ON THE MOVE
campusreview.com.au
TDA CHAIR STEPS
DOWN
After more than
11 years leading TAFE
Directors Australia,
chief executive
Martin Riordan will
be stepping down from the organisation’s
helm in March 2017.
TDA chair Mary Faraone said Riordan
had spoken to the board and outlined
his decision to step aside and pursue
further interests.
While leading TDA, Riordan received
a Fulbright Professional Scholarship in
2010, a Prime Minister’s Postgraduate
Asia Scholarship, and was elected to the
board of the World Federation of Colleges
and Polytechnics.
Faraone said the board would begin
the process of recruiting Riordan’s
successor shortly.
JOHNSTON
NAMED UNSW
DEAN OF SCIENCE
STRICTLY SPEAKING | PHUBBING
Award-winning research
leader, scientist and
communicator Emma
Johnston has been
appointed UNSW’s new dean of science.
Johnston is now pro vice-chancellor,
research, at UNSW and will take up her new
role in May 2017.
Johnston is a leading authority in
marine ecology and her research has
been recognised with numerous awards,
including the 2014 Australian Academy of
Science Nancy Millis Medal for Women
in Science, the 2012 NSW Science and
Engineering Award for Excellence in
Biological Sciences, and the Hynes Award
from the Canadian Rivers Institute (2016).
In 2012, Johnston was appointed the
inaugural director of the Sydney Harbour
Research Program at the Sydney Institute of
Marine Science.
UTAS NAMES
NORTHERN
EXPANSION
PROJECT HEAD
The University of
Tasmania has appointed
James McKee director of
its northern expansion project.
The undertaking is scheduled to deliver
new inner-city university campuses in
Launceston and Burnie, and a strengthened
Australian Maritime College at the
university’s existing Newnham location.
McKee arrives in the role from the Office
of the Tasmanian Co-ordinator General,
key partners in the design and delivery of
the expansion. He has previously served
in a range of roles involving agriculture,
water infrastructure development and
community development.
McKee commenced his new role
in November.
CURTIN ACADEMIC
TO CHAIR
NEW UNESCO
POSITION
Curtin University
professor David
Gibson has been
appointed the inaugural United Nations
Educational, Scientific and Cultural
Organisation (UNESCO) chair for data
science in higher-education teaching
and learning.
Gibson, who is the university’s director
of learning futures, Curtin Learning and
Teaching, said he was honoured to accept
the UNESCO position.
“I look forward to the challenge of
improving the access and effectiveness of
education for lifelong learning, globally,”
Gibson said. “With Curtin’s support,
we hope to unearth new knowledge
and ideas in data science that help to
transform higher-education learning
and teaching.”
UTS’S FIRST PVC,
INDIGENOUS
LEADERSHIP
Professor Michael
McDaniel, who has a
history of engagement
within the Indigenous
higher-education sector spanning almost
three decades, has been appointed the
inaugural pro vice-chancellor, Indigenous
leadership and engagement, at UTS.
McDaniel is a professor in Indigenous
education and director of Jumbunna
Indigenous House of Learning at UTS, and
has previously been dean of Indigenous
education and director of Badanami Centre
for Indigenous Education at the University
of Western Sydney, and head of Warawara
Department of Indigenous Studies at
Macquarie University.
McDaniel is a member of the Kalari Clan
of the Wiradjuri Nation of central NSW.
FEDUNI APPOINTS
FIRST EXEC DEAN
OF GRAD STUDIES
Federation University
has appointed
professor Caroline
Finch its inaugural
executive dean of graduate studies.
Since 2013, Finch has held the position
of Robert HT Smith emeritus professor
at FedUni, where she also holds the
position of director at the Australian
Collaboration for Research into Injury
in Sport and its Prevention (ACRISP)
research centre.
This follows a long history of highly
successful senior research management
and leadership experience across several
universities, including Monash University
and the University of New South Wales, as
well as FedUni. She has also held a National
Health and Medical Research Council
principal research fellowship continuously
since 2004.
Creating new words is an unpredictable business. How was Lewis Carroll to know that amongst
the brillig, gimble and uffish of “Jabberwocky”, chortle would gain popular acceptance? Did we
really need a new term for laughing? Advertising agency McCann thought there was a need to
find a way of describing the social phenomenon of ignoring the person in front of you in favour
of your phone. With the help of the Macquarie Dictionary and a panel of word experts, it came
up with phubbing (a ‘portmanteau’, as Carroll would have described it, of phone and snubbing).
Anyone who gets about in (im)polite society would recognise this as a real thing – we see it
every day on trains and in restaurants. But has the word caught on since its emergence in 2012?
Well, yes and no. It’s been defined in dictionary.com, online searches reveal that it’s getting
bandied about from China to India to the UK, and a recent study on the effect of mobile phone
use on relationships, at Baylor University, in Texas, brought phubbing to the media’s attention
again. But its usage has dwindled since the early spike of interest around its invention. Maybe
phub will itself be snubbed.
Written by Dr Adam Smith, convenor of the Editing and Electronic Publishing Program
at Macquarie University.
28