ON THE MOVE campusreview. com. au
STRICTLY SPEAKING | BOOZE WORDS
USC CHOOSES NEW CHANCELLOR
Air Chief Marshal Sir Angus Houston AK, AFC( Ret’ d) will become the University of the Sunshine Coast’ s new chancellor on April 1. Houston said he nominated for the role because he was impressed by USC’ s positive culture and performance.
Houston retired as chief of the Australian Defence Force in July 2011 after 41 years of service in the military.
He was awarded the Knight of the Order of Australia in 2015 for extraordinary and pre-eminent achievement and merit in service to Australia, through distinguished service in the Australian Defence Force, and commitment to serve the nation in leadership roles.
CALMA TO STAY ON AT UC
Respected human rights campaigner professor Tom Calma will continue in his role as chancellor of the University of
Canberra for another three years.
Calma, who has held the position since January 2014, was the first Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander man to become chancellor of an Australian university.
The 2013 Australian of the Year finalist has tirelessly campaigned on health, social justice, inclusion and equality issues during a career in tertiary education dating back to 1980.
Calma is an Aboriginal elder of the Kungarakan tribal group and a member of the Iwaidja tribal group. His second term as chancellor began on January 1.
Most English-speaking communities have colloquial words for alcoholic beverages in general. So Australians and New Zealanders share booze, grog and plonk( as well as derivatives such as booze bus, grog shop and plonked) in which the alcoholic allusion is generic. Yet by their origins, such booze words were once more specific. Plonk( from World War I) was based on French( vin) blanc“ white( wine)”, while grog is an allusion to Admiral Edward Vernon( 1684-1757), known as“ Old Grog” by his grogram( grosgrain) cloak, and for the watered-down rum he issued to sailors. His name thus became an early byword for inferior liquor, especially in Australia and New Zealand. The same semantic dilution seems to have happened to North American hooch, originally the name for a frontier whisky made by the Hoochinoo Indians of Alaska, which was sought after by Canadian and American pioneers in the late 19th century. Since then hooch has become American slang for any alcoholic liquor,“ esp. of low quality or illegal provenance”( OED online). Hooch is at home in New Zealand in this general sense, but has yet to become naturalised among the general booze words in Australia. This leaves marketing space for a specialist hoochery in Australia’ s Ord River region to produce an artisan range of rums, which can be marketed to discriminating tourists. Forget the thirsty pioneers desperate for any kind of spirit.
Written by Emeritus Professor Pam Peters, researcher with Macquarie University’ s Centre for Language Sciences.
U OF A HIRES TECH HEAD
The University of Adelaide has appointed a new chief information officer to progress the ongoing transformation of its information technology services and systems.
Bev McQuade will lead the university’ s 250-person Technology Branch, driving the IT strategy to improve the education experience of its students and to support world-class research. She will join the university in the coming months.
McQuade has been the CIO at SA Water for the past eight years where she has developed its IT strategy and driven the modernisation of SA Water’ s IT infrastructure and support functions.
SMART PICK FOR SWINBURNE
Professor Mark Burry has been appointed the new foundation director of Swinburne’ s Smart Cities Research Institute.
Burry joins Swinburne from the Melbourne School of Design, University of Melbourne, where he was professor of urban futures. He is also the executive architect and lead researcher at the Sagrada Familia Basilica in Barcelona, Spain.
“ The Smart Cities Research Institute will focus on the grand urban challenges facing Australia and the world, on reducing congestion, improving economic productivity, reducing our current dependency on fossil fuels and improving human health and mobility,” said Swinburne’ s professor Aleksandar Subic.
CAPR NAMES NEW TEAM LEADER
In August, Professor Emmanuel Kuntsche will lead the team at the Centre for Alcohol Policy Research( CAPR) in Melbourne, a joint initiative of the Foundation for Alcohol Research and Education( FARE) and La Trobe University.
CAPR is a unique research facility with the sole focus of building the evidence base on alcohol issues and exploring policy measures that would prevent alcohol-related harm.
Kuntsche has a background in health and developmental psychology, and quantitative social research. He is currently a senior researcher with Addiction Switzerland and an associate professor at Radboud University Nijmegen in the Netherlands.
ARC APPOINTS ARTS DIRECTOR
Professor Joanne
Tompkins has been named as the Australian Research Council’ s new executive director for humanities and creative arts( HCA).
Tompkins will join the ARC in April from the University of Queensland, where she is currently associate dean( research) in the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences.
Acting ARC chief executive Leanne Harvey said of the appointment:“ Professor Tompkins is a distinguished researcher and university leader … [ whose ] research has assisted the development of cultural spaces for theatres, galleries and museums through 3D visualisation and modelling of theatre spaces.”
28