Australian

• One of the headline ideas floated by the Universities Accord interim report is a second national university.
• The basic idea is regional universities could opt in to become part of the new national university.

This is not a new idea

• Australia’s last major review of higher education proposed a national regional university in 2008.
• The Bradley review recommended “a study to examine the feasibility of a new national university for regional areas”.
• The Bradley review suggested a new national university to redress a lack of participation of regional students.

Not (yet) supported by regional unis

So far, the new national university has not attracted much support. The Regional Universities Network includes seven (though not all) of Australia’s regional universities. The network was “encouraged” by several key ideas in the accord panel’s interim report. But any mention of the national regional university idea was conspicuously missing from its media statement in response to the report.

Other university models

• The accord report says there are comparable international models for a national regional university, and points to the University of California system.
• A closer example of a national multi-state university is the Australian Catholic University.
• But it is doubtful whether this would be a good model for a national regional university.
• Even if a regional university were to consider amalgamation, it would be more likely with a near neighbour, not another more distant regional university.

Worrying ‘synergies’

• This is likely to worry university staff and students as “synergies” and “efficiencies” can often lead to cost cutting and job losses.
• There is a risk that a new national regional university will lead to remote, unsuitable, inflexible and unresponsive systems.
• And a “regional” university in north Queensland is substantially different from a “regional” university in western NSW.

TAFEs provide more opportunities

• If we want to improve opportunities for regional students, the accord should consider a bigger role for TAFEs in a national regional university and more generally.
• more opportunities for physical co-location of education and training facilities.
• Indeed, Australia already has six highly distinctive “dual sector” universities, which provide both university and vocational qualifications.

What now?

The interim reports contains more than 70 “areas for further consideration” by the accord panel. Many of these – including the idea for a national regional university – will not necessarily make it into the final report in December. If Australia is to have a new university there needs to be more careful thought about where it should be and what its ultimate structure and purpose should be.

• In Chinese, this war is known as the “resist America, support Korea” war.
• On 27 July 1953, 70 years ago today, hostilities came to an indefinite halt with the signing of an armistice.
• In this bitter, destructive and still unresolved conflict, one of the greatest challenges for both sides was how to deal with the weather.
• Read more:
  North Korean POWs seeking last chance to return home after decades in exile

Mass mobilisation of sewing labour

• These items of clothing were all products of global militarisation in the 20th century.
• The altered appearance of the crowd in any Chinese town after 1949 was one of the most immediate effects of regime change.
• Clothing regulations for employees in the state sector established the Sun Yatsen jacket or its poor relative, the “People’s jacket”, as standard dress.
• For provisioning the armed forces, mass mobilisation of labour was required.
• The huge labour reserves available in China failed to avert a crisis in the supply of winter uniforms in the early months of the war.
• Read more:
  M*A*S*H, 50 years on: the anti-war sitcom was a product of its time, yet its themes are timeless

Unpicking and refluffing

• By August 1951, the US had come up with an airtight, insulated rubber boot, popularly known as the Mickey Mouse boot on account of its large toe.
• It did not eliminate the problem of frostbite but with frequent changes of woollen socks sharply reduced its incidence.
• The Chinese, too, developed something more effective, with a larger toe, providing room for extra padding.
• Padded cloth socks were widely used and sewing socks for soldiers became a common domestic pastime.
• At the end of the war the majority of POWs from the People’s Volunteer Army chose to go to Taiwan.

• Despite these risks, generative AI remains a top emerging technology to invest in due to its breadth of impact and ability to accelerate many other top emerging technologies, including autonomous workplace assistants (AWAs) and conversational AI.
• View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230712104701/en/
  Forrester's top 10 emerging technologies for 2023.
• (Graphic: Business Wire)
  Conversational AI, enabled by generative AI, is the second top emerging technology that will deliver the fastest ROI.
• Learn more about how Forrester arrived at the top 10 emerging technologies for 2023, and register for an upcoming deep-dive webinar on this topic.

• This clandestine loan-savings scheme was a way for low-income Vietnamese refugees to buy their first family car, start a small business or make a home deposit.
• They survive today in rural areas and overseas diaspora communities who have struggled to secure bank loans and legal credit.
• It is interesting that multiple cultures across the Moana-Pacific use the term “Hui” to describe a collective gathering or negotiation.

Vietnamese diaspora

• With this mass intake, fragmented resettlement programs and unreliable social and legal services compounded the realities of post-traumatic stress and poverty.
• The outer suburbs where our families could afford to live – Cabramatta, Footscray, Richmond, and Inala – quickly gained a reputation for gang violence, becoming infamous as the drug-riddled Vietnamese ghettos of the eastern seaboard.

Collective sharing

• Class affiliations meant people could reconnect through well-established social networks to form tightly regulated Hụi clubs wherever we resettled.
• Monthly payments could range anywhere between $200 and $5,000, depending on the risk tolerance and income bracket of each club.
• These collective savings schemes were risky, with no legal recourse if members decided to Dựt Hụi, or “do a runner”.
• Intrinsically collective and self-determined, Hụi encourages unexpected forms of cultural agency and mobilisation beyond institutional permission or containment.

Playing the Đông Sơn Drum

• The Đông Sơn Drum is an ancient ceremonial instrument woven into the mythology and identity of Vietnamese people.
• These drums are held in colonial museums and ethnographic collections the world over.
• We had the quick cash to purchase a Đông Sơn drum when it came up at a local estate auction.