ON THE MOVE
campusreview.com.au
THREE MORE
YEARS
President and VC
John Dewar will be
leading La Trobe for
three more years.
Dewar was appointed
VC in 2012, and the university has since
seen research income up by 60 per cent,
a 10-fold increase in alumni donations
and bequests, and a rise on the world
rankings scale.
“Under Professor Dewar’s leadership,
La Trobe has grown and thrived, expanding
the positive benefits to the students we
teach, the communities we serve, the
industries we partner with and the world
class research we produce,” said chancellor
John Brumby. Dewar’s term now runs till
early 2024.
SOUTHERN
PROMISE
Mulct doesn’t look like an English word,
with that unusual cluster of consonants,
but it is. It’s an old legal term from the
Latin mulcta (‘fine’ or ‘penalty’) and
can be used as a noun or a verb. You
wouldn’t expect to see it nowadays
outside of legal documents, or perhaps
parliamentary Hansard. And yet a search
of a contemporary newspaper database
reveals a disproportionately high use in
newspapers in the Philippines, sometimes
as a gloss for the Tagalog word kotong,
as in: “The project is in line with President
Rodrigo Duterte’s campaign against
corruption and kotong (mulcting)
cops…” (Tempo, 15 March 2017). In this
instance the practice is associated with
corrupt policemen extorting bribes from
vulnerable members of the community,
and mulct does have connotations of
being ‘unfair or arbitrary’ according to the
Oxford English Dictionary. It is surprising,
though, that such an obscure English word
should have sufficient currency in the
Philippines that it’s used to explain a local
one. This unexpected usage goes to show
how even the most obscure, specialised
terms can find a new audience. Just
think of the current heat being generated
around prorogue.
Written by Dr Adam Smith, convenor of
the Editing and Electronic Publishing
Program at Macquarie University.
28
Georgia College & State
University (GCSU) is
losing one of its leading
academics to Notre
Dame, with Professor
Catherine Whelan to become the business
schools’ new dean.
“Professor Whelan is an outstanding
academic, with a wealth of experience in
teaching, administration, leadership and
academic governance,” said Professor
Margot Kearns, deputy vice-chancellor,
academic. “Her international experience ...
will greatly benefit our students in their
understanding of the global marketplace.”
Among other roles, Whelan was chair
of GCSU's Department of Accounting and
presiding officer of its senate.
TO THE TOP
Curtin University is set
on joining the world’s
top 200 universities,
and they’ve recruited
Tim McInnis to get
them there.
McInnis is the former development head
of the Telethon Kids Institute, where he
worked to bring joy to sick kids through
philanthropy.
“Tim has more than 25 years’ fundraising
experience in both the higher education
and charity sectors, which will serve him
well as he develops new approaches
to advancement at Curtin,” said vice-
chancellor Professor Deborah Terry. “His
international experience will be essential
as he leads the strategic development and
delivery of the university’s global alumni
and philanthropic strategies.”
McInnis starts his new role in December.
LUPTON ON
THE CASE
How is digitisation
affecting our health
and wellbeing? How
can we equitably
maximise its potential?
Deborah Lupton, a SHARP professor at
UNSW, is one of 17 on the case.
In September, she was appointed to an
international commission investigating the
implications of our techno-future world,
with a particular focus on countries with
younger populations like Africa.
“I'm looking forward to being involved in
the commission, as I have a long-standing
interest in the social dimensions of health
as well as in how people use digital
technologies,” Lupton said from the Faculty
of Arts and Social Sciences.
ROSE BLOOMS
The University of
Melbourne has a new
director of Museums
and Collections in Rose
Hiscock, who has been
serving as inaugural
director of Science Gallery Melbourne, to
open in 2020.
Her work will involve a vast project
of consolidating the university’s four
galleries under the Cultural Commons
program – intended to “leverage the
university’s cultural collections, including
the performing arts, to increase their
accessibility to students and scholars and
to open them up for the enjoyment and
appreciation of the world,” said Julie Wells,
Melbourne University's vice-president of
strategy and culture.
CLARK-BURG
HITS FREO
The acting dean of
Nursing & Midwifery
at Notre Dame in
Fremantle has been
appointed to the
role proper. Professor Karen Clark-Burg
developed the curriculum for accreditation
at both undergraduate and postgraduate
level, and has been extensively involved in
global nursing work. In 2016, she was one
of 26 international nurses to present to the
International Council of Nursing in Geneva
through the Global Nursing Leadership
Institute program.
“Karen is a rare talent with an enormous
passion for nursing and nursing education,”
said pro-vice-chancellor Selma Alliex.
“She offers a wealth of experience to
our students and to the wider nursing
community, both locally and internationally.”