ON THE MOVE
campusreview.com.au
STRICTLY SPEAKING | INFOCALYPSE
ALWAYS SUNNY
He’s exceptionally
good at getting grants
($7.5m), publishing
research papers (100+)
and seeing candidates
achieve higher degrees
(4500 during his time as deputy dean of
UQ’s Graduate School). USC Australia is
lucky indeed to have Professor Stephan Riek
as their new dean of graduate research.
A world-leader in human movement and
motor neuroscience research, Riek’s had
previous roles as co-director of the UQ
Centre for Exercise and Healthy Brain Ageing
and founding director of the Centre for
Sensorimotor Performance.
“A key focus will be on continuing to
grow USC’s Higher Degree Research
program through building partnerships,”
Riek said, “with an emphasis on outstanding
student experience and support for adviser
development.”
A NEW QUEST
Professor Pascale
Quester is making
some significant
life changes. She’s
leaving the University
of Adelaide, where
she’s served as deputy vice-chancellor
and vice-president (academic), to become
the University of Swinburne’s next
vice-chancellor.
“Blessed with a dual-sector foundation
and armed with the capacity and ambition to
create and apply the science and technology
needed to build a better future, I believe
Swinburne can become the prototype of
a modern, industry-embedded and valuecreating
technology university,” she said.
“Notwithstanding current headwinds,
Swinburne is superbly poised for a bright
future, and I am honoured and humbled to
lead the team and all staff through the next
chapter of Swinburne’s evolution.”
This obscure and tongue-challenging word
captures what some regard as the most
destructive threat to 21st century society.
It’s not COVID-19 but the information
apocalypse, with fake news and falsified
facts flooding through social media,
fostering overcredulity in some people and
“reality apathy” in others (Ovadya 2018:
New Perspectives Quarterly). Enormous
amounts of information (useful and valuable)
are circulated globally on the internet, but
cybercriminals operate amid the information
traffic, including terrorists, paedophiles, drug
dealers and organised crime – dubbed the
“Four horsemen of the Infocalypse” back in
1988 (Wikipedia 2020). But current writers
on the Infocalypse find more sinister threats
to honest users of the online media, and
connect more sophisticated cybercrimes
with the four horsemen. They include the
fact that fake social media accounts can be
created for non-existent people; phantom
political grassroots movements can be
generated by AI (artificial intelligence);
chatbots can use personal information from
people’s profiles on Twitter and Facebook
to fake online interactions that purport to
be with friends or significant others; and
individuals’ voices can be synthesised on
video to utter false announcements and
opinions. But could such digital fakery be
as destructive to human society as the four
horsemen of the medieval apocalypse:
disease, famine, war, conquest? Probably!
Written by Emeritus Professor Pam
Peters, researcher with Macquarie
University’s Linguistics Department.
SOUND THE GONG
Christine McLoughlin
is the fourth chancellor
of the University of
Wollongong. Chair of
Suncorp Group Ltd,
Venues NSW and
the Minerva Network, and director of nib
Holdings Ltd, she is a well known and
established business leader in Australia.
“I have every confidence Ms McLoughlin
will continue the work of guiding this great
institution towards an exciting future and so
I am very proud to be handing over the reins
to such a distinguished corporate leader,”
said current the chancellor, Jillian Broadbent.
McLoughlin will succeed Broadbent,
who has held the seat for a decade, and
commence her term later this year.
STAN DELIVERS
Professor Stan
Grant Jnr – eminent
journalist, author and
Wiradjuri person – has
been appointed vicechancellor’s
chair of
Australian-Indigenous Belonging at Charles
Sturt University’s Wagga Wagga campus.
He is current chair of Indigenous affairs at
the university. In his new role, he will engage
students, faculty members and the media to
discuss issues of belonging and identity.
“I want to be provocative and challenging,
as well as, hopefully, enlightening,” he
said. “The world is ... teetering on global
recession, the impact could permanently
change the way we live. All of these issues
are central to Australia’s future and the future
of Indigenous peoples in our country.”
TWEDDELL REDUX
Bill Tweddell has been
re-elected chancellor
by James Cook
University’s governing
body. This will secure
his second term in the
position, having been first elected in 2016,
with his role extended until 2023.
With a former life as an ambassador to
the Philippines and Vietnam, and deputy
high commissioner to the UK – he is the
first JCU alumnus to hold the role.
“JCU provided me with all my tertiary
education, which was the launching pad for
my long career in the diplomatic service,”
Tweddell said.
“I’m honoured to give back to the
institution that gave me so much.”
JOURNO JOINS UA
Peter Lloyd, veteran
journalist and senior
reporter for the ABC,
has joined Universities
Australia as the peak
body’s new director of
strategic communications.
Most recently Lloyd was strategic
communications adviser to the Timor-led
G7+, and a journalist and senior producer
for the ABC’s Lateline.
He was previously the ABC South Asia
bureau chief, compere and reporter with
AM, The World Today and PM.
He is also the author of the book, Inside
Story, which recounts his experiences
with the Singaporean justice system after
being sentenced to 10 months in prison on
drugs charges.
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