Bulletin

Appointment of Vice-Chancellor
La Trobe University has appointed Professor Brian Stoddart as interim Vice-Chancellor, following a decision by Professor Michael Osborne to bring forward his retirement after 15 years as Vice-Chancellor.

New head of Albury-Wodonga campus
Dr Julie Jackson has been appointed Pro Vice-Chancellor and Director of La Trobe University’s Albury-Wodonga campus.

Milestone in quest for new anti-fungal
La Trobe University researchers have passed a ‘significant milestone’ on the road leading to new anti-fungal drugs – after seven years of solid scientific laboratory effort.

US visitors to La Trobe Chemistry
Two American students recently spent two months in a La Trobe University chemistry laboratory on research into new and more efficient anti-fungal drugs for HIV-AIDS patients.

Beating the drum for social sciences in Australia
The La Trobe University-based journal, Thesis Eleven, has been beating the drum for critical theory for 25 years – and today is one of the leading English language journals in its field.

Memory – an unreliable tool for recalling
Whenever we remember something we seem to have an almost unshakeable view that things occurred exactly as we recall them. This is not so, as many studies over the last 20 years have shown.

Call for new laws against reckless lending
A report by La Trobe University Law students has called on the Victorian government to enact new legislation to deal with abuses in the provision of finance through credit cards.

Mentoring scheme helps new mothers
MOSAIC – a partnership between the La Trobe University Mother and Child Health Research Centre and other organisations to help new mothers and pregnant women in Melbourne’s north west – has been launched by the State Minister for Women’s Affairs, Ms Mary Delahunty.

Screen comedy and our national identity
When you watch comedy on Australian television and in Australian movies, do you see a mirror image of Australia’s national identity?

Bees get to know the face that feeds them
A honeybee can recognise an individual human face provided it has been properly trained.

Space weather storms – How they affect Australia
La Trobe University’s leading role in space weather research – particularly on the effect of space weather storms – received a further lift recently with an ARC Discovery Grant to study energy deposition from solar winds.

Health Care: Good people management means good results
Victorian hospitals focusing on good people management have more cost effective outcomes.

Focus on the future of universities
Universities, challenged by a variety of social forces, are undergoing a deep transformation in both their internal structure and their relationship to the rest of society.

Reinvigorating public social science
Professor Calhoun was awarded an honorary doctorate from La Trobe University for his contribu-tions to the social sciences.

Language death – and the ‘creoloids’ we leave behind
Language death is a major concern for linguists and scholars world-wide. Many, including those at La Trobe University’s Research Centre for Linguistic Typology (RCLT) – one of the key centres for international language conservation – are busily documenting these languages before the last speakers die.

Workplace relations and mental health researcher appointed Professor of Nursing
A leading researcher in mental health nursing and workplace relations in the nursing profession, Dr Gerald Farrell, has been appointed Professor of Nursing and Head of the School of Nursing and Midwifery at La Trobe University.

Honours for Inga Clendinnen
La Trobe University Emeritus Scholar, historian and author, Inga Clendinnen, has been made an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) in this year’s Australia Day Honours List for ‘addressing issues of fundamental concern to Australian society and contributing to shaping public debate on conflicting contemporary issues’.

Appointments to Academy of Social Sciences
Professor John King of the School of Business and Dr Diane Kirkby, a Reader in the History, have been appointed Fellows of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia.

Prize-winning cancer research
Research from three La Trobe University speech pathology students recently swept the board at the Australia and New Zealand Head and Neck Cancer Society meeting in Sydney.

Achievement in business education awards
La Trobe University featured prominently in the latest Business-Higher Education Round Table (B-HERT) awards, taking out three prizes. With collaborators in the Victorian Public Health Training Scheme, La Trobe’s School of Public Health won the Best Education and Training Prize.

Career change to boost trade skills
Metal fabricator and welder, Karen O’Reilly, has spent 15 years helping build frigates and working on other large projects for shipyards and engineering firms.

Award recognises work with women in prison
Second year Bachelor of Legal Studies student, Ms Jiselle Hanna of Thornbury, has won the La Trobe University – Westpac Banking Corporation Award for 2005. The $1,000 prize recognises both sound academic progress and involvement in community service.

Music ‘therapy’ may partly explain its wide appeal: Rebetica, the ‘globalised blues’ of Greece
Ebetica, also known as Piraeus Blues, have become a popular and lucrative element of world music over the last 20 years. Melbourne, as Australia’s most Greek city, boasts several rebetica bands and has long been a centre of scholarship on the genre.