Campus Review Vol 29. Issue 9 september 2019 | Seite 30

ON THE MOVE
campusreview.com.au
PROOF TO
THE POLICY
Swinburne University
of Technology has a
new director at the
head of its open-access
evidence platform for
public policy and practice, which is designed
to aid policymakers and researchers. With
a background in government and research,
Dr Brigid van Wanrooy will lead the Analysis
& Policy Observatory (APO) to its next phase.
“APO is a trusted source for researchers
and policymakers,” Van Wanrooy said.
“I’m excited to have the opportunity to
build on this great resource and ensure
that it continues to be a must-have for
evidence‑informed policy in a rapidly
changing environment.”
Van Wanrooy has also held roles at the
Universities of Melbourne and Sydney.
BUILT TO LAST
The adjective woke, in the sense of “being
alert to social injustice”, has had a meteoric
rise in the last two years. It originated
in African-American slang in the phrase
stay woke, first recorded in the 1970s. But
its usage has taken off in the last 10 years
with the refrain of Erykah Badu’s song
‘Master Teacher’ (2008), and its use by
the Black Lives Matter movement (2014).
Staying woke was/is a rallying cry among
African‑Americans in promoting awareness
of racial injustice and police brutality, and
maintaining the rage. It has prompted other
social activists to use it, including those
promoting the Me Too movement (2017)
and environmental causes. But those who
embraced woke in campaigning for racial
justice see these secondary uses by white
people as misappropriation of the adjective,
disconnected from its grassroots authenticity.
In the process, the noun wokeness has
acquired negative connotations according
to the Urban Dictionary. Its crowd-sourced
materials on wokeness have a cutting edge,
as in “Your wokeness is showing”, and draft
definitions such “being constantly offended”,
and “self-righteousness masquerading as
enlightenment”. The Oxford Dictionary
online has yet to develop an entry on
wokeness. It has the delicate task ahead of
capturing the denotation and connotations
of a word which will doubtless continue to
change its colours like a chameleon.
Written by Emeritus Professor Pam
Peters, researcher with the Linguistics
Department at Macquarie University.
28
Star architect
Peter Poulet will be
building better futures
at Western Sydney
University – he’s been
appointed professor
of practice architecture at the university’s
School of Built Environment.
A former NSW government architect
and Greater Sydney central city district
commissioner, he will also be involved in
the inaugural Master of Architecture, Urban
Transformation Program.
“The opportunity to help shape and adapt
one of Australia’s most exciting architecture
programs in Australia’s fastest growing city
does not happen often,” Poulet said.
“I am very pleased to join Western Sydney
University at this exciting time in its history.”
NEW SIGHTS FOR
STARRY EYES
Dr Belinda Nicholson,
an astronomer,
researcher and lecturer
from the University of
Southern Queensland,
will be searching for alien worlds on foreign
land in her new role as a post-doctoral
researcher with the University of Oxford’s
Department of Physics and Exoplanet
research group.
While Nicholson’s expertise is in ‘teenage’
stars, her research focus will shift to the
planets that orbit them.
She will remain in close contact with her
university, however, which she praises for
its “amazing research”, and will stay on as
adjunct researcher, member of the USQ
Astrophysics team and supporting the
MINERVA-Australis observatory.
RECLAIMING
HISTORY
Woppaburra man
Dr Harry Van Issum
will be taking a historic
voyage to the UK under
Griffith University’s
inaugural John Mulvaney Fellowship, which
provides funds to Aboriginal and Torres
Strait Islander humanities researchers to
undertake research or fieldwork at home
or overseas. Van Issum will assist in the
repatriation of Woppaburra skeletal remains
held in London’s Natural History Museum.
A senior lecturer in Indigenous studies in
the School of Humanities, Languages and
Social Science, Van Issum has also been
involved in various Indigenous organisations.
“I’m sure that the late Professor
Mulvaney ... would support such a project
to detail the history of our repatriation
narrative but also for our cultural heritage
and spiritual restoration,” he said.
MILES AHEAD
This year’s Miles
Franklin winner,
Melissa Lucashenko,
is the inaugural
recipient of the
Barry Conyngham
Creative Arts Fellowship at Southern Cross
University. Lucashenko won the prestigious
Franklin prize for her novel Too Much Lip,
and will spend four weeks at the Lismore
campus through the fellowship.
“There’s nowhere I’d rather be at this
tumultuous time in my career than back on
Bundjalung country,” Lucashenko said.
“It will be wonderful to see what the
young people at Southern Cross University
are doing and thinking.”
JOINING THE PACK
Educator and storyteller
Ian Thomson will
be the new head of
Animal Logic Academy,
UTS’s animation and
visualisation school,
which is designed to simulate real-world
production pipelines for students.
Coming from Macleay College, where he
led and designed courses for the Advertising
and Digital Media Faculty, Thomson has had
creative postings in London (Frame Store),
Barcelona (OFramestore), Vienna (DMC),
Hamburg (Premiere), Berlin (Metadesign) and
Sydney (VPB).
“It’s an exciting time and place to be
pushing the boundaries of what animation
and visualisation can achieve in creating
new worlds, experiences, research, careers
and opportunities,” Thomson said.