Leo Milesi in the lead role, flanked by student actors Sophie Petridis, left, and Renee Palmer

La Trobe University’s Student Theatre will represent Australia at the prestigious International Student Drama Festival in the UK in June, part of the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad.

A troupe of ten student thespians led by director, Bob Pavlich, will stage the only authorised production of Kenneth Cook’s iconic Australian novel ‘Wake in Fright’ ever performed overseas.

And they’ll be treading boards in the footsteps of acting and entertainment greats like Ben Elton, Stephen Fry, Rik Mayall, Pete Postlethwaite, and Michael York. 

The La Trobe play, adapted for the stage by Mr Pavlich, was chosen for the festival from about 140 other student productions from around the world.

Britain’s National Student Drama Festival has been a proving ground for many of the country’s top performers for the past fifty years.  This year, says Mr Pavlich, is the first time it has opened its stage to international students, as part of the 2012 Olympic cultural festival.

It bills itself as: ‘See the future stars of theatre and musical in 20 hand-picked productions from around the world.’ Ten of these come from the UK, with the remaining plays from countries including Germany, USA Japan, Israel, Georgia, Iran, Palestine, and Zimbabwe.

The Festival, from 22 to 30 June, will be held in Sheffield – home of The Full Monty and Arctic Monkeys. Vice-Chancellor, Professor John Dewar, has contributed funds towards the students’ airfares.

Congratulating Mr Pavlich, the actors and all those involved on their success, Professor Dewar said their efforts have provided a great opportunity to showcase another aspect of the University’s achievements to the  wider world.

Pre-departure fundraiser

To pay for the cast’s accommodation, there is a special pre-Olympic fundraiser season for local audiences from 6 to 8 June, at the Menzies Theatre on La Trobe’s Melbourne campus, Bundoora.

Mr Pavlich says the La Trobe production is the only authorised stage adaptation of this gothic outback novel with full support from author Kenneth Cook’s estate.

Eager to escape, but trapped: Leo Milesi as John Grant

It was originally performed at the Northcote Town Hall and then at the Festival of Australian Student Theatre in Brisbane last year,  where it received overwhelming support from the festival’s organisers and audiences alike.

Mr Pavlich says ‘Wake in Fright’ is the story of a young city teacher, John Grant, eager to escape his one-room outback school for the summer holidays. He heads home to Sydney, passing through the rough mining town of Bundanyabba – loosely based on Broken Hill where Cook worked as a young journalist.

Hellish limbo

Grant becomes hopelessly stranded, loses all his money gambling and ‘sinks into a cycle of drunkenness, hangovers, fumbling sexual encounters and increasing self-loathing’.

‘Trapped in a hellish limbo, the once ordinary world of rural Australia becomes the setting for his grotesque and at times surreal nightmare,’ says Mr Pavlich.

‘I suspect Cook shared my view of this place that is so isolated in the middle of the desert and perhaps because of this isolation has chosen to separate itself from the rest of Australian society.  It has developed its own particular culture and set of behaviours that are very far removed from the romanticised view of the outback that was often portrayed in books and films of the time.

‘For me this story is about the two Australias that existed then – and perhaps still do; the urban, sophisticated coastal dwellers who look with distaste at what they see as the brutish, inward looking and male dominated society of the interior.’

Cook wrote ‘Wake in Fright’ in 1961. It was and adapted for cinema a decade later. 

(The film has an interesting history. While it starred a number of overseas actors including Donald Pleasence, it was also the screen debut of Australian actor Jack Thompson and the last role for the much-admired Chips Rafferty who died soon afterwards. All prints were then lost until the accidental discovery of a damaged copy in the US, which has since been restored and re-released.)

Performance and analysis

The La Trobe cast: creative experience and specialist knowledge

The cast of the La Trobe production is Leo Milesi as John Grant with Sophie Petridis, Stephen Foster, Kurt Mottershead, Matthew Bolger-Hobson, Jacob Pruden, Renee Palmer, Matt Sharawara and David Wright.

Nearly all are students in the University’s 25-year-old Theatre and Drama Program, one of Australia’s first specialist courses combining practical production and performance with academic analysis.

Theatre and Drama Head, Professor Peta Tait, says the course allows students to develop specialist knowledge combined with creative experience. Forty per cent of its graduates work as writers, actors, directors and hold various other roles in the creative arts industry; many others go on to teaching.

Some well-known theatre and drama graduates are performers Bob Morley, Verity Charlton, Tim Ross and comedienne Corinne Grant.

Award winning playwrights include Robert Reid – whose new work ‘On the Production of Monsters’ is currently being performed by the Melbourne Theatre Company, following his production of The Joy of Text last year –  and Damien Miller . 

Among graduates who have gone on to become successful directors are Julian Meyrick, Laura Sheedy, Lauren Taylor, who is now working in Canada, and Lucy Freeman. 

Fundraiser season from 6 to 8 June, 8 pm, Menzies Theatre, Melbourne Campus.  Tickets: $20 Full/ $12 Con.  To purchase or for more information, contact T: 9479 1198 or E: bob.pavlich@latrobe.edu.au

Learn more about Theatre and Drama at La Trobe

More about the International Student Theatre Festival

Professor Whitelaw: probing how genes behave in different cells and different individuals.

Professor Emma Whitelaw, an internationally renowned molecular geneticist, has been appointed Director of the La Trobe Institute of Molecular Sciences (LIMS).

She will take up her post early next year, coinciding with the opening of the $94 million Institute on La Trobe University’s Melbourne campus.

Professor Whitelaw will also take on the role of Head of Genetics in the School of Molecular Sciences and Director of Research.

Professor Tim Brown, Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Research, said: ‘Professor Whitelaw will play a significant role in enabling La Trobe University to build on its exceptionally strong track record in biological science, as well as its pioneering practice of bringing together many different disciplines to work on big problems, including cancer, malaria and autoimmune diseases.’

Professor Nick Hoogenraad, Executive Director of LIMS, said that Professor Whitelaw, as a leader in the emerging field of epigenetics, would ensure that the Institute expands its research to cover the role of epigenetics in human diseases, especially cancer.

‘LIMS is intended to set the mould for the next generation of science in Australia, and Professor Whitelaw will greatly contribute to this ambition,’ he said.

Implications for obesity, heart disease and  diabetes

Professor Whitelaw has played a significant role in developing the field of epigenetics, focusing particularly on how gene expression is controlled.

Most recently she has concentrated on understanding the complex gene-environment interactions that cause diseases such as obesity, heart disease, diabetes and foetal alcohol syndrome.

The world-class La Trobe Institute for Molecular Sciences nearing completion on the Melbourne campus

This work has been funded by a $4 million National Health and Medical Research Council ‘Australia Fellowship’, the holding of which is a mark of of exceptional distinction. They are designed to attract and retain leading health and medical researchers in Australia.

Currently, Professor Whitelaw is at the Queensland Institute of Medical Research.

She will continue this research at LIMS. Her aim is to develop improved diagnostic tools that estimate disease risk as well as identify new targets for drug discovery, since there is increasing evidence that epigenetic changes that lead to disease development can be reversed by drug treatment.

Professor Whitelaw is a member of the Australian Academy of Sciences.

About the La Trobe Institute of Molecular Sciences

The La Trobe Institute for Molecular Sciences, due to open in early 2013, will be a world-class facility for molecular science, biotechnology and nanotechnology research and research training. La Trobe University received $64.1 million funding from the Federal Government to establish the $94 million La Trobe Institute for Molecular Sciences (LIMS) on its Melbourne campus in the city’s north.

See also: New institute reaches out to the world

Xavier Herbert, right, with Mrs Coverdale’s father,Alan Pride, in 1954

She remembers Xavier Herbert, celebrated author of ‘Poor Fellow My Country’, back in the 1950s visiting her North Queensland home. 

Patsy Coverdale was still a child, but the La Trobe graduate already had a strong interest in the Aboriginal people who lived near her home in Redlynch, Cairns.

Surrounded by rain forest and sugar cane country, she was beginning to learn a few things about their lives and legends. Later she trained as a journalist, worked in London promoting the attractions of Queensland from Australia House, before returning to Australian to raise two children.

In the mid 1980s she enrolled at La Trobe for a Bachelor of Arts degree followed by a decade of irregular visits back to Queensland, documenting the stories she heard during her childhood, and interviewing other people.

Mrs Coverdale in Cairns, 1990

Now, as she approaches her 80s, Mrs Coverdale has published ‘North Queensland in Black and White – A social history with stories, views and archaeology’.  The book was nominated for last year’s National Seniors Australia Phillpotts Literary Prize.

Struggle continues

The book is described as bridging ‘the gap between children’s stories and tertiary studies. It develops source material of a culture now dispersed. We need to document these for Aborigines and for people in general,’ he says.

Mrs Coverdale says the book highlights the Bama people’s struggle with social inequality and the bias of whites, which continues to this day.

It explores relations between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians, examines life on missions, in the rainforest and tells of individual Aboriginal nations, their languages and the consequences of government policy.

Mrs Coverdale says she felt it was important to document her memories of those days for future generations.  Even in a short time, Cairns has changed almost beyond recognition.

‘Many of the people I interviewed have died and cane fields where I lived have gone. It’s all houses and factories, and coalmining on the Cape York Peninsula, which is going to change things still more dramatically.’

North Queensland in Black and White is available from the University Co-op Bookshop or the publisher.

● La Trobe University has more than 145,000 alumni in over a hundred countries – read more here.

Dr Harvey: universities have an important role to play.

Public Health expert and consumer advocate Ken Harvey has won this year’s ‘Choice’ Consumer Champion Award from the Australian Consumers’ Association.

An Adjunct Associate Professor in Public Health, Dr Harvey has been working in the field of medicinal drug policy for most of his career.

In the 1970s, while at Royal Melbourne Hospital, he became concerned about the inappropriate prescribing of antibiotics, launching a life-long interest in ethical promotion of medicines.

Today his advocacy for equitable and affordable access to necessary medicines, ethical promotion, rational use and regulatory reform have made him a well-known public figure, and reflect his deep commitment to consumer rights.

It’s a fraught field in which all stakeholders – industry, health professionals, consumers and government – have different agendas and priorities, says Dr Harvey.  ‘So it’s important to respect and listen to different points of view while still strongly advocating for consumers.’

Championing their ‘Consumer Champion of the Year’, Choice said Dr Harvey ‘really put himself on the line when he went up against weight-loss company SensaSlim last year’.

Risks of public advocacy

‘When he lodged a complaint about their ads with the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA), SensaSlim threatened to sue him unless he retracted his comments. He refused, so they sued (but) he won his case. The product was eventually delisted and the principals prosecuted – a real victory for consumers.’

Consumer advocacy has risks. Dr Harvey says he was subjected to SLAPP (strategic litigation against public participation) writs when he did not withdraw his complaint against SensaSlim.

‘While these were ultimately thrown out of court, they highlight the need for Federal legislation to protect whistle-blowers,’ he says.  They also showed that many people were prepared to help; a legal fighting fund covered all Dr Harvey’s legal costs.

‘It is an honour to receive recognition for consumer advocacy,’ says Dr Harvey. ‘It’s also a tribute to the many friends, colleagues and organisations that have assisted and supported me over many years.’ 

Homeopathy and whooping cough

Dr Harvey was involved in recent public debate about homeopathic vaccines and the rise in whooping cough. It’s an area where only a small drop in national immunity can have devastating health affects, especially on very young children.

He says homeopathic vaccinations are ineffective, potentially dangerous and health authorities have failed to stop these products from being advertised and sold.
 
‘There is no good scientific evidence that homeopathic immunisation works. There are reports in journals of homeopathy, which have been discredited, and there are anecdotal reports by homeopaths, but the plural of anecdote is not evidence,’ says Dr Harvey.
 
‘The promotion and sale of homeopathic vaccines for the whooping cough epidemic again highlights the need for reform of Australia’s TGA – as well as shortcomings in the Government’s new Complaint Resolution Panel’s (CRP) Therapeutic Goods Advertising Code.

‘The CRP or the TGA need timely and easily applied civil penalties, substantial fines and enforceable undertaking to deter non-compliance with the therapeutic code,’ he says.

Violating ethics that seprate prescribing and selling

Should GPs sell vitamin pills?

Writing in the ‘The Conversation’ in April, Dr Harvey highlighted serious ethical questions following reports of financial inducements to GPs to market a range of vitamins, minerals, antioxidants and herbs.

‘Why the controversy?’ he asked. ‘First of all, this offer contained a $675 financial inducement to encourage general practitioners to specifically recommend the products of a particular company.

‘Second, encouraging GPs to “on-sell” products to patients, presumably at a lucrative mark-up, runs the risk of encouraging unnecessary or inappropriate prescribing. It also violates the ethical separation of prescribing from dispensing’.

He is also investigating controversial issues relating to advertising and conflicting consumer advice resulting from a corporate tussle over market share for anti-cholesterol drugs since the first generic version of atorvastatin became available on the PBS in April.

Next generation of advocates

Dr Harvey admits that the line of work he is in can be frustrating.  ‘But you have to keep on keeping on. Bureaucrats change, politicians change, governments change, but the problems remain the same.’

‘I’ll continue to pursue consumer rights – and I’m also focusing on recruiting and training the next generation of health activists.  Consumer rights are continually under threat from those who believe in unrestrained capitalism, big business and small government.

‘We need more young people to work with consumer organisations and universities have an important role to play.’

Dr Harvey was a member of the expert group that drafted the World Health Organization ‘Ethical Criteria for Medicinal Drug Promotion’ and has served as a consumer advocate on many government committees including that dealing with Pharmaceutical Health and Rational use of Medicines. He is Chair of the Governing Council of Health Action International Asia Pacific, a health advocacy organisation set up by Consumers International.

He was on the scientific program committee for the Asia Pacific Conference on National Medicines Policies, held in Sydney in May. Collaborating partners included the National Prescribing Service (the Quality Use of Medicines service agency for Australia’s National Medicines Policy), the Federal Department of Health and Aging and the World Health Organisation.

In 2000 Dr Harvey was elected to the Council of Choice, where he serves as a member of its Policy Advisory Group and now holds a life membership for his ‘services to the consumer movement’.

Choice, described as ‘the people’s watchdog’, is the public face of the Australian Consumers’ Association. A self-funded body, it provides consumers with purchasing advice as a result of independent product testing and, where shonky products require legislative redress, political advocacy.  □

Read more about Dr Harvey, and his articles in  The Conversation, here

About 9,500 level crossings on Australian public roads

A $5.5 million three-year year series of trials using La Trobe University technology which aims to save lives by cutting collisions at railway crossings began on Melbourne’s Frankston line in May.

It involves up to 100 cars, a specially equipped Metro train and two level crossings, all in direct ‘communication’ with each other via a dedicated mobile-phone-style wireless network and integrated Global Positioning System (GPS).

The project is led by Professor Jugdutt (Jack) Singh, Director of the University’s Centre for Technology Infusion. He says it is the largest-known rail crossing safety study of its kind in the world.

The Melbourne trial, which runs till end of June, will assess the effectiveness of the technology and the reaction of drivers using it. The aim is to have the system in new cars as early as 2014. It can also be retrofitted to existing cars.

Initially carried out at night, the trial was supervised by Dr Aniruddha Desai, Senior Research Fellow from the La Trobe Centre for Technology Infusion with an operations crew of about 28 people, including ten Centre staff.

In-car trial prototype: final warning

Major road safety innovation

Complex trial management logistics included gaining approval from local councils, Vicroads, police and a scientific licence to operate a special wireless frequency.

Already hailed in some quarters as possibly the next major road safety innovation after seat belts, airbags and ABS brakes, the system has the added potential of creating export markets for Australian technology.

There are about 9,500 level crossings on Australian public roads. About 2,000 are in Victoria. Only a third have flashing lights or boom barriers.

Professor Singh: largest rail crossing safety study of its kind

Professor Singh says with more than 600 rail and vehicle crashes at level crossings in Australia during the last decade, the technology could prevent and hopefully eliminate collisions and save many lives.

The system was developed by the La Trobe Centre for Technology Infusion, in partnership with the Australian Automotive Co-operative Research Centre, the Victorian Department of Transport and other partners.

Professor Singh says it will trial different messages for drivers: for example, ‘A train is coming, slow down’ and ‘A collision is about to happen’ – with ‘all bells and whistles blaring, to see how drivers react’.

The trial will assess not only the technology, but also the reaction of drivers who have to make a ‘staggering number of decisions, often in split seconds’.

Watch ‘Saving lives at rail crossings’

Learn more about La Trobe award-winning ‘intelligent transport systems’ – and ‘green energy management’ research
 

La Trobe’s co-gen plant: twice as carbon efficient as brown coal power generation.

La Trobe University has calculated it is about quarter of a million dollars better off under the new carbon tax regime because it produces energy for its Melbourne campus from its own gas-fired cogeneration plant.

‘More importantly, our carbon emissions would be much higher if we were to rely on brown coal generators that supply most of the rest of Victoria,’ says Pro Vice-Chancellor (Sustainability) Professor Carol Adams.

‘So the Carbon Pricing Mechanism highlights our efforts in acting responsibly and looking after the interests of today’s students and those of future generations.’

La Trobe University’s co-generation plant produces electricity along with hot water and heating from the one natural gas energy source.

The plant has operated for nearly two decades and is twice as carbon efficient as brown coal power generation. With some 25,000 staff and students on the Melbourne campus, it serves a population the size of a small city.

‘La Trobe is the only university on the carbon tax list because we produce so much of our own energy, sometimes even selling it back into the State grid. But it’s much cleaner and less polluting energy than that produced by other fossil fuels,’ says Professor Adams.

Continuous monitoring

Professor Adams: international reporting standards

La Trobe continually monitors its sustainability performance, a process which involves contributions from more than 100 people from all areas of the University.

‘‘We publish this data annually and are one of the few universities in the world to prepare such a thorough report,’ she says. ‘Our report is verified by external assurers and uses the Global Reporting Initiative at A+ application level.’

The report outlines La Trobe’s environmental, social and economic impact as well as the work it is doing through education, research and community engagement.

Room for improvement

‘While we have plans in place to achieve long-term targets, our performance in energy and water consumption, as well as emissions resulting from staff business travel, leave room for improvement.’

To help achieve its energy use target by 2020, La Trobe is participating in Victoria’s ‘Greener Government Building Program.

Control panel of the La Trobe cogeneration plant

Read more about the full range of sustainability activity at La Trobe.

The latest annual report, ‘Creating Futures’ is available here.

La Trobe’s previous report, ‘Responsible Futures’ won the ‘Best First Time’ sustainability report award from ‘corporateregister.com global’, the world’s largest directory of non-financial reports  comprising almost 40,000 reports from 160 countries.

‘I don’t want to work with struggling farmers.’ That comment came from a Year 12 student confronted with the choice of a career in agriculture.

In the past decade, the number of university campuses with agricultural courses in Australia has been slashed by more than half – from 23 to nine. 

There are now about 300 students doing agricultural degrees to meet the nation’s annual workforce demand for more than 4,000 positions.

That’s the grim news La Trobe University agricultural experts delivered to  a Senate Committee in Melbourne today which is examining Australia’s ailing agricultural education system.

While it won’t surprise many on the land, the submission is an eye-opener for people in cities.
 
‘It’s an issue of great importance for all Australians,’ says Head of Agricultural Sciences, Professor Terry Spithill. ‘We need to feed a growing population in Australia and worldwide, and maintain a thriving agricultural export industry to create wealth beyond the mining boom.’

La Trobe University’s Department of Agricultural Sciences was invited to make a submission to the Senate committee. The submission recommends that a high-powered taskforce be established by government and private stakeholders to promote agriculture careers in urban and regional areas.

‘Most of our year 10-12 students live in cities and have very limited experience of rural life,’ says Professor Spithill. ‘The agricultural sector has failed to promote itself. It needs to get the message out about the many excellent job opportunities that exist, so that students can make informed career choices.’

A key problem for Australia, he says, is the increasing shortage of trained agronomists for broad-acre cropping and for horticulture.

Excellent job prospects

Professor Spithill: more options for university students

For example, there were recently more than 30 vacancies for crop agronomists for cropping and horticulture in north-west Victoria, yet not one person applied, despite rising salaries and employment conditions for such appointments.

Starting salaries for such jobs, says Professor Spithill, range from $40,000 to $55,000 plus superannuation, and these salaries accelerate with experience.

Public perceptions of the agricultural industry – images of hardship and bank foreclosures on farms, climate impacts and market collapses for key commodities – convey the misleading picture of a struggling, unattractive sector in the minds of students and parents, says the submission. In fact, job prospects in the sector are tremendous, says Professor Spithill.

The submission also calls for an industry-established national ‘Agriculture Tertiary Education Council’ (ATEC) to help educate professionals and support education and career initiatives in plant, animal and soil sciences, as well as agricultural biotechnology and agribusiness.

Scholarship support

Professor Spithill says governments, industry and the proposed ATEC will need to collaborate and offer many more agricultural career scholarships and cadetships, HECS support to undergraduate students as well as targeted PhD scholarships.

‘These will be more effective if they are part of a larger initiative to promote agricultural education to students and parents.’

The submission proposes a series of ‘Rising Star Future Fellowships’ and an annual award to celebrate agricultural science ‘Heroes’, maybe along the lines of the popular science Eureka Awards.

The La Trobe submission also highlights the tight funding to Australian universities over the past two decades which has put the squeeze on Agriculture Departments.

‘Good agricultural education needs resources,’ says Professor Spithill. ‘Subjects are expensive to deliver, requiring farm visits, field trips and laboratory classes.  At La Trobe, for example, we also run an on-campus farm reserve.’

New $288m AgriBio Centre

The new Agribio Research Centre

La Trobe also has made a substantial investment in Victoria’s new $288 million state-of-the-art AgriBio Research Centre on its Melbourne campus at Bundoora.

The Centre co-locates a critical mass of 350 scientists from the Department of Primary Industries with La Trobe staff to support research in Australian crop and animal production and carry out work on national agribio-security.

Apart from public perceptions of the agricultural industry and the funding issues, Professor Spithill says declining enrolments can also be partly attributed to the unified national higher education system.

‘This has created more options for students choosing to take a tertiary degree, suggesting we need to raise the profile of Agriculture degrees in a crowded marketplace.’

The submission to the Senate Inquiry into Higher Education and Skills Training to Support Future Demand in Agriculture and Agribusiness in Australia was prepared by Professor Spithill, Associate Professor Peter Sale, Professor Caixian Tang, and Associate Professor John Webb.

● La Trobe University has a range of initiatives to boost graduate numbers for the agricultural industry. They include full-time first year studies in Agricultural Science at the Albury-Wodonga campus, pathways into degrees for TAFE students, Agriculture majors within other science degrees, and a Postgraduate Diploma in Agricultural Science for science graduates interested in a career in the sector.

Professor Allen, right, with fellow archaeologist,
now Dean of Humanities and Social Sciences,
Professor Tim Murray.

La Trobe University Emeritus Professor of Archaeology, Jim Allen, has joined an elite group of Australian scholars elected Foreign Associates of the US National Academy of Sciences.
 
Professor Allen – a specialist in the archaeology of the South Pacific – was Foundation Professor of the Department of Archaeology from 1985 to 1993, after which he continued as an Australian Research Council Professorial Fellow and Research Associate at La Trobe.

Congratulating Professor Allen, Vice-Chancellor John Dewar said the appointment was an extremely rare honour.

‘La Trobe archaeology today is home to some of Australia’s leading scholars, thanks to Jim Allan’s contribution which helped build an enthusiastic department with a strong reputation for its work in many parts of the world, from deep prehistory to modern times,’ Professor Dewar said.

Foreign Associates of the US National Academy of Sciences are elected for their distinguished and continuing achievements in original research.

Exclusive group of twenty

Only twenty Australians have been made Foreign Associates of the Academy, most from the University of Melbourne, ANU and CSIRO.

They include biologist and La Trobe University Chancellor Adrienne E Clarke AC, immunologist Sir Gustav Nossal, Nobel-Prize winner Professor Peter Doherty  and former Australian Chief Scientist, Dr Jim Peacock.

During his long archaeological career Professor Allen was most famously associated with two major research projects: the Lapita Homeland Project in Melanesia, which studied the expansion of Polynesian settlement, and the Southern Forests Archaeological Project in Tasmania.

In the 1990s he also played a prominent role in debate over the forced repatriation of Aboriginal remains.

La Trobe University conducts an annual public lecture series in his honour – The Allen Lecture – which brings archaeological scholars of significant international reputation to Australia to enrich teaching and research. □

La Trobe student Callum Muirhead,centre, who has been offered a job with Melbourne Heart, flanked by Heart’s new coach John Aloisi, left, and  player Kristian Sarkies.

With expanded programs in sports education, research and sponsorship, La Trobe University has its sights on becoming one of Australia’s leading sport universities.
 
‘It’s an aim not in anyway incompatible with our focus on boosting La Trobe’s ranking as a world-class research institution,’ says Vice-Chancellor, John Dewar, ‘or with our objective of widening access and community engagement, especially in regional Victoria.’

If anything, it’s a perfect fit, says Professor Dewar. La Trobe courses include highly popular undergraduate degrees in sport journalism, physiotherapy, physical education, and sport management. A wide range of research is carried out at its Centre for Sport and Social Impact (CSSI).

The University also sponsors and serves as home-base for the Melbourne Heart football team as well as regional sporting bodies such as Bendigo Spirit women’s basketball.  And it has recently appointed football legend and former Collingwood coach Mick Malthouse as its first Vice-Chancellor’s Fellow.

Mr Malthouse works closely with a group of La Trobe sport enthusiasts, including CSSI director Russell Hoye, head of sport journalism David Lowden, Melbourne Heart Commercial operations chief Brad Rowse, and University engagement manager Lisa Hasker.

He says sport is a great way to engage young people and get them to think about higher education. He knows this through personal and professional experience, and from talking to school students in his new role. 

Building stronger communities

Mick Malthouse: new role, characteristic pose

‘As a young bloke I was too daunted by the idea of ever visiting a university. That still applies to many young people today, especially those from more disadvantaged areas,’ he says. 

Apart from opening new eyes to wider educational horizons, universities with a genuine commitment to sport, good facilities and a sporting culture also attract to top students.

Sport, says Professor Hoye, helps higher education institutions build a profile with the key 15 to 18 year old age group. Learning and playing sport also leads to healthier lives, stronger communities – and encourages students from lower SES groups to access university through sporting prowess, creating a better educated, more successful nation.

Universities focused on sport, he adds, are a great asset to local communities.  ‘Providing opportunities for participation in sport has substantial benefits for residents in the north of Melbourne around our main campus, and in key regional centres like Bendigo and Albury-Wodonga.’

Building on existing resources and expertise, and with the right vision and commitment, La Trobe can be a leading university of choice for study, participation and partnering in sport, he says.

Way of the future

Lapping it up: facilities and open space

Professor Hoye and Melbourne Heart’s Brad Rowse agree greater interaction between universities and major sporting bodies is the way of the future.

For example, in America and other countries, says Professor Hoye, sport partnerships are not uncommon. With increasing population density and demand for city real estate, sporting teams are locating on campuses where there are open spaces, training facilities and ancillary services.

Mr Rowse, who has also worked for the AFL’s inner-city Melbourne Football Club, says locating Melbourne Heart at La Trobe has been a great move.

‘Our players have easy access to playing fields, gym and a swimming pool. Coaches, administrators and players interact with each other in one location which helps build club unity,’ says Mr Rowse. ‘And La Trobe benefits by being able to use our players as “guinea pigs” for research and for promotional opportunities with our fan base.’  

‘Real’ experience for sport journalism

David Lowden says having teams like Melbourne Heart on the Melbourne campus offers his sport journalism students real-life experiences as part of their education. 

‘They can more easily interview players and report on matches, much as they would  working for media organisations, and gain experience in corporate journalism by helping out with such things as writing profiles and news for club web sites.’

All girls’ football clinic on campus

Engagement manager Lisa Hasker says the group is working within the University, strengthening links and developing plans between academic and administrative areas with interests in sport.

‘We are also seeking external support to upgrade our community facilities, in line with State government objectives to invest in elite and community sport.’

As well as Melbourne Heart, La Trobe is a centre for the Australian Baseball League with its diamond and grandstand on the Melbourne campus, hosting games that have included the Claxton Field Grand Final.

Bendigo campus sport sponsorships, as well as the Spirit women’s basket ball team, include Bendigo Pioneers footballers. The campus is also home to the Bendigo Bank Academy of Sport which offers support to the young elite athletes in the Bendigo area.

More sports news and research

African football: La Trobe’s Centre for Sport and Social Impact, in partnership with Football Federation Victoria, is helping African community soccer clubs with club development training carried out under a program called ‘United through Football’. Run in conjunction with VicHealth, it assists forty community clubs comprising more than 3,000 new arrivals, mainly from Sudan, Ethiopia and Somalia.  Read more    

Go global: Research into sports management education in Australia and the UK has found that the curriculum needs a greater international focus to boost career opportunities for students in a global sport industry estimated to be worth more than $400 billion. Read more 

Warm up: A La Trobe study has found that low load gluteal muscle exercises enhances strength and power in the lower body.  Although researchers compared three warm-up methods on AFL players. their results showed that such exercises are a great way to enhance athletic performance at any level. Read more

Dr Strugnell inspects a Megaleledone Octopus

Ground-breaking research by geneticist Dr Jan Strugnell has helped explain the origin and global distribution of deep-sea marine life, providing critical insights into climate change.

Her work was highlighted at a celebration of 100 years of Australian Antarctic science when she delivered a keynote address on marine biodiversity in the Southern Ocean.

About 250 local and international experts met in Canberra in May to discuss the state of Antarctic science since Sir Douglas Mawson led Australasia’s first Antarctic Expedition in 1911-1914. 

Dr Strugnell is also lead author of a new international study that reveals how the genes of a fairly sedentary Antarctic octopus provide a clue to the risk of sea-level rise if world temperatures keep climbing.

Published in the journal ‘Molecular Ecology’ and reported on Britain’s Natural Environment Research Council ‘Planet Earth’ website, the study found that the genetic make up of Turquet’s octopus was startlingly similar in both the Weddell and Ross Seas.

As these two bodies of water are some 10,000 kilometres apart, on opposite sides of Antarctica separated by the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, researchers think such strong genetic similarity is only possible if there had been a previous collapse of the ice sheet, maybe as recently as 200,000 years ago.

This suggests that scientists’ concerns about the state of today’s ice sheet could well be justified. Planet Earth says while a previous study, in 2010, provided the first evidence of a trans-Antarctic seaway connecting the Ross and Weddell Seas, the findings by Dr Strugnell’s team are the first genetic evidence of such a connection.

‘Ocean currents both facilitate and hinder the flow of genes,’ says Dr Strugnell. ‘But the Antarctic Circumpolar Current almost certainly wouldn’t have facilitated so much dispersal by octopuses that two populations would have almost identical genetics if the ice sheet had been in place.’

Off to work on the British research vessel James Ross

Ten year census of marine life

A former Rhodes Scholar, Dr Strugnell made world headlines with the results of her research into the evolution of deep-sea octopuses. She says modern molecular studies have revealed that the Southern Ocean is teeming with a huge diversity of previously unknown marine life.

Her study was part of the first Census of Marine Life, a ten year project involving more than 2,000 scientists from 82 nations. She was lead scientist of a team that studied marine life from ocean floors that had never been sampled before. 

In addition, genetic material from marine life from the project was brought together and made available to Dr Strugnell for DNA studies, who was then working at Queen’s University Belfast.

The work revealed that all octopuses found in deep oceans world-wide originated in the waters around the South Pole about 33 million years ago. They spread into other oceans around 15 million years ago, as the Antarctic cooled and eventually froze over.

Climate change at ocean’s depth

As a result, there was an outflow from Antarctica of cold, nutrient-rich water with high levels of salt and oxygen, creating a north-bound freeway along which octopuses travelled to their new habitats.

Striped pyjama squid

‘We think that if octopuses colonised the deep sea by this route, it’s very likely that other organisms did so as well,’ says Dr Strugnell.

She says her research also demonstrates that climate change can have profound effects on biodiversity, with impacts extending into habitats as remote as our deep oceans.

Originally from Swan Hill in Victoria, Dr Strugnell’s doctoral study at Oxford was the first to use molecular and fossil evidence to estimate dates of divergence for octopus, squids and cuttlefish.

Impacts on abalone industry

Since joining La Trobe’s Department of Genetics in 2010, she is also investigating the molecular basis of stress and disease in abalone, shellfish whose export is worth more than $200 million annually to the Australian economy.

Dr Strugnell says mass mortality disease of farmed abalone during the summer, related to high water temperatures, is likely to increase with predicted global warming. Her ARC funded research aims to develop an early warning test for stress and stress resilience for the abalone industry.

She is also continuing her studies into population and molecular evolution of Antarctic and deep-sea marine animals in the context of past climatic and geological change.

From deep sea to high heaven

Polar studies of space weather

La Trobe University research in Antarctica goes back to the 1960s.

Over the years University programs in radio, magnetic and optical remote sensing have attracted students keen to combine research with winter on the frozen continent.

The University has built and operates two pieces of scientific equipment in Antarctica, one at Mawson and one at Davis. Called Fabry Perot Spectrometers, these measure wind and temperature in the thermosphere.

La Trobe scientists have also designed and installed a key radar research facility TIGER – the Tasman International Geospace Environment Radar – which straddles Australia, Antarctica and New Zealand. 

The University operates TIGER on behalf of a consortium that includes the Australian Antarctic Division and other universities. Part of the international SuperDARN (Dual Auroral Radar Network) this project monitors the aurora. 

Other biological sciences’ studies have included research into the recovery of fur seals on Macquarie Island.