the MCPP is a national photographic competition created to promote contemporary photography and excellence in all forms of still photo-based artwork, including all types of analogue and digital photography.
The winners will be named at the State Library of NSW on 13 March. The works of winners and finalists will be exhibited at a free showing at the State Library and then nationally.
Brad Thompson's winning image, Luna Lashes
School’s in for Shepparton graduates
Finishing Graduate Diploma in Education (Secondary) students have all been offered employment in rural Catholic schools, according to a recent article in SandPiper, the newspaper of the Diocese of Sandhurst.
All have undertaken their Diploma studies part time through a program offered jointly in Shepparton by ACU, Notre Dame College Shepparton and the Catholic Education Office since 2005. The program is continuing.
For more information, please contact Senior Lecturer in the School of Education (Victoria) Dr Caroline Smith on (03) 9953 3281.
• Friday 2 March - Dr Jens Herzer, Afresh look at the writings of the Bible (Melbourne)
• Monday 5 March - Vice Chancellor's address (Melbourne)
• Tuesday 6 March - Rebecca Gorman, political and social affairs broadcast journalist discusses her new pursuits in the performing arts
• Friday 30 March - The phenomena of problematic school-related absenteeism (Melbourne)
• 12 - 15 April - ACU Games (Canberra)
Details on these and other upcoming events can be found at www.acu.edu.au/events
Promote your event by listing it on the myACU events section and by emailing details to editor@acu.edu.au.
