Staff member gains prestigious teaching award

February 14, 2012 by Advancement PR

Carolyn Rickett. Photo: Aaron Bellette

Carolyn Rickett, Senior Lecturer in Communication in Avondale’s School of Humanities and Creative Arts, has been awarded an Australian Learning and Teaching Council citation for outstanding contribution to student learning. The award, presented at the Sydney Opera House in August 2011, includes a prize of $10,000 to be used to advance Carolyn’s career, provide resources for her teaching, and assist her to disseminate good practice in learning and teaching.

One example of Carolyn Rickett’s innovative work was her collaboration with Sydney University lecturer Judith Beveridge to publish a poetry anthology, Wording the World, combining poems by Carolyn’s creative writing students with poems by leading Australian writers. The book was published by Puncher and Wattmann with a cover designed by students in Avondale’s design studio class. Students in the print journalism class reported the launch.

Two other Avondale staff members, Dr Darren Morton and Associate Professor Daniel Reynaud, have previously been awarded Australian Learning and Teaching Council citations for outstanding contributions to learning and teaching.

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Avondale alumnus advised allied forces in World War II

February 14, 2012 by Advancement PR

In 1942 the South-West Pacific high command co-opted Adventist missionary Pastor Norman Ferris to provide navigational advice and pilotage for the allied fleet in the Solomon Islands campaign of the Second World War.

Norman Ferris had studied at Avondale from 1921 to 1923, after which he was appointed to ministerial work in Sydney. In 1925 he married Ruby Chatman, a 1923 graduate of Avondale’s Business Course. In 1927 he and Ruby were called to pioneering missionary work in the Solomon Islands, where they served for the next fifteen years. They conducted medical missionary work among the islands and coastal villages, teaching the people about the love of Jesus, and in 1933 established a training school for national teachers on the island of Guadalcanal. Travelling from place to place by boat, Norman Ferris gained an intimate knowledge of the coastlines, reefs, channels, currents and anchorages of the treacherous Solomon Island waters.

During the Second World War the Japanese occupied the Solomons with the objective of cutting supply and communication between Australia and the US forces in the Pacific, and establishing a protective flank for the Japanese offensive in New Guinea. As the Japanese pushed southwards through the Pacific islands, Australian civilians were ordered to leave the Solomons in January 1942.  Ferris took with him his valuable navigational charts, which showed the safe routes through the dangerous reefs and atolls of the Solomons.1

When Ferris arrived in Australia, customs officers confiscated these charts and delivered them to defence high command, for whom they had special interest. The allied Pacific forces were at that time planning a major counter-offensive to push the Japanese from the Solomons, with a view to establish bases there to support operations against the Japanese occupying islands further to the north. The charts came to the attention of General Douglas MacArthur, supreme commander of allied forces in the south-west Pacific, who was then based in Australia. He noticed on one of the charts a pencilled mark identifying a previously uncharted reef, and inquired who had made that mark. On learning that the charts had been the property of Norman Ferris, he ordered one of his officers who knew Ferris to search him out and bring him to high command.2

Ferris was now living in Adelaide as youth director of the South Australian Conference of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. While shopping one day with his daughter Marilyn in Adelaide, he was accosted by the officer who had been sent to find him. The officer instructed Ferris to pack his bags, say good-bye to his family, make arrangements with his employer, and accompany him to Sydney forthwith.

For the next three weeks in Sydney Ferris briefed the Allied Geographical Section of defence high command with detailed information about navigation in the waters surrounding the Solomon Islands. Senior defence personnel subsequently consulted Ferris in Adelaide.3 He also met with General
MacArthur.4

When the allied forces landed in the Solomons on August 7 and 8, 1942, Macarthur appointed Ferris to pilot the ships in, which he did successfully. Ferris remained with the allied fleet in the Solomons for some weeks. The accompanying photograph, taken in a bunker in the Solomons, and supplied by Ferris’s daughter Marilyn, shows Ferris (third from left) reporting to the commander of the allied forces in the Solomons that he had successfully accomplished his mission. Ferris is wearing General Macarthur’s personal ring, given to him to signify the authority vested in him as pilot of the fleet. Ferris’s navigational charts of Solomon Island waters are now in the University of Tasmania.5

Norman Ferris (third from left) reports to the commander of allied forces in the Solomons that he has successfully piloted the allied invasion fleet through the treacherous waters of the islands. With him are senior officers of the allied forces in the Solomons.

Norman and Ruby Ferris’s fifteen years of mission service in the Solomons transformed the lives of an incalculable number of people, many of whom themselves became missionaries to their own people and to other Pacific nations. The rigours of pioneer mission life might have daunted people less committed and intrepid than Norman and Ruby Ferris. They endured isolation, malaria and, in the early years of their mission service, primitive living conditions in houses that they built of native materials with no protection from flies and mosquitoes. They would try to smoke out the mosquitoes by burning wet chips. At one mission station the only facility for bathing and washing clothes was a lice-infested stream. There were also the hazards of the sea. One night the boat on which they were travelling lurched as it ran aground on an uncharted reef, hurling their baby into the sea. One of the nationals on board saved the baby, but only after diving three times to locate it under water. Ferris was an excellent carpenter and diesel mechanic; he had to be. At the training school that he established on the island of Guadalcanal, he worked with the nationals to construct the school building, church and dormitories. He also built the furniture.6

When entering new areas, the Ferrises were typically able to win the confidence of the people through their medical work; but in a few places they encountered fierce opposition. An enraged warrior rushed to kill Ferris as he landed on the island of Bellona, but was immobilised by divine power. A devil priest on Guadalcanal also tried to kill him, but was similarly restrained. The devil priest later came to accept the love of Christ and became a missionary to his people. Constant trust in God strengthened the Ferrises to persevere despite many hardships.7

The enduring impact of their work may be gauged from the faithfulness during the war years of the nationals who had embraced Christianity as a result of their witness. Kata Ragoso (pronounced Rangoso), who gave inspired leadership in the Solomons during the war years, reported that on the island of New Georgia, the site of the mission headquarters, “not one teacher left his post or let down the standard of the Advent movement during this whole period.”8 Despite suffering great hardships, the national workers constructed and dedicated sixteen new churches and baptised over a hundred persons during the war years.9 Defence personnel highly praised the Adventist nationals who rescued and gave first aid to wounded servicemen during the war.10

Several months before the end of the war in the Pacific, the British Solomon Islands administration granted Norman Ferris and two other missionaries permission to return to the Solomons. In June 1945 Ferris travelled by troop ship to Bougainville, then by American military transport plane to Guadalcanal in the Solomons. He described his joy on arriving aboard an American naval vessel at the mission headquarters at Batuna on the Marovo Lagoon, New Georgia, and meeting again the nationals who had carried on the work of the mission in his absence.11 He reported that the church’s property there was in surprisingly good condition.12 Ferris stayed several months in the Solomons with a brief to re-establish contact with mission stations, ensure that their programs were operating, assess the condition of the local churches, report on the state of property and equipment, evaluate needs, and liaise with the Solomon Islands administration concerning the Adventist mission program.13 During this time he was able to provide much encouragement and pastoral support to church members and national teachers and ministers.

While at Batuna, Ferris restored the mission ship Portal. Shortly after the Adventist missionaries had left the Solomons in 1942, an army officer had tried to burn the Portal to prevent it being used by the Japanese. The ship, however, did not burn. The local Adventist nationals hid it in a creek and distributed the engine parts among the villagers for safe keeping. When Ferris returned, the people retrieved all the parts for re-assembling.

On his return to Australia, Ferris was appointed director of the men’s residence at Avondale College (1945-1951). Then in 1952 the governor of Fiji, Sir Ronald Garvey, requested Ferris to become the administrator on the island of Pitcairn. Many years before, the Ferrises had befriended Ronald Garvey when he was a young colonial officer in the Solomon Islands. Garvey admired Norman Ferris’s tact, kindness and administrative ability in his relations with the national people. Pitcairn was now under Garvey’s administration, and he invited Ferris to be his official representative on the island. During their three-year residence on Pitcairn the Ferrises led the people in spiritual revival, helped resolve animosities between families, and led in the building of a new church.14

In recognition of his service for Christianity, government and the people of the Pacific, Ferris was awarded the honour of Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE). Sir Ronald Garvey, Governor of Fiji, conferred the honour on behalf of the Queen.15

 

1 Eileen E. Lantry, Broken Stick. Mission to the Forbidden Islands. Hagerstown, MD: Review and Herald Publishing Association, 2010, pp. 70-71.

2 Information in this and subsequent paragraphs about Ferris’s involvement with the defence forces was provided by his daughter, Marilyn Peatey (an Avondale graduate of 1953).

3 Notes prepared by S.V. Stratford, Secretary, Australasian Union Conference of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, to brief L.V. Wilkinson, President of the Fiji Mission, in seeking assistance from the British High Commissioner in Fiji to obtain approval for Norman Ferris and two other expatriates to return to the Solomons (1943). Adventist Heritage Centre, Cooranbong, Box 757.

4 Interview with Marilyn Peatey, 24 August 2010.

5 Interview with Marilyn Peatey, 24 August 2010.

6 Lantry, Broken Stick, chapters 2-4, 7.

7 Ibid., chapters 1, 5.

8 Kata Ragoso, “War years in the Solomons,” Australasian Record, 6 May 1946, pp. 4-5.

9 Ibid.; Ragoso, “They remained true to God,” Australasian Record, 28 October 1946, pp. 4-5.

10 Norman Ferris, Report to the Australasian Union Conference. Adventist Heritage Centre, Box 757.

11 Letter from Norman Ferris to S.V. Stratford, 11 June 1945. Adventist Heritage Centre, Box 757.

12 Norman Ferris, Report to the Australasian Union Conference. Adventist Heritage Centre, Box 757.

13 Arnold Reye, “They did return! The resumption of the Adventist mission in the Solomon Islands after World War II – Part II,” Journal of Pacific Adventist History, Vol. 7, No. 1, June 2007, pp. 6-7.

14 Norman Ferris, The Story of Pitcairn Island. Washington, DC: Review and Herald Publishing Association, 1957, pp. 117-122.

15 Lantry, Broken Stick, pp. 92-93.

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Library expands services for research and scholarship

February 14, 2012 by Advancement PR

The digital revolution has transformed the way Avondale Library services are delivered, vastly increasing the resources available via the Library to support scholarship and research. No longer are the Library’s resources limited to the 120,000 or more items in its physical collections.

Students and staff now have access to more than 120 online databases containing huge repositories of periodical articles, book chapters, theses, dissertations, reports and reference works across an extensive array of subject fields. Databases also provide periodical indexes (including indexes to Seventh-day Adventist periodicals), and archives of Australian newspapers.

The Library is constantly expanding its database collection, with three new databases currently on trial: Oxford Medicine Online (medical textbooks and handbooks); Nursing Education in Video (online videos for the education and training of nurses and other healthcare workers); and the ScienceDirect Social and Behavioural Sciences module (the Library already subscribes to the Health and Life Science module).

The Library’s Journal Titles A-Z List gives access to over 39,000 full-text journals, which can be searched by subject or journal title. Thousands of electronic books are also available to Library users online.

The Library’s electronic resources can be accessed online from students’ rooms, from off-campus, and from computers in the Library itself. Online access has huge advantages for Avondale students studying and researching from distant locations. Distance education students may also borrow items by mail.

Students and staff have online access to the catalogues of the Avondale Library, libraries in the UNILINC consortium (a network of university, school, government and special libraries), and Libraries Australia (a resource providing bibliographic details and locations of over 45 million items held in Australian academic, research, national, state, public and special libraries, and access to the catalogues of the British Library, the Library of Congress, and other major overseas collections).

Students and staff may access resources from other libraries via the document delivery and interlibrary loan systems, and may also borrow items directly from the University of Newcastle Library and from libraries in the UNILINC consortium.

Online access to Avondale’s research

Some Reflections readers have asked how to access research by Avondale personnel. Library staff established and now manage an electronic repository giving open access worldwide to the research and scholarly output of Avondale staff and postgraduate students, as well as access to two of Avondale’s journals: The International Journal of New Perspectives on Christianity and Christian Spirituality and Science.

Entitled ResearchOnline@Avondale, the repository provides publication data and, where copyright allows, the associated full text of articles. All content is indexed in Google and other search engines.The site can be accessed at http://research.avondale.edu.au. Since its launch in May 2010 the site has generated over 6,100 downloads for the 155 full-text items currently available online.

ResearchOnline@Avondale contributes to the growing trend for open access to scholarly literature. “As an academic institution we saw both an opportunity and a responsibility to provide open access to our scholarly output,” says Marilyn Gane, Avondale’s Head Librarian. The advantages for authors include increased citation rates via improved discoverability and access and the opportunity to connect with scholars around the world with similar research interests.

Scholars’ Centre

The Lake Macquarie Campus Library recently established a Scholars’ Centre containing study and research facilities for higher degree research students.

There is also a computer lab for training students in the use of the Library’s electronic resources, and in the use of scholarly software such as Endnote, which stores bibliographic details of sources read for assignments and theses, and creates the necessary citations, references and bibliographies.

Integration of libraries on two campuses

A significant development has been the integration of the libraries on the Sydney campus and the Lake Macquarie campus. The former Sydney Adventist Hospital Library has now merged with the Avondale Library, though its mission remains the same – to support the learning and teaching of nursing students and the professional development of hospital staff.

With student nurses located on both campuses, the advantages of merging are numerous. Integration provides a unified library catalogue, greater variety of print resources for each campus, access to a wide range of electronic resources, seamless library services for students and staff moving between campuses, and reduced costs in managing one library service instead of two discrete services. There are also savings from centralised purchasing and management of electronic resources, copyright licences and collection of statistics. The final stage of the merger was completed in 2010 with the installation of new computers, multifunction print/copy/scan machines, and the addition of the Sydney campus to the Avondale computer network.

The library on the Sydney campus has a specialist nursing, medical and allied health collection of approximately 20,000 books and 400 current print journal titles. Of particular value to researchers is the Tom Ludowici Bioethics Collection, containing more than 5000 books and 25 journal titles, making it one of the most significant bioethics collections in Australia.

The Sydney campus library contains the Ludowici Bioethics Collection, named in honour of Dr Tom Ludowici (pictured), former Director of Mission at the Sydney Adventist Hospital. Photo: Ann Stafford

Services to alumni

Avondale alumni may borrow in person from either of the Avondale Libraries, and may apply for access from off campus to the following online databases:

• ATLASerials for Alumni. An online collection of over 100 major religion and theology journals. Users can read the full text of current articles or research the history of a topic from as early as 1924 to the present through more than 210,000 articles and book reviews.

• ERIC Education. The world’s premier database of literature in the field of education, with access to over a million citations and over 100,000 full-text items.

• EDNA Education. The leading Australian online resource collection in education.

Services to the community

The Library provides a school uplink program called Lobster Shells for Higher School Certificate students in the local community, who may borrow books from the Avondale Library for a small fee. Other community members may also borrow in person from the Library for a small fee.

Land of the Pharaohs exhibition

From time to time the Library mounts special exhibitions of scholarly and general interest. In August 2011 Dr Wayne French presented an impressive Land of the Pharaohs exhibition displaying exact replicas of major items from the tomb of Tutankhamen and replicas of many other notable items from Egypt and the Middle East, including busts of the Egyptian queens Nefertiti and Hatshepsut; a tablet recording Sennacherib’s invasion of Judah in 701 BCE; and a winged bull from the palace of Xerxes in Susa. The exhibition attracted many hundreds of visitors to Avondale, including tour groups guided by Dr French, who also demonstrated the manufacture of papyrus paper.

Ongoing developments

The Avondale Library continues to develop its services and resources. It is expected that by December 2011 a one-stop (or federated) search facility will enable students and staff to search simultaneously the Library’s catalogues, online databases and ResearchOnline@Avondale.

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Avondale conferences foster scholarship and the arts

February 14, 2012 by Advancement PR

Since 2009 Avondale has hosted a number of conferences and symposia exploring issues of significance to the church and the wider community.

A major conference entitled Understanding Islam from a Christian Perspective (2009) featured high-profile scholarly presenters, most of whom have lived and worked in Islamic countries, and all of whom have engaged in faith dialogue with Islamic leaders. The conference, chaired by Dr William Johnsson, former editor of Adventist Review, examined common ground and differences between Islam and Christianity, exploring ways of relating to Islamic peoples.

A 2011 conference entitled Church and Adventist Identity in the 21st Century explored issues of identity in relation to the question of how the church might relate relevantly to the contemporary world.  Pastor Rudy Dingjan, Church Growth Director for the Seventh-day Adventist Church in the Netherlands, and Pastor Peter Roennfeldt, who has cultivated church planting movements in up to fifty countries, shared their experience of fresh approaches to planting new churches in sophisticated cultural environments. Dr Reinder Bruinsma, an academic, author and retired church administrator from the Netherlands, spoke of the cultural legacy of postmodernism. “This is not a matter of thinking differently about a few things but a completely different way of looking at life,” he said. “Innovative approaches are needed to interface with contemporary culture and society.”

The Manifest Creative Arts Festival (2011), organised by the Adventist Church in the South Pacific through Avondale College of Higher Education and the Adventist Media Network, highlighted the importance of the creative arts in communicating the gospel; fostered creativity in writing, film making and music; and provided opportunity for creative artists to connect with one another and showcase their work. “Too often we underestimate the importance of the arts, but these are integral to communicating our message of hope,” said Neale Schofield, chief executive officer of Adventist Media Network. “Creative artists need to be recognised and we need to create a space for them to flourish in the church.” The event climaxed with the Gabe Reynaud Awards, named in honour of the talented film maker and former senior producer at Adventist Media Network whose life was cut tragically short. Visiting presenters included Kay Rizzo, author of over fifty books and one of the most prolific Adventist writers, and Stacia Wright, co-founder of the annual SONscreen film festival organised by the Seventh-day Adventist Church in North America.

Symposium on origins issues

In 2011 Avondale hosted a weekend symposium on origins issues, sponsored by the Faith and Science Council of the General Conference of the Seventh-day Adventist Church.

Dr Ross Grant, a biochemical pharmacologist at the University of New South Wales and chief executive officer of the Australasian Research Institute, argued that an adequate theory of origins requires an explanation for the origin of the precise physical and chemical laws that govern space, time and matter. It also requires explanations for the origin of life, the development of increasing genomic complexity, and the simultaneous development of the symbiotic environment (ecosystem) needed to sustain the forms developed. With reference to genomic complexity, Dr Grant noted that while natural selection can produce variations, there is no evidence that it can add to the complexity of the genome.

Dr Timothy Standish, a biologist in the Geoscience Research Institute at Loma Linda University, California, noted that many of the earliest fossils exhibit biochemical complexity such as photosynthesis at their first appearance in the fossil record. Many early fossils also show anatomical complexity at their first appearance. Trilobite eyes, for example, appear in full complexity with no prior evidence of having gradually evolved.

Dr Raul Esperante, a palaeontologist in the Geoscience Research Institute, reported research by an Institute team at a site in southern Peru where over five hundred well-preserved fossil whales, together with other large marine animals, were found in an area of three square kilometres of mountaintop. The evidence indicates rapid and catastrophic burial. The fossils are typically in pristine condition, with no marks of scavenging or erosion of the skeleton. When whales die naturally in the ocean, the baleen tends to detach from the upper mandible within hours or days of death; but in the Peruvian fossils, more than seventy-five whales were found with the baleen still intact. Dr Esperante noted that a majority of palaeontologists now believe that the geological record shows evidence not of uniform change, but of gradual depositions interspersed with repeated local catastrophes.

New Perspectives on Christianity

conferences

Avondale hosted two New Perspectives on Christianity conferences (2009, 2011), each of which developed a stimulating range of Christian viewpoints on contemporary issues, including presentations on Christian witness, indigenous issues, biblical scholarship, organisational leadership, education, health and the visual arts. Selected papers from the New Perspectives conferences are published in The International Journal of New Perspectives on Christianity, a refereed journal published by Avondale College of Higher Education. The Journal is also available on the Avondale website at ResearchOnline@Avondale (http://research.avondale.edu.au). The editorial outlines the objectives of the journal. Information for authors is also available in the journal and articles are invited at any time in addition to the papers presented at the conferences.

Christianity’s potential contribution to contemporary society

In a keynote address to the 2009 conference, Dr Vivienne Watts, Avondale’s Vice President (Administration and Research), proposed community engagement as a way forward for Christianity in the context of declining religious affiliation in Australia. Christianity, she said, can demonstrate its relevance to contemporary society by addressing community challenges, needs, issues and problems. Just as they did in the past, Christians can become advocates for transformational societal change by working together in the community and for the good of the community under a framework of factors that will sustain Christianity’s survival. These factors include maintaining relevance, holding common beliefs, having a common purpose, and feeling that their Christian faith is both worthwhile and will provide strength in times of trial.

Nathan Brown (Adventist Media Network) argued (2011) that credible Christian witness is relational (communicated via friendships), authentic (Christians living their principles), committed to social justice (righting the wrongs in the world), local and contextual in operation, and characterised by the beauty of the new creation unfolding in people’s lives.

Associate Professor David Tacey (LaTrobe University) proposed (2009) that one way Christianity can increase its relevance in Australia is by showing leadership in the debate about the ecological crisis.

Early Christian witness

At the 2009 conference Professor Alanna Nobbs, head of Macquarie University’s Department of Ancient History, discussed the impact on the lives of ordinary Christians in the reign of the emperor Decius (AD 249-251) of the Roman government’s attempts to enforce traditional rites and sacrifices which the authorities regarded as important in holding the state together. Christians typically resisted these requirements, their stand in general attracting admirers and support.

Dr Bruce Manners, pastor of the Avondale College Church, argued (2011) that factors contributing to the rapid growth of early Christianity suggest effective ways for Christians to influence the post-Christian world. The beliefs of early Christianity were attractive because they gave meaning to life and hope for the future. Christians also lived ethically. They cared for those around them, even risking their lives to help people suffering in epidemics. They exemplified principles of social justice, valuing women and children, caring for widows, and holding slave and noble of equal value in God’s sight. In all these ways they bore witness to a loving God. An important factor in the rapid growth of early Christianity was its dissemination via personal friendship and example.

Indigenous issues and Christianity

At the 2009 conference Graham Fletcher, Queensland member of the National Native Title Tribunal, proposed some implications for Christian faith and practice drawn from his experience in mediating native title issues. The importance of place and belonging for all cultures and peoples gives special significance to God’s promises assuring believers of their right to a position in His family and His place. Fletcher argued that because reconciliation is offered by God and has been given to us as a ministry (2 Cor 5:17-20), Christians have an obligation to support and be among the leaders of reconciliation in our nation. Fletcher also pointed out that in Australian law native title is a pre-existing right, subject to continuous use of the land for traditional cultural activities. In a similar way, practising Christians may confidently plead a right to a place in God’s kingdom, achieved for them by Christ.

Biblical scholarship

Dr Sook-Young Kim, author of The Warrior Messiah (Cambridge Scholars Publishing), showed (2011) that phrases in verses 1 and 12 of Isaiah 53 denote a royal Messiah figure who has won victory in battle and is apportioning the spoils. The victory has been won not by military means, but by suffering and dying as a sin-bearing sacrifice, by means of which many are made righteous (verses 11, 12). Dr Sook-Young Kim is also a conjoint lecturer of Avondale College of Higher Education.

Organisational leadership

Dr James Osterhaus, a senior partner in TAG Consulting USA, explored (2011) some of the tensions confronting leaders of organisations, noting that authentic leaders are committed to the values of their organisations and make decisions consistent with those values despite the competing pressures. Dr Osterhaus is a clinical psychologist experienced in helping individuals and organisations work through change, conflict and reorganisation. He has authored eight books on these and related subjects.

Education

Associate Professor Phil Fitzsimmons (School of Education, Avondale) presented the results of a year-long study of a class of twenty-two adolescents in a secular “progressive” school where students had the freedom and openness to explore issues of interest to them. Despite the students’ apparently secular orientation, it emerged that they were deeply interested in spiritual matters. They continually initiated discussions that were spiritually focused, exploring the meaning of life and their place in it in a quest for spiritual, emotional and social understanding. In the process they became aware of markers of identity that they believed should characterise how they should live their lives. The study tended to support the researcher’s view that the secular focus of young people is a façade and that they are in fact more spiritually oriented than previous generations. The findings raise important questions of how future generations might view and understand Christianity, and of how the Christian church should change to interface with a spiritual generation that is largely non-religious.

Dr Don Roy, long-time Adventist educator, developed a model of the values and special character of Christian schools as communities of faith, which he proposed as a useful frame of reference to facilitate critical evaluation, strategic planning and renewal in Christian schools.

Health

Dianne Sika-Paotonu presented a paper based on her PhD research on designing cancer vaccines, carried out at the Malaghan Institute of Medical Research in New Zealand. These cancer vaccines are dendritic-cell based and work by stimulating the immune system to destroy cancer tissue. It has been found that the dendritic cells of cancer patients are often not working properly, which means that signals needed by the immune system to generate cancer-killing cells are not produced. When dendritic cells work well, they are capable of converting resting T-cells into cancer-killer T-cells. Dianne’s work showed that dendritic cells were able to work harder and produce more cancer-killer T-cells when the dendritic-cell based vaccine preparation contained a sea sponge extract. This groundbreaking research won for Dianne the 2008 Health Research Council of New Zealand MacDiarmid Young Scientist of the Year Award in the category Advancing Human Health and Wellbeing. Dianne is currently a lecturer in pharmacology at the Graduate School of Nursing, Midwifery and Health, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand.

Dr Ross Grant, a pharmacologist, neuroscientist and specialist in degenerative diseases in the School of Medical Sciences, University of New South Wales, presented a paper identifying lifestyle choices that can greatly reduce the incidence of the degenerative diseases that account for 95 per cent of the causes of death in Australia. Among the lifestyle factors associated with degenerative disease he noted inadequate intake of nutrient-rich foods, excessive intake of high kilojoule foods, inadequate exercise, high stress levels, and smoking. He also showed that vigorous exercise of at least thirty minutes per day not only benefits the cardiovascular system, but also switches off the HPA axis involving the hypothalamus, pituitary and adrenals, reducing the craving for food and the liability to degenerative diseases associated with obesity.

Visual arts

Dr Richard Morris, a senior lecturer in Avondale’s School of Humanities and Creative Arts, observed that Protestants have tended to privilege the printed and spoken word above the visual arts and to prefer realism in art above abstraction, which many have seen as mysterious and by extension, threatening to concepts of truth. In contrast to such views, Morris examined the impact of abstraction in Colin McCahon’s religious painting Victory Over Death 2. On the surface, the painting appears to consist merely of painted words. Morris showed how the opposition of light and darkness in the painting creates a bridge between its verbal symbolism and abstraction, providing the viewer with an enriched appreciation of the cross of Christ and its significance.

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International study tours enhance student learning

February 1, 2012 by Advancement PR

Avondale enhances learning opportunities by offering international study tour electives as credit towards students’ degree programs. Study tours are available in history, visual communication, music, business and biblical studies. Preparation includes lectures, discussions, research, tutorial presentations and a written assignment. A post-tour assignment brings together the insights acquired on the trip. Study tours enrich theoretical learning with first-hand experience, generate an enthusiasm for learning that has no equal in the classroom, and develop global perspectives of value in subsequent professional life.

Bible lands study tour

In July 2011 Dr Wayne French, Lake Macquarie campus chaplain with a keen interest in archaeology, led sixty-two students on a study tour of Bible lands: Egypt, the Sinai peninsula, Jordan, Israel, Turkey, Greece and Italy. The tour gave special attention to sites associated with Israel’s exodus from Egypt, the footsteps of Christ in the gospels, Paul’s missionary journeys, and the seven churches of Revelation. Highlights included climbing Mount Sinai, a communion service at the garden tomb in Jerusalem, a baptism in the River Jordan, and scripture readings at key locations. The tour also included historic sites at Petra, Jerash (Jordan), Gallipoli and Pompeii. Students said the tour made the Bible live as they saw the places where the events occurred. It also gave many their first experience of cultures outside Australia.

Bible lands tour: Josh Hamilton chats with an Egyptian at the pyramids of Giza. Photo: Colin Chuang

History study tours

This year’s history tour studied aspects of French history associated with sites in the south of France and in and around Paris. The previous tour (2008) focused on the history of ancient Greece and Rome. The tours enhanced students’ skills of historical investigation as they analysed and interpreted the source materials available at the various sites and museums. Students experienced at first hand the geography, locations and cultures relevant to the history they had studied, gaining clearer understandings of the political, social and ethical issues facing people in history.

“Actually seeing the buildings, sites and ruins in person
. . . has made the people in history . . . more real to me,” one student wrote. Another said, “History has quite literally been brought to life. It has freshly re-dawned on me that the history I study was the reality of people, communities and humanity.”

Students commented that the experience of operating in alien cultures and language environments also enriched their personal and spiritual development.

“It was clear that on-site experiences made a massive difference to the students,” said Associate Professor Daniel Reynaud. “The level of visible connection to the past and the immediacy with which they connected was evident in levels of excitement and verbal feedback.”

Following the tour, Associate Professor Reynaud and Dr Maria Northcote delivered a refereed paper on the educational value of international history tours, which they presented at the Higher Education Research and Development Society of Australia Conference, Griffith University, Queensland (2011).

Visual Arts/Visual Communication

The 2011 tour studied art and architecture in Chicago and New York, cities whose museums and galleries exhibit an astonishing wealth of art from ancient times to the present. Highlights in Chicago included the architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright and the Museum of Contemporary Art; and in New York the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Guggenheim Museum, and the Museum of Modern Art. The 2009 Visual Arts tour went to Paris, Amsterdam and London.

An architecture guide briefs Avondale students on buildings designed by Frank Lloyd Wright in Oak Park, Chicago. Photo: Andrew Collis

Business

The 2011 business tour studied selected industries and corporations in Singapore, Denmark, Germany, Austria, Italy, Monaco, France, Switzerland and England. Locations included the Lego factory in Denmark; Airbus, Volkswagen and BMW in Germany; Swarovski Crystal in Austria; Nestlé-Calliers in France; and the London Stock Exchange in England. The tour supplemented the theoretical base of students’ studies with practical applications in “real world” situations. Students were able to observe best practice in a range of international businesses, improving their understanding of the internal workings of organisations and enhancing their awareness of the broader social, cultural and environmental factors that influence business processes.

Music

The 2010 music tour studied the music, composers and performers associated with Vienna, Salzburg, Venice, Paris and London. Highlights included concerts at tour locations.

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