Archive for May, 2014

Helping Hands a win-win

Wednesday, May 28, 2014

Mentoring, recruitment initiative good for enrolment, community

Bianca Reynaud
Public relations assistant
Avondale College of Higher Education
Cooranbong, New South Wales, Australia

Helping HandsAn Avondale College of Higher Education mentoring and recruitment initiative is as its name suggests giving new students and their friends a helping hand.

Helping Hands

Breane Grange (left), with Tara Hansen, has eased into life at Avondale thanks to Helping Hands. Credit: Bianca Reynaud.

An initiative of Marketing Services, Helping Hands encourages students to mentor those they introduce to Avondale by, among other things, helping them register, accompanying them to their first lectures and introducing them to life at Avondale. Mentors are rewarded with a free unit or $1000 off the cost of their accommodation and the satisfaction of helping a friend.

“She’s been tops,” says Breane Grange about her Helping Hand Monique Graf, a final-year Bachelor of Arts/Bachelor of Teaching student. Breane enrolled in semester one this year and is studying a Bachelor of Education (Primary). Helping Hands eased her into her course “because there was one person [on which I could rely.] It just made everything so much easier and less scary.”

Monique eased into her role, too.“Just be someone who’s approachable. Encourage, listen. Your student [needs to feel like] someone is there for them.”

Helping Hands began in 2009 but improved its accountability requirements the following year. Students must now attend orientation with their recruited student, complete an activity log and attend a mentoring session.

“I’m studying teaching to be a mentor,” says Monique, “and the mentoring session reminded me what it’s all about—thinking of someone other than myself.” She adds that “it’s been cool to see Breane settle in and enjoy [her time at Avondale].”

According to marketing officer Alana Brown, at least 50 students register for Helping Hands each year. They recruit about 100 students. This win-win builds a stronger sense of community on campus. Says Breane, “We feel like we’re part of the community from the very first day.”

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From Bible lands to baptism

Thursday, May 15, 2014

Study tour helps lead students to Christ

Brenton Stacey
Public relations officer
Avondale College of Higher Education
Cooranbong, New South Wales, Australia

A Bible lands study tour and Seventh-day Adventist education entities have influenced four Avondale students to publicly declare their belief in Jesus Christ.

Emma McCrow, Gina Siller, Maree Bagley and Kylie Stewart baptisms

Clockwise from top left: Emma McCrow, Gina Siller, Maree Bagley and Kylie Stewart—with members of her family—at their baptisms. Credit: Kirsten Groves.

Emma McCrow, an international poverty and development studies major, joined chaplain Dr Wayne French on the Middle East tour in 2011. The experience, among others, contributed to a “gradual growing in her life” that led to the decision for baptism.

Primary education student Gina Siller wanted to get baptised on the tour in 2013 but decided to wait so her husband could attend.

Studying at the college of higher education helped Maree Bagley (bottom right), also a primary education student, make her decision.

Enrolling her children at Avondale School helped Kylie Stewart (bottom left) not only make a decision for baptism but also a decision to study primary education.

The baptisms at 7.28 this past Friday are likely to lead to others. Wayne says they and the Bible studies that precede them are the “best parts of my job.”

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Great mates

Wednesday, May 7, 2014

All Stars show respect for student’s loss

Brenton Stacey
Public relations officer
Avondale College of Higher Education
Cooranbong, New South Wales, Australia

Basketball took a time out at the beginning of All-Star Weekend as players and spectators remembered an Avondale student whose mother had died.

Mark Singh tapes a black band to the arm of Kenneth Lozada before the Rookies versus Returns All-Star game. Credit: Annalise Lindsay.

Mark Singh tapes a black band to the arm of Kenneth Lozada before the Rookies versus Returns All-Star game. Credit: Annalise Lindsay.

Kyle Armstrong has yet to return to college after the death of mother Kerrie at the family home in Forest Hill near Toowoomba, Queensland on April 25.

His friends paused to pray with other players and spectators before the Rookies versus Returns game on Saturday. Players in that game wore black armbands as “our way of showing respect,” says Avondale Basketball Association co-president Jarrod Cherry, a high school friend of Kyle’s.

The evening began on a musical note with four members of Avondale vocal ensemble The Promise performing their own arrangement of the national anthem.

In the games themselves, the women of Andre Hall defeated their contemporaries in Ella Boyd Hall 48-28 while in the men’s, Returns held off Rookies 63-60. Honours were even in Sunday’s City versus Country games, with the metro girls almost doubling their opponent’s score (45-24) and the rural guys winning comprehensively (68-45).

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Love fools

Wednesday, May 7, 2014

Brain guru on how sex stunts emotional growth

Bianca Reynaud
Public relations assistant
Avondale College of Higher Education
Cooranbong, New South Wales, Australia

Lovers beware! Romantic interest releases a “chemical tsunami” that sweeps away clarity of mind and brings a craving for touch, which if leads to sex stunts emotional growth. This is one of the key points brain guru Dr Arlene Taylor made in a series of lectures on gender differences at Avondale College of Higher Education this past week (April 30-May 1).

Arlene Taylor: “The minute you engage in sexual activity, the hit to the brain from the orgasm is so powerful you basically stop growing with each other emotionally.”

Arlene Taylor: “The minute you engage in sexual activity, the hit to the brain from the orgasm is so powerful you basically stop growing with each other emotionally.”

Advice to new couples

It should come as no surprise that Arlene believes sexual activity is best left to those in committed, long-term relationships. “I can’t tell you what to do, but I can tell you that every time you have sex, you create cellular memory,” says Arlene, the founder and president of Realizations Inc, a non-profit corporation that engages in brain-function research and provides related educational resources. That cellular memory makes it difficult to be monogamous. “Here’s the problem: the minute you engage in sexual activity, the hit to the brain from the orgasm is so powerful you basically stop growing with each other emotionally. You only want that hit.”

Romantic interest between two people triggers the release of phenylethylamine, which turns the brain into a “PEA brain”—it can sweep away all clarity of mind. The chemical compound lasts six to 48 months and triggers the release of the hormone-like substance dopamine. Dopamine is associated with mate selection. It triggers the release of a third chemical, the hormone oxytocin, which makes people crave touch. Even if this “chemical tsunami” does not lead to sex, the brain’s addiction to phenylethylamine can lead couples to break up—once the compound subsides, they no longer feel “in love.”

Despite warning about the dangers of the “PEA brain,” “I do believe in dating lots of people,” says Arlene. Based on her experience, particularly in clinical pastoral counselling and in human services, Arlene advises new couples to “experience a lot of different environments with each other. And get to know the other person’s family because—trust me—you marry the family. Your partner carries three generations of cellular memory and that’s going to make a huge difference.”

Advice to married couples

And married couples? Arlene advises them to “learn how to become better lovers.” Sex, she says, is not just for procreation but to “bring a couple closer.” The adage is mostly true, too—practice makes perfect. “People think that just because they have adult sexual equipment, they automatically know how to make love. Come on! You need to learn and you need to practice.”

Arlene finds brain function research supports the Bible’s principles on marriage. “I believe that biblically, if you’re committed to marrying, then sexual activity helps you build on your commitment rather than stunting emotional growth.”

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