This is the conference where office bearers for the year ahead are elected, and delegates set the policy and campaigns for the year ahead, at least theoretically.

It also has more than its fair share of dealing and politicking.

I'll be giving some updates on the proceedings of the conference here (in all likelihood it'll be a record of policies passed, OBs elected and any other interesting morsels that come up.

I'll do my best to do at least a daily update from Monday-Friday next week, but no promises, it's a pretty intense week.

Stay tuned for an outline of the policies that have been proposed for discussion at the conference.

This post updates.

Pockets are surely the greatest innovation in clothing design since humans first thought to cover their loins with cloth. Like miniature backpacks for your pants, not a day goes by that I don't praise pockets for their uncanny ability to be reliable, accessible and discreet.

Got some loose change after buying a coffee? Put it in your pocket! Need to carry exactly one pen with you? Use your pocket, my friend. Unnerved by the idea of carrying your credit card around in your hands all day? POCKETS!

Keep it up, pockets.

Originally published in On Dit issue 80.3

Squares call it ‘Raspberry Soft Drink’, but to everyone in the know it’s simply Fizzy Red (or is that just me?). Perfect for when you want a drink of something deliciously bubbly, but don’t want to deal with the guilt of drinking Coca Cola. The sugar, the artificial flavours, the Columbian slaves! Yes, we all know those problems apply equally to this particular drink, including the slaves, but at least you can pretend to not know any better.

It’s fruity (sorta)! It’s colourful (in a radioactive kinda way)! It’s Fizzy Red!

Originally published in On Dit issue 80.2

In case you haven’t heard, there is a new kid on the education block. The SACE as we know it has been retired and now exists only in certificates gathering dust at the bottom of drawers and Australian Studies related night terrors. There is a now a new SACE, an arguably sexier SACE. Imaginatively, it is called the SACE.

If you ever want to feel old, seek out a current high school student and start to tell them about HESS Restricted subjects. When you get a blank face back, resist the urge to break into tears and tell them about the good old days. Change is good, right? Let’s find out.

The SACE reform process has been a long time coming. The groundwork was laid in 2006, with the release of the Ministerial Review of the SACE, titled ‘Success For All’.

Associate Professor Sivakumar Alagumalai is a Lecturer in the School of Education, and is also a member of the SACE Board (formerly known as SSABSA). He explains “One of the things they wanted was success for all. Students learn differently and students may have particular interest in a field that they want to explore compared to the traditional domain.”

Part of this philosophy was the recognition that preparing students for tertiary student is not the only measure of a successful secondary education. Students need to be empowered to take control of their own learning, no matter whether they go on to further education or directly into the workforce.

What’s new pussycat?
First up, Australian Studies has been scrapped as a compulsory course. I’m yet to meet anyone that is mourning this. If your Australian Studies class was anything like mine in Year 11, it consisted of a whole lot of doing not much, interspersed with some time playing cards.

Replacing it is a compulsory course called the Personal Learning Plan. This is designed to be taken in Year 10, and helps students to plan out future education goals, and decide how they are going to get there. Among other things, it looks at subject choices in Year 11 and 12, and potential career pathways.

One of the components of the Personal Learning Plan is some work experience, which A/Prof Alagumalai says, “Is adding amazing value… the response has been great with the whole engagement with the community”

Stage 2 of the SACE is where the largest changes are, however. You now only have to take four subjects to qualify for a tertiary admissions ranking, but you also undertake a research project. There is also no more mention of Group 1 or 2 courses, and nothing about HESS General or Restricted courses.

The research project is about providing flexibility for students to study something that particularly interests them. This could be a practical project, or something more grounded in academia. “Say if someone is interested in music making, they can develop something about acoustics and so on,” suggests Alagumalai.

The Suicide… Four?
The government has actively been trying to increase school retention, especially the number of students completing Year 12. Given that many of the restrictions on subject selection no longer exist, and you only need to complete four courses to qualify for university, it is easy to argue that the standards have simply been lowered to meet these targets.

But is this actually true? A/Prof Alagumalai disagrees that the SACE is any easier now than it used to be. Instead, he argues that it is a different curriculum altogether, and the debate comes down to differences in the underlying philosophy of education. The philosophy driving the new SACE is that everyone who gets an education should enjoy their learning journey, and feel empowered to learn. This is what the 'Success For All' report was all about.

On the broad scale of potential research projects, he says, “You could argue that people can do anything they want, so it’s not as rigorous as pure maths and science… but they have had a lot of assessment measures put into place. It is very rigorous, and there are particular standards just like in those traditional subjects.”

Besides, quantifying the standard of a high school certificate is a difficult task in itself. “How would you measure quality? How would you know a curriculum has dumbed you down?”

Implications
The new SACE will also affect further education providers, such as the University of Adelaide. Now that you only need to study four subjects in depth, it could make it harder for students to meet prerequisites for programs like engineering and specialised science programs. Also, SACE graduates are likely to enter university with a narrower knowledge base. This is something that the bigwigs in Mitchell Building are monitoring closely.

It has already been observed that enrolment in some Year 12 Humanities and Social Sciences courses has dropped, particularly Geography which has fallen to just over a third of its 2010 enrolment. There has also been a drop in some courses that specifically prepare students for tertiary study, such as Specialist Maths.

Whether or not these changes affect the makeup of enrolments at the University of Adelaide is something that will be analysed in great depth in the next few years. Prerequisites and first year courses may need to be changed, maybe even entire program structures.

While the new SACE may produce graduates that are less prepared for specialised university programs, it is hard to argue with the philosophy that everyone should be given the chance to enjoy their education, and get something useful out of it. Not everyone wants or needs to go to university, and shouldn’t our education system be designed to prepare people for whatever they choose to do with their lives?

Originally published in On Dit issue 79.11

When it comes to cigarettes, the jury is most definitely in. They are not good for you. They might even kill you. We’ve known this for a while, and governments around the world have taken up the fight to eliminate the scourge of tobacco on our society. We can’t just ban cigarettes, because we’d end up with a prohibition style black market rising up (although the idea of people roaming the street dressed as gangsters is appealing, organised crime is not so much). It’s going to take considerably more cunning.

Most smokers start young, in their teenage years. Indeed, tobacco companies find it most productive to market their cigarettes to teenagers, because if they can get them smoking their brand from the outset, chances are they’ll continue with that brand for a long time to come. In a way, young people are the lifeblood of big tobacco. If the government can convince youth to not take up smoking, they would effectively decapitate this lifeblood, and stand a good chance of knocking out the big tobacco monster once and for all. Hence, one of the key goals has been to reduce the number of youth that take up smoking.

One of the keys to doing this is to understand why it is that young people choose to smoke. We are long past the ‘more-doctors-smoke-camels-than-any-other-cigarette’ days. While those that took up smoking in that era were unaware of the health consequences, the same can’t be said about the ‘every-cigarette-is-doing-you-damage’ generation. It seems fair to assume that young people are aware of the dangers of smoking before they take it up. So why would someone start a tobacco habit, and are they concerned about the consequences?

Mechanical Larynx of the People
Well, how better to answer that than with a straw poll with an extremely small sample size? Adam is relatively new to smoking, and says that he “Tried it, enjoyed it, continued it; pretty simple really.” Michael is an unashamed smoker with different reasons for his habit. For him, it is predominantly a social activity. “I get a tremendous amount of satisfaction out of having a drink and a cigarette, it kills boredom as well (for example, waiting for the bus), and it can be relaxing. And, you know, the addiction.” So it seems that enjoyment is one of the bigger motivators behind smokers. Hardly surprising, when you think about it.

But what about the health risks, why isn’t the danger of disease enough to stop them? Our highly unscientific survey gives a general feeling of fearlessness, which I suspect a large number to hold. Adam elaborates:

The risk is always in the back of my mind… however it isn’t enough to stop me from smoking for a few reasons: I don't smoke heavily, I haven't been smoking too long and I'm still quite young (i.e. regenerating cells rapidly enough); mostly though, it's because I don't really care - chalk it up to a short time-horizon, or a lack of negative experiences, but my present enjoyment outweighs any potential future consequences (which I have, perhaps somewhat naively, assessed as rather unlikely).

He points out that even though he is a smoker, that doesn’t necessarily have to be the end of him. “I could be the healthiest person in the world and get hit by a bus tomorrow, so why go through life denying yourself the simple pleasures?” Michael expresses a similar sentiment:

Of course the health risks are a worry and it is prevalent in my mind. But at my age of 22, I find that because the fear is, seemingly, not imminent, it simply does not outweigh the satisfaction I get from smoking. The fact that I am aware of this sounds an alarm in my brain; it’s just not loud enough yet for me to give much attention and concern.

So even though current smokers are aware of the danger to their health, whereas those of several decades ago were not, it does not scare them. It appears that many smokers have got a big case of ‘It’ll-never-happen-to-me’ Syndrome. Reasons for smoking don’t appear to have changed all that drastically. What else can be done to make cigarettes undesirable?

A history of tobacco control
In Australia, we’ve somewhat pioneered the movement against tobacco. Almost all forms of tobacco advertising were outlawed in 1992, including sponsorship of sporting events. There are restrictions on the type of displays permitted at the point of sale, and on top of this, currently around 70 per cent of the packaging on cigarettes is covered by images and text that are sort of gross. We have anti-smoking legislation covering various public spaces, and the government hiked the tax on cigarette sales last year by 25 per cent. Closer to home, the University of Adelaide has also instituted a smoke-free campus decree, however unenforceable that is.

These days, virtually the only way that the tobacco companies have to market their product is through the packaging on the cartons themselves. Now don’t be mistaken, there are still plenty of ways to influence a customers decision based on the packaging. For example, in one study, men and women rated the experience of smoking identical cigarettes differently, depending on the brand name they were given. When assigned the brand name ‘April’, women tended to rate the cigarette higher than men, and when given the decidedly more masculine name ‘Frontiersman’, men rated it more positively. Colours and designs can also affect the perceived strength of a cigarette. Indeed, there have been studies showing that packaging is just as important as peer influence when choosing a brand.

Plain Jane Cigarette Co.
However, the days of manipulating your cigarette buying habits may be nearing their end. The federal government recently announced plans to introduce what’s been called ‘plain cigarette packaging’. Under this proposed legislation, all cigarettes will be sold in plain olive green packaging, with no logos. The brand name will be printed in white text, in a specific font, legible from one metre away. Most of the rest of the carton will be covered in health warnings and pictures. Essentially, all packets of cigarettes will look both identical and hideous. Naturally, the tobacco companies are less than gleeful.

The goal of all this is to meet the government target and bring smoking rates to below 10 per cent by 2018, from 16.6 per cent in 2007. But will it work? A study published by The Cancer Council Victoria in 2008 investigated this question through the use of an online survey, in which participants were shown cigarette packets with varying degrees of plain packaging. This study suggested that progressively generic cigarette packets were perceived increasingly negatively, as you might expect.

Our extremely unscientific study also gives an indication as to the likely success of the move to plain cigarette packaging. Adam says that “Plain packaging would have absolutely NO effect” on his habit. Michael also doubts the effectiveness of the initiative. “I think this initiative is proof that the government does not really understand what makes people smoke … the government can make whatever rules they like, because who’s going to stick up for the rights of smokers? Of course no one is; it’s almost taboo now.” He says, in a conclusion pithier than I could ever give, that schemes like this “just create hurdles for smokers to walk around, rather than making them jump.”

Originally published in On Dit issue 79.5

It’s safe to say that the University of Adelaide is permanently in a state of construction. In recent living memory we’ve seen work on Nexus 10, Innova21, the School of Animal and Veterinary Sciences, and now we’ve got Illumin8 and the Learning Hub to deal with. To discuss all of these in detail in one article would probably take up an entire issue of On Dit, and who am I to take away your Targedoku? (hint: the nine letter word isn’t fishstick). So let’s just focus on the biggest project on campus, The Learning Hub.

Rewind to October 19, 2009. 3:26pm, precisely, which is when the email announcing the $41.2 million project was sent to all students at the university. In the words of Vice Chancellor James McWha himself:

The learning hub will be a multi-level, all-weather space where students can meet and undertake group study in flexible lounge areas, use free computer and other audio-visual facilities and access a broader range of student services, while enjoying a coffee and diverse, affordable fresh food and beverages.

Basically, the university realised that there was a desperate shortage of non-student space on campus (for example, space to study, eat, and socialise), and that students were drifting off-campus whenever they didn’t have a class. This has the potential to make for a pretty lifeless campus.

We were promised that our on-campus experience would be ‘transformed’, and this would be informed by comprehensive consultation with students. A Student Reference Group (SRG) was established early in the process. I have been one of the members of this group since its formation.

Let’s be clear here, the level of student engagement on this project is unprecedented at the University of Adelaide. According to Paul Duldig, Vice-President of Services and Resources, over 8,000 hours worth of student input has gone into the project. “Nobody has been anywhere near as driven in terms of student feedback as what we’ve been, it’s really a first in the university sector,” he says, maintaining that student feedback has been the ultimate driver behind the development of the project.

The SRG met regularly over the course of last year (and continues to meet), initially discussing issues like the scope and priorities of the project. Later in the process, talk turned to more concrete questions, like services to be delivered in the Hub, design themes, and the design of hoardings to be constructed around the site (seriously, we spent like an hour once debating buzzwords like ‘connect’, ‘share’ and ‘engage’). Some of these discussions were productive, while others seemed like the university testing out marketing strategies.

The opinion of the SRG (and the bajillion other reference groups working on the project) was then fed into various other committees higher up, and eventually we’d get the final say from the higher ups.

But is the level of student engagement as remarkable as the university likes to say? The ‘co-creation’ process used to design the hub (university speak for, staff and students working together) certainly informed the overall design, but one can’t help feel that the university already had a grand vision in place before the project even started. The agenda for the SRG was always set by the university.

Much of the time, it felt like the SRG was just tinkering around the edges. This became especially evident toward the end of last year, when big decisions were being made about the level of service provision in the hub. Through various focus group sessions, my feeling was that a decision had already been made.

So here’s what we’re looking at, from an academic point of view. 1000 seats, over 200 computers, five new printers (including two colour printers), a bunch of group study and project rooms, and LCD screens as far as the eye can see. Oh, and beanbags, of course. This is all to bring the university back to a point where it has a sensible amount of student space. As well as this, a number of key university services will be located in the hub.

In terms of retail, there are two main zones. One will contain a convenience store (but will not sell cigarettes), and the existing Post Office will move from its existing location around 100 metres further away. The other zone is all about food and drink.

There will be three food outlets: an Asian noodle place, a deli and a café. This was one of the contentious issues from day one. Many students were not happy with a large area of the hub being given to food and drink (see the Facebook group, ‘I want a Learning Hub, not a carvery’). Paul Duldig says that these concerns were taken into account. “If we hadn’t done the (student) consultation, then we might have done it differently. We have scaled back dramatically the food and beverage that was in the original plan”, he says, adding, “The original master plan suggested all of level 4 penciled in for food and beverage, and now it’s a third of that.”

As for the price and quality of food, the university is “acutely aware that there is a need to provide inexpensive food and beverage options”, but acknowledges the “diversity in people’s expectations.” Paul brings up the topic of healthy food options in the hub, in something of a dig at the hypocrisy of people. “We did ask people about healthy options, because we’re not going to have fast food on campus, we’ve got a responsibility. But there is a gap between what people say others should eat, and what they actually do themselves,” he says with something of a laugh.

There’s also likely to be a honking big (and honking expensive) wall of plasma screens on level four – the media wall. This will feature (as yet undetermined) news feeds, images, and video content. It could be a space for video streaming large scale university events (for example, graduation ceremonies) and promoting events on campus. “I think the hub needs some way of communicating to the people in it,” Paul rationalises, “Other hubs in the world tend to have a congregation point… I guess we’re thinking a little bit more like federation square in Melbourne.”

After all that, there’s a good chance you might be getting super excited about the September launch date. In my opinion though, don’t go pinning all your hopes for a vibrant campus on this project. While the Learning Hub is sorely needed, and will boost the student space on campus up to what I would regard as an acceptable amount, I don’t feel that it is going to revolutionise (or if you prefer, ‘transform’) the student experience as much as the university likes to say. It will be a very good building, but not a groundbreaking one.

Lame Names
There is a big gripe I have with the new buildings around campus. The university seem to be pushing toward giving all buildings incredibly wanky names. I mean seriously, Illumin8? It sounds like the university hired a 12 year old girl to head up Property Services. What happened to the past convention, of naming buildings after prominent former students like Sir Mark Oliphant, Sir William Lawrence Bragg, and supreme court judge George Ligertwood?

Paul Duldig explains that there is no reason to panic. “Innova21 was actually a working project title, that’s still a working title,” he says. Illumin8 is also a working title. When will we know the actual name for Innova21? Who the hell knows, but at least we have assurances that there isn’t a ‘buzzword plus number’ nomenclature policy.

Paul explains a couple of the factors that influence building christening. Buildings aren’t being named after disciplines anymore, because there are very few buildings on campus these days that are exclusively used by one school. “One thing we’re trying to do is find people that might donate to the university,” he mentions, referencing the donation SANTOS provided to the university to set up a school of petroleum.

Innova21: A fully functioning building, and not much else, definitely did not live up to the hype. Some floors are too hot, some are too cold. You can’t open the windows. Stools shaped like escape keys, incredibly uncomfortable. Soundproofing is non-existent. The roof leaks. Giant staircase to nowhere on the outside of the building, that at this stage probably cost at least $200,000 per use. Giant media wall in atrium that never gets used. Elevators work on the stupidest algorithm ever written. No, I don’t need three lifts to come to me when I call one. Fucking lifts. Oh, and where’s the vertical garden? Other than that, it’s okay I guess.

Nexus10: Lots of ‘booths’, and a seriously bright red room. Like, eye-assaultingly, headache-inducingly red. Was given its name as the result of a competition.

Illumin8: A big patch of dirt, not doing much for anyone at the moment. Still, it was pretty spectacular to watch Union Hall get demolished.

Originally published in On Dit volume 79.3

I’m sitting here writing this while on a break from Maths Camp. I don’t know what moreI cando to preach the virtues of mathematics than the simple act of stating that there exists such a thing as a Maths Camp. Doesn’t even seem worthwhile to continue writing. But I will, because the editors told me to write 700 words, and I don’t fancy incurring their wrath.

Before I begin my critical exegesis, let me give you a bit of background, because, let’s face it, you probably have no fucking idea what it is a mathematician even does. We’re not all teachers,  I haven't touched a protractor in years, and I suck at my times tables. Hell, I barely ever use numbers in the first place. However, I do understand all of the jokes on The Big Bang Theory, and I can also tell you the best strategy to take if you ever want to win a goat on a game show. Two more compelling reasons to study mathematics.

Maths itself is made up of three broad disciplines. You've got your applied mathematicians, who deal with tangible questions like 'What's the best way to manage traffic flow?' and 'How are we going to minimise the number of people that die from the spread of this disease?' They spend most of their time finding solutions to real life problems arising in other fields. This involves a lot of mathematical modelling, deriving and solving messy equations.

Then there are the pure mathematicians. They live firmly in the world of the abstract and speak mostly in unintelligible code. Some of their work is applied to cryptographic systems, such as those used in internet banking. Pure maths also helped researchers prove that any Rubik’s Cube can be solved in at most twenty moves. Nifty, huh? These guys are also responsible for some of the research that could be regarded as generally ‘not useful’, such as the three-volume Principia Mathematica, which tried to build up the fundamentals of mathematics using only a small set of axioms about set theory. By page 379, they’d managed to prove that 1+1=2, an occasionally useful fact.

Applied and pure mathematicians have a strange rivalry. The guys over in pure think they're better because they work in a more elegant field, and their research is notionally more difficult. The guys in applied revel in the fact that they're solving tangible problems with real world outcomes. Plus, they have a hope of actually getting a job.

Last of all, you have the statisticians, who’s salaries shit all over those of any other mathematicians. This field is all about the collection, analysis, and organisation of data. Work done by statisticians varies from highly theoretical questions, to more practical data analysis. A lot of the time, they want to make predictions about the future, based on data that has been collected.

One piece of advice: build up a good relationship with your fellow students, lecturers and other staff in the school. They are, for the most part, great people. There’s barely a suit in sight (indeed, you’re more likely to see someone wandering the halls barefoot) and the attitude is equally casual. Case in point, the head of school has a ponytail halfway down his back.

Back to the degree though. Maths courses typically follow the same tried and tested format: weekly or fortnightly assignments or tutorials, maybe a mid semester test, and then an exam worth most of your grade. So be forewarned - you always have an assignment to do, or an exam to revise for. This can get wearisome.

Ultimately though, the reason I’ve stuck at it for so long is the simple fact that maths is a little bit like magic. Maths has shown that if you have a hairy ball, it’s impossible to comb it flat without creating a cowlick. Maths has given us the best strategy to take in the event of a zombie outbreak (only aggressively attacking zombies will prevent the collapse of society). Maths has shown that it’s possible to find the area of a wacky shape using only the perimeter (that doesn’t sound exciting, but it’s pretty crazy). Maths has shown that it’s possible to take a solid ball, split it into a finite number of pieces, and reassemble those pieces to obtain two identical copies of the original ball. Oh, and maths has shown that you can take a wobbly table and get all four legs to touch the ground by rotating it on the spot (Intermediate Value Theorem, bitches). Trust me, it's all just a little bit fancy.

Right, now I’m going back to Maths Camp to get drunk and talk about the ways to win a game of noughts and crosses, if played on a Möbius Strip. That’s how cool I am.

Originally published in On Dit volume 79.1

[Audio clip: view full post to listen]

Originally broadcast on Radio Adelaide on 11/11/10

I (along with my co-presenter Chrissy) spoke with Holly Austin and Adriano Cappalletta, writers and stars of CuBBYHOuSE.

They were delightful, and so was their show.

[Audio clip: view full post to listen]

Originally broadcast on Radio Adelaide 101.5fm during the 2010 Adelaide Fringe: 18/02/2010

My thanks go out to my supervisor, A/Prof Finnur Larusson for his support to complete this project, staff of the School of Mathematical Sciences, as well as fellow summer research scholars Jessica, Kale, and Ben, for keeping me sane for over six weeks while I tried to complete this.