BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES DEPARTMENT MATTERS | December 12 2014

Dear all,

It is time for Departmental Awards – let me know if anyone has done something courageous, kind, creative, innovative or plain old daft! They deserve an award, handed out at the end of year party, Monday 15th!

cheerio

Mariella

General News and Announcements

Biology Kitchen Garden has a new home

The biology kitchen garden has moved around the corner and is now on the north side of E8A. It will be made prettier over the next couple of months, but please help yourself to doing a spot of gardening or harvesting some herbs. It’s for everyone.

The worm farm is up on the concrete slab behind the garden.

Professional Staff Office Changes

Elsa Mardones has now moved her office location to E8A172, and Craig Angus has moved to E8A106.

Both their phone numbers remain the same.

Unwanted tents & sleeping bags wanted for StreetMed

Wanted: Any sleeping bags, swags & tents you no longer need to assist StreetMed supporting the homeless in western Sydney. 

StreetMed’s mission:  To provide street level physical and mental-health first aid as well as advocating for the welfare and safety 

of the homeless and society’s most vulnerable. If you have equipment to spare, please contact Craig Angus.

Tax deductible donations can also be made via:

StreetMed Inc

Bendigo Bank

BSB: 633 000

Acc: 152 568 242

For more information: http://streetmed.org.au/

Many thanks for your support!!

Plant of the week

Agapanthus – Lily of the Nile

Supplementary exams

If you have a student who has extra requirements which cannot be accommodated by the Science Centre please give Kath (katherine.mcclellan@mq.edu.au):

• Student name and number (and email address if possible so Kath can set up a supp exam date)
• A hard copy of the supplementary exam
  • We cannot supervise the student for the entire exam but can set up the room and check on them regularly.

iLearn Spaces now open for S1 2015

iLearn spaces for Session 1  are available early! If you want help setting up your iLearn unit please email Kath with:

• which version of your unit you would like cloned, if any
  • content from S2 2013 (or other previous instance) cloned across to S2 2014
  • if you have been developing things in a development unit that you want cloned, or
  • want to start with a completely blank slate.
• If you are happy with the default semester dates for student access
• If you need internal and external cohorts added

HDR Conference presentations on BIOL990

If you missed the whole conference or just a presentation you were really interested in at the HDR conference earlier this month you can now listen to them all! To do so log on to BIOL990 and click the Echo360 block on the right. Email Kath is you have and issues logging in.

LEU orders for S3 open

To order your own LEU please go to http://staff.mq.edu.au/teaching/evaluation/surveys/ordering_surveys/

As usual require 21 days notice is required to ensure surveys are delivered on time.

Volunteers

Latest list of volunteers attached

Volunteers DEC 11

Systems Down on Sunday 14th Dec

Please be aware that the following systems will be impacted as below this Sunday due to Informatics downtime.

• iTeach
• Echo360
• iShare
• Unit Reading
• Unit Guides
  • Access to iLearn not affected

Interesting read about ECRs

Shaping the Future of Research: a perspective from junior scientists http://f1000r.es/4ug

(Thanks Steve van Sluyter)

UNSW and ABC launch initiative to discover new generation of science thinkers

www.unsw.edu.au/top5under40

UNSW and ABC Radio National have teamed up to create 5 media residencies for early career researchers in science, including medical science, technology, engineering and maths in 2015.

The successful applicants will be chosen from a nationwide search and will be mentored over two weeks. The aim is to discover a new generation of science thinkers and give them a voice.

Flatmate wanted in Gladesville

I’m looking for a tenant to share the upstairs level of my house in Gladesville. Here’s the link to the ad….

www.flatmatefinders.com.au/view/95895

Watch out for predatory journals

They will accept anything for money…even papers by the Simpsons: http://www.vox.com/2014/12/7/7339587/simpsons-science-paper

Info Day

There is an information day in early January when academic advisers provide advice to prospective students now they have their HSC results – it is now called Info Day.  We are always very busy on the Biology desk dealing with questions such as “I think I might not get into the degree I wanted, so what else can I do?”.  Our feeling is that we can pick up quite a lot of extra students by talking to them on that day, which is timed to be just before they have to finalize their University preferences. 

The date this year is on Tuesday 6 January.  I realise most of us will be on holidays.  However, anyone who is here at work, or anyone who is on leave but in Sydney and wouldn’t mind coming in for a couple of hours, would be appreciated on that day.  This call is not restricted to people on the advising committee.  I will provide detailed briefing notes so that any academic or research fellow can do it.  Prospective students [and their parents] are really appreciative of the chance to talk to a friendly and interested academic.

Can you please let me (Jenny Donald)  know if you’re able to put in some time for advising on that day? I would appreciate replies whether the answer is yes or no, so that I can gauge how desperate the situation is!  Currently we are quite short staffed that day.

Disruptions

If you have any feedback on how the new disruptions policy is working [too easy, too tough, insufficient options for academics etc], can you please send comments to Mariella so that an overview of the issues in the Dept can be provided to the working party next year. 

Science Student Support Officer

The Faculty has a Student Support Officer, contact details below.  Helene is neither an academic adviser nor a counsellor, but has a lot of contacts and experience in talking to students and directing them to appropriate resources and support.  She is also a good person to talk to, and students respond well to her.  So if there is a student you are concerned about, drop Helene an email and she can contact the student.  She is also very happy to go into lectures [particularly for large 100 level units] and explain briefly where she fits in and what she can offer. 

Helene Seddon-Glass

Science Student Support Officer

Faculty of Science, E7A 129b

E helene.seddon-glass@mq.edu.au  

T 02 9850 8348

Student grant success

Congratulations to Julia Riley for winning an Australasian Society for the Study of Animal Behaviour research grant.

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