Issue 83.3

I N S I D E : D E R E G U L AT I O N , D O G S , A N D D I L E M M A S . . .

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Issue 83.3

CONTENTS The Education Issue

“ I ha ve n ev

e r l e t my s c h o o l i n g i nt e r f e r e w i t h my e d u c

ation

”

M a r k Tw a i n

EDUCATION

AROUND CAMPUS Editorial How to Contribute to On Dit What’s On Letters to the Editor Adelaide of University Sport Humans of Adelaide University Student Representative Council State of the Union Clubs on Campus

2 3 4-5 6 7 8-9 10-11 12 13

On Dit is a publication of the Adelaide University Union EDITORS: Daniel Millburn, Daniel McLean and Leighton McDonald-Stuart

16 17 20-21 22-23 24-25 26-27 28-30 31 32-33

CREATIVE TEAM: Viray Thach, Sarah Boese and Anna Bailes COVER ART: Mary Angley

14-15 18-19

MISCELLANEOUS Hounding for the Truth Short Story: The Black God Short Story: The Student An Open Letter to Christopher Pyne

34-36 37-39 40-41 46

REVIEWS

DEREGULATION DEBATE Education Officer Column Deregulation: What does it all mean?

An Official Guide to Deregulation Kick Deregulation to the Curb Inter view with Amanda Rishworth Inter view Christopher Pyne Removing Hurdles to World Class Education Fee for Thought Funding Universities - What Now?

A Guide to Lecture Theatres Life After High School

Grow Home WOMAD About You Adelaide Fringe: The Trial

43 44 45

DIVERSIONS Emma’s Dilemmas Crossword & Diversions

47 48

INSIDE BACK COVER: Carly Harvy THANKS TO: James Lawler Published 1/4/2015

Contents

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E D I TO R I A L relevant to students. Although it is slightly tedious we thought we’d bring you up to scratch with what’s happening in the bedchamber of tertiary education and politics.

Australia’s “champion of education”, Federal Education Minister Chris “The Fixer” Pyne, is convinced universities should deter mine the cost of their degrees. This would give Australian universities the chance to compete with the world’s Har vards and Oxfords, and to provide educations which have been watered and cultivated luxuriantly.

But if universities are allowed to choose how much their degrees cost, the cost of some degrees will inevitably rise; if these costs rise many students could strug gle to bear the financial burdens of their studies. For some, tertiary education might even become an unattainable dream drifting away among the clouds, an image which artist Mary Angley has embodied beautifully on the front cover.

The editors reading under the Tree of Knowledge

Please take a chair, dear reader, and a moment to flick lazily through the pages of this magazine.

Nod and grunt with approval at its new design.

We’d like to thank the new creative team – Viray, Sarah and Anna – for fashioning this over many long and laborious hours and giving us the most handsome On Dit this year (by a rather large measure). In addition to this makeover, On Dit 83.3 carries another mark to make it special; it is our first themed edition for 2015, our Education Edition.

To those people who shudder at the words ‘politics’, ‘government’, and even ‘university’, we wish to offer a for mal apolog y. For these pages are filled by the rhetoric of politicians, the monotony of debate and the strange and growing sense that you are reading the same thing over and over – will you ever forgive us? You might if you consider the deregulation of university fees, and universities charging what they wish for our degrees, extremely

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Editorial

Leaving aside this curious little debate about our future, we’d like to direct your attention to a few other pieces of poignant prose. In case you’ve ever wondered how the dank and smelly “lecture theatre” you ended up in could be a place of learning, Milly Schultz-Boylen has penned a guide to the best as well as the worst lecture theatres Adelaide has to offer. Or if you’ve ever tried and tested different degrees and have some fond – and perhaps unfortunate – memories of them, you’ll love Sophie Atkinson’s piece on life after high school. Perhaps a nice dose of fiction should help you recover after reading about politics – check out Davitah Koh’s short story.

As always, dear reader, ready your pens and crayons to ser ve this little magazine, and get some bloody sleep during the mid-semester break.

See you next time,

Daniel Millburn, Leighton McDonald-Stuart and Daniel McLean

H OW TO C O N T R IBU T E Want to contribute to On Dit? It really is an easy process…

Submission De adlines for Artwork

I f yo u w a nt t o w r i t e a n a r t i c l e , h e r e’ s s o m e a dv i c e b e f o r e yo u g e t s t a r t e d :

ISSUE

• Have a chat to us. Your chances of being published are much higher if we’re all on the same page.

83.4 Sex!

83.6 83.7

• Make sure what you’re writing can appeal to a wide audience. If it’s a technical topic, try to explain it simply. Don’t presume people know all the specifics of niche topics.

CONTRIBUTION DEADLINE

20th April

83.5

• On Dit is primarily read by students who are easily exhausted by longwinded pieces of writing, so please keep it concise.

• No one likes a pretentious wordsmith. Try not to use jargon.

THEME

4th May 18th May

Elle Dit

20th July

83.8

3rd August

83.9

17th August

83.10

1st September

83.11

28th September

83.12

12th October

F IN D US!

• Want to write but don’t know what to write about? We have a long list of things we’d love people to write about.

• Don’t be shy. Come in for a chat.

We’re down the dodg y-looking stairs near the Barr Smith Lawns.

Yours,

The Editors

On Dit Office CON TAC T US!

f

ondit.com.au

@OnDitMagazine

@OnDitMag

ondit@adelaide.edu.au

facebook.com/OnDitMagazine

How to Contribute

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WHAT’S ON + NEWS: The Education Issue

Ben & Jerry’s

Volkstanzfest 2015

Open Air Cinema

April 3rd - 5th

1st March-12th April, Nightly

Where: The Ger man Club Adelaide Time:

Saturday: 3pm to 11pm Sunday: 3pm to 11pm Good Friday: 5pm to 11pm

Cost:

FREE

Where: Brian Nadilo Reser ve, Glenelg Foreshore Cost:

From $15

Sit under the heavens and enjoy new films as well as older classics. With different films screening every night, check out www.openaircinemas.com.au to find the best one for your romantic date or family evening.

Chess in the Hub Ever y Thursday

Think lots of Ger man dancing with lots of Ger man beer.

City Slider: A Huge Travelling Water Slide April 12th, Sunday Tickets

Where: Level 4, Hub Central Time:

12-3pm

The Adelaide University Chess Club offers a fun and infor mal atmosphere for people to enjoy chess.

Adelaide University Film Society’s Double Feature

( to cover 90 minutes)

Early Bird: $29 (plus booking fee) Regular: $35 (plus booking fee) Looking for some shenanigans in town?

Slide down King William street on a 325 metre waterslide. Besides going nuts on the slide, enjoy a carnival atmosphere with food, music and fun.

Barossa Vintage Festival

April 2nd, Thursday

April 15th - 19th

Where: Union Cinema, level 5, Union House

Where: Barossa Valley

Time:

6:30pm

Cost: $3 for non-members; FREE for members Join in on Adelaide University Film Society’s “sense of whimsy” night as they screen Lost in Translation followed by Her. To become a 2015 member costs just $10 www.facebook.com/groups/aufilmsociety 4

What’s On + News

Cost:

Varies

Taste the world’s best food and wine within the char ming beauty of the Barossa Valley. Enjoy any one of 95 events over five days, including wild g ypsy parties, a decadent feast and a scarecrow trail.

For details visit: www.barossavintagefestival.com.au

APRIL 1ST TO 30TH The Education Issue

Ten Principles of Fair Trade

Artwork Competition

The Fair Trade Collective is running an art competition. To participate, create an artwork based on one of the Ten Principles of Fair Trade, and post your submission on the Facebook event wall. Drawings, digital art, and photography are all welcome. For details on the Ten Principles and submission guidelines, please visit: www.facebook.com/Fair.Trade.Collective.AU. All submissions will be posted on the Facebook page. The artwork with the most “likes” and “shares” wins. The winner will receive an assortment of fair trade goods.Competition and voting closes 8 May 2015, midnight.

SACE Art Show March 21st - April 29 Where: Light Square Galler y Times:

Monday to Friday: 9am to 4pm Saturday: 10am to 4pm, Closed on Sunday, during the Easter break and ANZAC day.

Spend an hour or two appreciating some wonderful art and design put together by Year 12 Visual Arts students

Flinders Street Market Ever y Sunday & Saturday from April 26th Where: 230 Flinders Street Times: 10am - 3pm ever y weekend Mar vel at and buy lots of locally crafted products. Arts, crafts, food, vintage ware, clothing - it’s all here!

Oz Comic-Con April 18th - 19th Where: Adelaide Showgrounds.

Times: 9:00am – 6:00pm each show day Cost: From $15 Breath pop culture, dress up as a superhero, hang out with a herd of nerds - what more could you want? Oz Comic Con is full of exhibitions, celebrities and special panel events, all for pop culture fans.

Want to participate in a Nutrition and Metabolism study?

Are you a slightly overweight male aged 18-45 years?

on a high-fat diet. You will be reimbursed $260 for your time. If you are interested check out:

If so, Adelaide University researchers are looking for you to participate in a study measuring the effects of high-intensity exercise

www.sahmri.com/our-research/themes/ nutrition-metabolism/research/list Or email tom.butler@sahmri.com Around Campus

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LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Sirs.

What’s up with O’Week? My understanding is that it’s meant to be about orientating students to life at Adelaide Uni, but while attending the stalls on the bar smith lawn, I didn’t find much actually relating to Uni. Don’t get me wrong, it’s important to have 3 different bank accounts with 3 different banks, and I am certainly glad to now know how to travel with the money I don’t have, due to knowing what bars to frequent... but why were the Engineering students allowed in what was very clearly a sponsored area with nothing to do with being at Uni? Yes, yes, I know. Clubs were on the maths lawns, put out of the way so they didn’t bother the union’s sensibilities. Is the union planning to reinstate funding to the Clubs association anytime soon, or are they still pretending this system works better? Because I’ve been infor med by other students who remember the glory days how well O’Week worked under the CA, they even had a camp?!? What happened?

Yours, Ash Cur now Hi Ash, Record attendances of over 15,000 at this year’s O Week sug gest your recollection of it may not mirror that of most students, who seemed to enjoy the mix of entertainment and other activities and offerings the week contained.

Sponsors, as you would be aware, help to pay for at least half the costs of our running of O Week and we work hard to try and find ones who are actually relevant to students in some way. The second most popular response to

the University’s sur vey of ‘what students want more of at O Week’ was ‘Free Stuff ’ so it looks like they didn’t mind too much. Other groups on the Barr Smith Lawns included the SRC, student media, the Union, the Medical Students and indeed the Engies whose physical infrastructure requirements were so significant (and so popular) it was best to put them there.

Since disaffiliating the Clubs Association the Union has grown the number of clubs on campus from 106 to 137 registered clubs in just one year. Those clubs have now got their own pretty amazing space on the Maths Lawns, shared with the sporting clubs, during O Week. It is hardly ‘out of the way’, it is a major focus of O Week and takes months of site planning to coordinate. Most clubs got at least two days of stall bookings due to the increased space and infrastructure provided, as well as personalised signage. All the feedback from clubs who took a spot on the lawns was positive, including one club President who told me that moving clubs out of the carpark (their home during the ‘glory days’) to be ‘the best thing to ever happen to clubs’. In fact a number of clubs had record sign-ups this year.

So no, funding isn’t going to be ‘restored’ to the CA any time soon, and nobody except the for mer Executive members of the CA is referring to those times as ‘the glory days’.

The camp idea folded due to lack of interest some years ago. The Union has moved on and clubs are now big ger and better, with funding for grants doubled this year and extra events planning resources to help clubs in 2015.

We’re doing the best we can with limited resources to help clubs be as good as they can.

Dianne Janes General Manager Adelaide University Union

A N OT E F ROM YOUR EDITORS:

We love to read your letters. If you want to rant about something, complain about an article we’ve published or simply make a random observation, write to us at ondit@adelaide.edu.au.

Alternatively, slip something under our door.

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Letters to the Editor

ADELAIDE U N I V E R S I T Y S P O RT Patrick Edwards of AU Sport What’s your dream day? Sipping coconut juice on a Bahamas beach? Cutting deals and building empires on Wall Street?

Not for me. Honestly, my dream day is playing the sport I love, before partying hard at night.

Luckily, for two weeks a year my dream becomes reality at Uni Games, the week-long sporting events in which the Adelaide Uni Blacks are proud participants.

Bringing together universities from across the countr y, Uni Games are the ultimate athletic extravaganza for tertiar y students. The standard of competition is high, the after-dark social activities are pumping and the atmosphere is unforgettable. An average day for competitors goes like this: 1.

Wake up early (you’ve got a match in twenty minutes!) and throw down a Powerade with Woolies cheese-and-bacon roll (my Uni Games meal of choice).

2.

Grab an extra fifteen minutes sleep on the bus ride to the venue before throwing yourself into war m-up routines. The proverbial “they” say it’s the key to preventing injur y, and by Day Five, ever y little bit helps.

3.

Play. Hard. The lights may be too bright, the whistle too loud and the opposition a lot uglier than they looked under the influence of six Jaegerbombs last night, but it’s game time.

Besides, there are two more games that day for you to improve your personal stats.

4.

Over the day you’ll have naps, coffees, hot chips, backr ubs and cheeky glances at that girl from RMIT. The standard of competition is strong, but the quality of banter is higher. R Kelly’s “Bump n Grind” will also be stuck in your head; you won’t know why.

5.

At the conclusion of the day’s matches, it’s time to get some rest and food before firing up the team to get absolutely mag goted to enjoy the social program for that night!

While there are various Uni Games around Australia, Adelaide University competes in two: the Southern University Games and the larger Australian University Games. The Southern University Games are the regional version of the Australian Uni Games, involving university teams from South Australia, Victoria and Tasmania.

One of the great things about the Southern Games is that they’re almost always in a countr y town, and in 2015 will be appropriately held in Australia’s largest countr y town: Adelaide. These games remain highly competitive while being around half the cost of the Australian Games.

On a personal note, Uni Games have found me new friendships both within my own team and with students from other universities around Australia. The Adelaide University Blacks have a powerful reputation on both the field and the dance floor; it is tr uly a pleasure to be part of the team, and as a new player I found myself welcomed immediately.

Uni Games is all about balancing high quality competition with a relaxing social environment, and are honestly the best week of my year. No matter whether you’re a novice athlete or a seasoned pro, join the Blacks team as soon as you can - you’ll still be kicking yourself for not having gone sooner.

As mentioned, this year Adelaide is hosting Southern University Games from July 5th – 9th.

The Australian University Games will be back on the Gold Coast on September 27th – October 2nd. But if you’re a little unsure and want a taste of Uni Games before you commit, check out the SA Challenge on April 10th (summer sports) and July 16th - 17th (winter sports).

For more infor mation, head to the Adelaide University Blacks website: http://www.theblacks.com.au/unigames Or email us: unigames@theblacks.com.au

Adelaide University Sport

7

HUMANS OF

ADELAIDE UNIVERSITY 1) J: The toilets on the first floor of the A: 2 ) J: 3) J: A: 4) J: A: 5) J: A:

Bar Smith Library.

Yeah those toilets are pretty bad.

There is a lot of graffiti The guy with the piano on wheels.

Good time management and to engage more in campus life.

Socialising and studying at the same time.

No, I’d do something else.

I’d pay up to $150k.

Two thumbs up. You should also do music, travel and food editions!

Whatever.

Joshua & Andreas - Petroleum Engineering 1) None, the campus is pretty clean.

2) Hmm, it’s a toss up between the guy with long hair that plays electric keyboard and the biker that plays the flute.

3) Voice your opinions – whether you think they will be appreciated or not.

4) Yes – but not if upfront.

5) Absolutely!

Eliza - 4th Year, International Studies & Arts

1) 2) 3) 4) 5)

Apoorv - 2nd Year, High Performance Computational Physics 8

Humans of Adelaide University

The hearts of haters The Flamenco Duo Question everything.

Hell no. Education should be free.

I don’t see why not. Knowledge is knowledge.

1) 2) 3) 4) 5)

Dirtiest/worst place on campus?

Favourit e busker in Adelaide?

What’s the most important thing you’ve le arnt at the University of Life?

Would you come t o uni if you had t o pay up t o $100,000 for a degre e?

Should On Dit have a s ex e dition this ye ar?

Annie, Raji & Kerriann

(left to right) - 2nd Year Science, 1st Year Psych & 1st Year Arts

1) A: The Union building; it’s a bit

dark and creepy.

K: The toilets in the kitchen 2 ) K: The old guy with the beanie and the really tight jeans that plays guitar.

R: The puppeteer who does Puss in Boots.

3) K: Not take things so seriously R: How to treat other people.

A: Get to know your lecturer... I don’t 4) 5)

understand the question *laughs* No way.

Yeah!!

1) C: Any of the male toilets.

J: Definitely the Med School, more specifically the male toilets in the Med School.

2 ) C: My cousin. He’s ten years old and plays the

saxophone. He just won a scholarship actually.

3) C: How much your learning can improve through socialisation with others.

4) J: That would make choosing a degree very

tricky. You would have to pick one and then you would probably be stuck with the same job for the rest of your life.

5) J: Well, I’m a male. Haha, but no, I’m fairly religious so I probably wouldn’t read it.

C: I’m religious too, so not for me. But I know some students are more open about things so I don’t mind.

John & Chris (left

to right) - 1st year, Nursing Around Campus

9

S RC P R E S I D E N T Renjie Du, President of the SRC

When they receive an offer from universities, their parents have to get loans or even sell their houses in the rural region to pay for the tuition. So, since high school, I came to understand that affordable and accessible university education could help more students from a disadvantaged background to get well-paying jobs that are different from their parents’, and that change the lives of their families. Cheaper education, therefore, is essential for a society’s social justice and equality.

So, let’s talk about education. To me, education is the opportunity to change one’s life, especially for people from disadvantaged backgrounds.

When I was in high school in China, I had a classmate there who came from a single income family. His mother carried a basket on the street and sold small pieces of candy to passers-by. In 2007 my friend told me that his mum was earning less than 500 yuan (100 AUD) a month and that’s all they had to live on.

Despite his circumstances, my friend studied extremely hard to make his parents proud. For him, going to the university was his family’s single hope to change their lives for the better. He is not alone. I know hundreds of students like him, whose families live under the UN’s poverty line and who study from 7am to 11pm, trying to better their lives through education.

10 SRC President

When looking at the education debate in Australia, I am shocked that in such a developed country with such a good welfare system, almost all of our politicians are looking to squeeze more cash from the education sector. Top ranking universities not only create more jobs, better skilled workers, and leading researches, but also help provide the nation’s second big gest industry and a great source of national pride. Australians have always been proud of our top-ranking universities. High quality education and the world-leading research produced by them have benefited Australians and the world alike. And they have not let us down, especially not economically, since the education sector is Australia’s second big gest business sector.

In recent years we have seen more overseas students coming to Australia to study, from primary school to PhD students, and creating job opportunities, from small restaurants to real estate. So instead of worrying about how much education is costing us, we must be very aware that we are earning money from it. And compared with other industries, such as the mining industry, it is for sure a much more sustainable industry. But who would come to study in Australia if we should no longer have the best universities?

When we see all our neighbour countries increasing their funding for education, it is extremely frustrating to see that both sides of the parliament, Labor and Liberal, are trying to find new ways to cut funding for it.

Of all the countries and foreign shores, I chose to study in Australia because it would provide a

world-leading university education at an affordable price. However, with the continual cuts made to education funding and with the increased ranking of Asian universities, I am not sure whether overseas students will still choose to study in Australia in five years’ time.

I think the solution for this is very clear: the education funding should be the last thing a government reduces. I hope that we all make decisions responsibly for the nation’s future.

What sort of a country will Australia become if all politicians make decisions to win short-ter m popularity?

However, scaringly, in the current political situation and with the continual cutting of our university funding, we might see that discussion happen in the very near future, sooner than we imagine.

Fact: watching the stupid MPs debating on education cut reminds me that this is exactly why we need more funding for education.

Renjie Du President Student Representative Council srcpresident@auu.org.au

I am sure 20 years from now none of us will want to tell our children that the university we attended was much better in 2015. And can you imagine what kind of a country Australia would be if none of our universities were in the top 100?

Around Campus 11

S TAT E O F T H E U N I O N Amelia Briggs, AUU President Another On Dit, another column from me. As I write this I’m drinking the free tea I got at O’Week (there’s heaps left over, believe me) and thinking about the different things that affect our education – the theme of this issue!

When I’m sitting in a computer lab at 9pm and crying because I’m already three days late submitting my assignment (everyone does this, right?), it gets a bit difficult to think about my education as bigger than that. In fact, I don’t really think of what I’m doing as education at all. I’m just sort of… doing it. I think this is fairly common, both for undergraduates and postgraduates. But maybe I’m just being overly philosophical.

There are over 20,000 undergraduate students at this University, and around 10,000 postgraduates to boot. With that many students, you can bet there are a lot of different teachers, lecturers, academics and tutors, as well as many assignments to be marked. Clearly, one of the biggest factors affecting our education is the University itself, and the decisions it makes about our learning. Right now, in universities across the country, a worrying trend of decisions have been made that are not very student-friendly; these include increasing class sizes and cutting courses and tutoring budgets.

Adelaide University is no exception to this, even though it is worth remembering that there are a lot of lecturers and tutors who are truly dedicated to making courses great.

to pay whatever universities decide to charge them – meaning they pay far, far more. The proposed model is similar to the way universities in the US work.

Sp e c i f i c a l l y, it means the government would fund universities as a whole about 20 per cent less.

We’ve seen a lot of outcry from students across the country about these changes.

This is because students have the biggest impact on education. I know a lot of people are paying attention. I see them complaining on Overheard all the time. I would just like to remind everyone in a kind and hopefully non-patronising way that there are other places to complain. The University uses SELTs to analyse the quality of teaching from school to school. University administrators meet with the SRC President and myself once a month, and we tell them what students have told us. We also have big meetings for you to tell them directly, like the forum the SRC ran with the Vice-Chancellor last year. We can write emails to lecturers if the course is poorly run (I do this constantly and am surprised they haven’t blacklisted me from the email list) and write emails to politicians, too.

Outside of our university there are other players.

Our government is a major source of funding for universities. As you must know by now if you read this column regularly (since I can’t seem to go a week without mentioning it), the Federal Government has proposed a vast overhaul of the funding model to universities, which was just voted down in the Senate for a second time. The Bill basically involved deregulating fees, which would allow universities to charge whatever they want to domestic students.

Interestingly, international students already have

There are over 30,000 students at this university alone. We shouldn’t underestimate the power our numbers give us. If we all came together and asked for what we want, it would have a phenomenal effect. It sounds really corny, but it’s also true – the Senate listened to students on fee deregulation.

The university and the government alike both start paying attention when thousands of people tell them they want something – wouldn’t you?

Website: auu.org.au Facebook: facebook.com/adelaideuniversityunion

Twitter: twitter.com/UnionAUU Instagram: instagram.com/adelaideuniversityunion

12 State of Union

the unoficial guide to

CLUBS

on campus The Bacchae Club Do you like togas and gladiators? The Bacchae Club is perfect for anyone studying Classics or with a general interest in the Ancient World. With a spread of students from many different faculties around Adelaide University, we provide a meeting place for like-minded people to share their passion for Classics and make some steadfast friends in the process. Our events throughout the year include quiz nights, museum tours, film screenings and pub crawls.

Like us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/groups/ TheBacchae

The Adelaide University Film Society

Japanese Language and Cultural Society (JLACS)

The Adelaide University Film Society is less so a society, and more a huge, friendly, social rabble of film enthusiasts. The AUFS is committed to sharing cinema culture with anyone and everyone, while still being a Uni club that loves alcohol.

We screen films every Thursday night in the University’s cinema. Films are selected by members for members, and we have all sorts of other events to get involved with, such as Quiz Nights and Pub Crawls.

JLACS is a club perfect for students interested in Japan, its language, its culture and its people.

Guided by our student tutors, our weekly study sessions provide a fantastic chance for current or future language learners to practise amongst their peers. Social events are also plentiful throughout the year.

If you want to get in touch email us at film@auu.org. au or find us on Facebook.

If this sounds appealing to you, you can reach us at japanese@auu.org.au

Apologies to the Pride Club for publishing the wrong abbreviation in the previous edition.

Clubs on Campus

13

The Good, The Braggs and The Flentje

A BRIEF GUIDE TO

LECTURE THEATRES Milly Schultz-Boylen Photography by Viray Thach

Ah, lecture theatres – one of the few objects which have only ever experienced love in the for m of young couples making out in their back row.

Sure, these spaces have cr ushed the career aspirations of many with their drab décor, Stalinist atmosphere and monotonous hosts but, believe it or not, there are a few treasures amongst the trash.

Thus, to save you from entering yet another lecture theatre that smells like a wet dog rolled around on a linoleum floor, I’ve written a handy guide to the best and worst of Adelaide’s lecture theatres.

Scott The atre

At first glance Scott Theatre is pretty great: it has cushioned seats, two floors, high ceilings and a stage (tr uly cr ucial for my education). Yet, I can’t help feeling that it knows it’s great. Perhaps it’s just the combined stench of Lynx and day-old g ym-clothes, but every time I walk in here I feel like I’m being cornered at the Unibar by a bunch of smug dudes named Scott who really want me to come back and check out the “incredible view from their balcony”. Alternatively, there could be something in the air making me delirious.

Tr uth be told, despite its flashy appearance, Scott Theatre isn’t actually the best learning environment. The seats are far too comfortable and lights far too dim to allow one to concentrate.

Combine these features with an apocalypticallytedious lecturer and you’ve got yourself a prime

14 A Guide to Lecture Theatres

napping spot or – if you’ve a laptop and a few dollars for popcorn – an excellent DIY cinema.

When To Go: For napping, or when you’re feeling too sting y to pay $11 at the Palace Nova.

Darling West Lecture The atre

When Hilary Duff famously decreed ‘Hey now, hey now, this is what dreams are made of ’ she definitely wasn’t referring to Darling West.

I don’t know who designed this place but they had obviously never encountered anyone over five feet tall, as the seating rows lack any semblance of legroom. To make matters worse, the seats feel like they were made from bike seat minus the seat. The adjoining tables seem to be possessed by poltergeists, and the fluorescent lighting provides all the ambience of a torture chamber.

This is not living.

When to Go: When you want to experience what a 20-hour Sydney-to-LA economy-class flight feels like with a crying baby on your left and a flatulent butterball on your right.

Flentje Lecture The atre:

Flentje is a haven for Goldilocks everywhere. The seats are comfortable yet not sleep-inducing, and it’s large enough for you to sit in the back row mindlessly playing Trivia Crack without being noticed while remaining within earshot of the droning lecturer. Plus it’s equipped with multiple exit points, rendering the quick escape from the three bears an anxiety-free process.

Fairy tales aside, Flentje is also a real estate agent’s dream: it nails location, location, location. Food, coffee, bathrooms and the Barr Smith Library are located just a minute’s walk away, and its handy placement within the Hub means patrons can safely enter and exit without being pestered by political radicals and old school friends whom they haven’t seen in “like, forever”.

it does have windows, which are the lecture theatre equivalent of a tennis court. All in all, it’s pretty snazzy.

When To Go: When you’ve realised your degree is worthless and have nowhere else to go.

Unibar

When To Go: That rare occasion when you actually feel like attending a lecture.

“The Brag gs is like the wealthy kid from school whom you wanted to befriend purely because they had a tennis court, a pool and a flatscreen TV” The Braggs Lecture The atre

The Brag gs is like the wealthy kid from school whom you wanted to befriend purely because they had a tennis court, a pool and a flat-screen TV. The Brag gs has none of these things but

Okay, the Unibar isn’t technically a lecture theatre but hear me out. This venue allows both the purchase and consumption of food and drink (unlike most educational facilities), but also hosts a series of characters who, given the chance, will chew your ear off about a topic on which they have absolutely no authority to speak.

Instead of a PowerPoint slideshow, these “lecturers” use alcohol as their source of infor mation; however, like regular professors, they also lack any awareness of the passage of time.

P.S. It sells beer.

When To Go: For beer and unsolicited monologues.

Education 15

SRC EDUCATION OFFICER COLUMN JACK NEWTON

A first year student approached me during O’Week, and after a little discussion I asked him, ‘What do you think education is?’.

Pondering over this question for a moment, the freshie simply replied, ‘Education is the key to our future’. In seven words, he had hit the nail on the head.

Indeed, education is crucial to the ability of present and future leaders and citizens to create solutions, find new paths to a better future and contribute to the better ment of society. Education is the key to finding solutions to contemporary global economic, societal and environmental problems.

Education is the key to our future and I praise the editorial team for their commitment to devoting an entire edition of On Dit to educational affairs and issues that we face as a student body.

Undoubtedly, with images of protesters screaming and burning effigies splashed across the newspapers, many people must have gathered that the higher education refor m is a hot issue at the moment. At the time of writing this column, the Higher Education Refor m Bill had just been defeated in the Senate for a second time.

Nevertheless, as your Education Officer, I would like to clarify one important misconception that has come about amongst the piffle since debate began around changes to higher education.

This misconception, held by some, is that people of low socioeconomic status (SES) would be excluded from enrolling in tertiary education if fees were deregulated. This is incorrect. SES background is not the strongest indicator of whether a person enrols. Instead, it is their prior school perfor mance. Indeed, when higher education was free under the Whitlam government, 80 per cent of the increase in enrolments were from people

16 Education Officer Column

already most likely to attend university, based on their SES background, this being the middle class.

From this, it would be fair to conclude that students from low SES backgrounds who do not perfor m strongly in school are simply not interested in attending university in the first place, perhaps preferring to pick up a trade or gain a vocational education. By contrast, the students from lower SES backgrounds who perfor m strongly at school are highly likely to go on to university. For students from low SES backgrounds who perfor m poorly but still wish to attend university, the deregulation of university fees allows for more freedom to provide different programs, including preparatory courses to provide a pathway into university. It is clear that low SES background students will not be excluded from enrolling in tertiary education if fees are deregulated, instead benefiting from the new pathways available.

Whilst this is only a small part of the debate, it highlights the complexity of these refor ms and the various matters to be dealt with. I trust you will enjoy this publication and consider fairly all the positions taken on the refor ms.

If I can ever be of assistance, please feel free to contact me via my email: srceducation@auu.org.au

Deregulation: WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN? Rose Steele, President of the National Union of Students Students barely had the chance to call in the victor y of the defeat of deregulation in the Senate again before Minister for Education Christopher Pyne announced he would be either taking the refor ms back to Parliament or taking them to an election!

Enough is enough. Christopher Pyne is not listening to students and the 80 per cent of Australians who do not support deregulation. But what does it all mean? Deregulation means that the Federal Government will no longer have a say over the cost (read: the upper limit) that universities charge students for tuition.

Deregulation means that Vice-Chancellors will set the fees of their institutions, and there will be no restriction on the price that is set. All indicators show that this will send us down the path of the United States, creating a two-tiered system where there are super expensive and exclusive universities and poorer community colleges. Students will be divided by the income of their families rather than judged on the merit of their minds. If this sounds troubling, you’re not alone in your concerns.

Students beginning their first year of university in 2015 have essentially agreed to an undisclosed cost of their education. Students who are currently enrolled in an undergraduate degree could also be stung by the changing fee structure if the Federal Government is able to win over enough of the cross-bench Senators.

Aside from the personal hip-pocket hit that students will face, what about the concerns that fee deregulation will irreversibly change the fairness in our higher education system?

We know that students from regional areas will be limited in choice of university due to their geography; we know that women students will take longer to pay their debt back due to the continuing salary gender gap and time taken out of the workforce to raise children.

We know that students from poorer families will strug gle with the idea of taking on such a financial commitment if their experience has made them weary of debt.

And we know that students who undertake careers in the public interest (nurses, researchers, paramedics, teachers, to name a few) will be deterred from studying these areas if their salaries aren’t enough to pay off their HECS debt for several decades.

Modeling from various research organisations and political parties show that the cost of degrees will soar to $100,000. So far the only university to nail their colours to the mast is the University of Western Australia, where Vice-Chancellor Paul Johnson declared all undergraduate courses would incur a fee of $16,00 each year. For a four year degree that’s $64,000 – quite a jump from the current cost of an arts degree that sits on average at $18,000.

It doesn’t seem fair, does it? It doesn’t seem fair particularly because students have been promised no more than the status quo. In fact, many students have been reporting that the quality of their educational offering has been declining in recent years.

Fee deregulation isn’t the only “refor m” that Prime Minister Abbott and Education Minister Christopher Pyne are peddling. They also intend to cut university funding by 20 per cent, which amounts to $5.5 billion. Make no mistake: this shortfall will come directly from students, and Vice-Chancellors are not our friends.

It’s a bleak picture, but we can stop this refor m.

We need to send a united, strong message to the public, to the federal government and to the senators that we won’t stand for this policy.

Deregulation: What does it all mean? 17

Life After

High Scho ol Sophie Atkinson Artwork by Jacqui Johns

If you’re reading this, chances are you’re at this strange point in your life; you’ve recently left school and you’re now starting university.

Some students arrive at university excited to start a new chapter in their lives, certain in their choice of degree. Or if you’re like me you f lop around in sheer panic, convinced you’ve chosen the wrong degree but with no idea what the right one is so you’re doomed for all eter nity. Luckily I’m now in a degree I enjoy but I had quite the jour ney getting to where I am now.

By the time Year 12 rolled around I was completely over the whole “learning” thing. Once a straight A student involved in every extracurricular possible to people remarking ‘Wow you still go here?’ on the rare occasion I drag ged myself into school that day.

After somehow managing to graduate with a semi-respectable TER the idea of more education didn’t exactly thrill me. I wanted to defer my degree but apparently gap years are for people who want to travel or work not for people who want to sit on the couch and eat chips.

So off I went to university because I felt I had no other option. When applying for university I decided to major in Drama because that was what I happened to feel like doing for the rest of my life on that particular day. Also it meant I could do puppetry as an elective. Plus after 13 years of school it didn’t sound like it would be too mentally challenging. I was very incorrect in that assumption. One of my first assignments was to

18 Life After Highschool

watch a physical theatre piece that involved several perfor mers in their underpants doing some kind of strange slow-motion interpretive dance to the sound of a guy beating a large drum. Occasionally one of them would yell out a word and then run really fast in a circle. This went on for a good two hours. I then had to write 2000 words about how the whole thing portrayed the strug gle of grief in accordance to the Kübler-Ross model.

The practical side of the course wasn’t much better either. A tutor who was perpetually stuck in the 70s, sporting a wardrobe of white trousers and silk paisley shirts with way too much chest exposure, led workshops. One early assignment was to devise a perfor mance piece in which we chose and played a personified animal. The tutor demonstrated this through an impromptu perfor mance, exclaimed he was a ‘sexy goat’ and started sensually rubbing himself on things and making goat noises for an uncomfortably long period of time. Shortly after this I began questioning whether this was really how I wanted to spend the rest of my life, and came to the realisation that while I had no idea what I wanted to do, I knew that this wasn’t it.

I decided in order to deter mine my true destiny I had to go on an adventure into the real world and so in a desperate measure I bought a one way ticket to London.

Finally I was living the gap year dream. I was still sitting on the couch and eating chips but I was doing it in a different country! I even managed to make use of my semester’s worth of an

reduced to the food that fell on the floor of the candy store where I worked. And so, I returned home to Australia. I had several months before university applications opened which gave me time to think and I came to the following realisation:

acting degree by landing a job as a scare actor.

The company I worked for ran these simulated apocalypse events where I would pretend to be a zombie, customers would shoot me with paintballs and then I would pretend to die while trying not to cry because paintballs hurt.

I was having so much fun gallivanting around London that my gap year turned into my gap years. At one point I had the brilliant idea of studying online – that way I could continue having adventures while simultaneously nourishing my mind. As I filled out the application I imagined myself ascending Mt Everest with a laptop in one hand listening to a philosophy lecture and becoming this well-travelled guru of all knowledge. In reality I was listening to lectures sprawled out on the couch in my burger jumper and space invader pyjama bottoms, usually giving up halfway through and opting for Netflix instead.

Surprisingly, I did not last very long at all in that course, mainly because online university is all of the boring parts of university like lectures and assignments without any of the fun parts such as leaving the house and enjoying basic human interaction.

Life isn’t like a Saturday morning cartoon where you have one single destiny that you must discover and then stick with for life. Whatever degree you choose doesn’t dictate the rest of your life; it’s more of a starting point which will lead into other things and then those things will lead into more things. Most of the people I know with cool jobs got them from being at the right place at the right time not because they did a specific degree. So, don’t stress. As long as you choose something you sort-of-kind-of like doing chances are you’ll end up in a job you sort of kind of like doing. That or it doesn’t matter what degree you end up doing because we’ll all end up as baristas anyway.

By this point I had grown tired of London life because my financial situation had been degraded so much that my accommodation was the floor in the corner of my friend’s room and my diet was

Education 19

On Dit’s Guide to D eregulation Serrin Rutledge-Prior Artwork by Mandy Li On Tuesday, March 17, the Senate voted by a margin of 34 to 30 to reject the changes to tertiar y education, as proposed by the Education Minister, Adelaide’s own Christopher Pyne, and the Abbott gover nment.

Those who oppose a potentially several-fold increase in university fees can say we dodged a costly bullet. However, those who worr y for the quality of Australia’s tertiar y education system, and who see deregulation of fees as the only way of ensuring we can compete in the global arena, might have preferred to bite the bullet.

Though the bill to refor m higher education was defeated, the issue of university deregulation won’t disappear any time soon – certainly not if Pyne’s somewhat macabre pronouncement to Today host Karl Stefanovic is anything to go by: ‘You couldn’t kill me with an axe Karl, I’ll keep coming back.’ 1 So what are the main points to consider in this debate?

First order of business: let’s get over the argument that because many of the politicians of today received a free tertiary education (back before 1 To be fair, Pyne wasn’t the only one deserving of derision in that exchange: after pronouncing the education bill to be a “dead duck”, Stefanovic implored Pyne to “let it fly away”, complete with flapping arm motions.

the Hawke Labor Government undid the work of the Whitlam Labor Government in 1989), they are somehow being hypocritical in supporting deregulation. Treasurer Joe Hockey, for example, was, in his student days, fer vently opposed to free education 2 . Such might have been his rage at this extravagant entitlement, that he decided to take a principled stand and pay for his degree. This would be as ridiculous, and quite as useless – if less illegal – than a supporter of free education refusing to pay his university fees today. Living within a certain social, economic or legal system does not automatically entail your support of it, as the members of Socialist Alliance can confir m as they try to sell you a copy of Green Left Weekly 3 .

You can do nothing or you can rebel against it, or you can try to work within it in order to change it. The third is what supporters of ‘user-pays’ schemes and deregulation have chosen to do. So let’s move on, shall we?

Another belief that has been bandied about is that of the “$100,000 degree”, à la those of our beleaguered American friends. Currently, the Australian government places caps on how much universities can charge students for their courses, as deter mined by which “band” subjects fall into, which is in turn dependent on how much students in particular fields are expected to earn upon entering the workforce. If deregulation passes and those caps are removed, universities will be given free reign to charge as much as they like – within the constraints of the global marketplace. How much is this likely to be? Should we start selling our less vital organs now? A good indicator of post-deregulation costs are probably international student fees. Here at Adelaide, the annual fee for 2 …which is, funnily enough, not the case (see: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/ joe-hockey-video-from-1987-shows-treasurer-protestingagainst-university-fees-20140528-394jn.html).

Still, should we not all be entitled to a time of youthful folly, of which we can later come to repent when we are Treasurer of the nation?

3 Hey, everyone who lives in a capitalist society needs to pay the bills/Green Left Weekly printing costs, even socialists.

20 An Official Guide to Deregulation

an international student in a Bachelor of Arts is $26,000, while a Commonwealth-supported domestic student pays the more modest $6,300 4 .

But this doesn’t tell the whole story. Many domestic students defer the payment of their fees via a HECS-HELP 5 loan, and will pay back their fees in later life only when their income has reached a certain threshold. The problem with this is that the longer you take to pay back your loan, the more interest you will be accruing. And, if your loan is big ger to start with, you will of course be paying more interest. To get an idea of how this might affect you, type your way to a nifty little website developed by the Maths department at ANU, which calculates the predicted cost of your education (including the interest that comes with a HECS loan) before and after deregulation (allowing you to adjust for factors like degree type and duration) 6 : www.maths-people.anu.edu. au/~alperj/deregulation/ So why would we agree to deregulation? For no other reason than the quality of our education, according to Pyne and friends. Without an increase in funding, it is easy to see how our universities would strug gle to compete with the Har vards and Oxfords of the world. Since the previous Labor government removed caps on student places at public universities – which certainly wasn’t a bad thing in itself – the number of Commonwealthsupported places has increased substantially. Add this to the fact that government funding would seem to be somewhat insufficient – if certain of our lecturers’ grumblings are anything to go by – and it is no wonder that universities have not been able to keep up. Indeed, over the past few years, your very own correspondent has seen tangible evidence of belt tightening within this university.

In the Humanities and Social Sciences, there was once a tutorial for every week of the semester; now that number has been cut down to ten. There were once enough seats for everyone in a tutorial room; now people sit on the floor. There was once thick, luscious toilet paper that didn’t break apart as you pulled it from the dispenser; now the TP has

fewer plies than Karl Stefanovic has suits 7 . Raising fees will mean universities can fix these more basic issues, as well as support better quality teaching and research. This will allow them to compete with the world’s top tier universities, particularly those in Asia.

Of course, it remains to be said that the government could always put more money into higher education... As that ever-fascinating spectacle and now-Independent Senator for Tasmania, Jacqui Lambie, has pointed out, ‘There are eight OECD countries who are leaders in world education, but can provide free university education, then why the bloody hell can’t Australia?’

It is doubtful that many, if any, will jump on the Lambie-wagon. We’re in the midst of a budget deficit after all; there simply isn’t enough money!

Except… There is enough money – it’s that we choose not to spend it on education. And, of course, that decision is the prerogative of the government that we have elected, whose job it is to represent the values that we as a country hold.

We want a good education, but we don’t want to pay for it, and neither does our government.

Perhaps when Clive Palmer has finished building his mechatronic dinosaurs, he’ll foot the bill?

7 Nope, that’s a lie. The toilet paper has always been bad.

4 As an Australian citizen, for most courses, you will be eligible for this government subsidy, and are probably already receiving it, whether you realised it or not!

5 Higher Education Contribution Scheme – Higher Education Loan Programme 6 I, for one, found that my four-year humanities degree would be costing me the much-less-than-onehundred-grand, $73,417. Bargain!

Deregulation Debate 21

KICK DEREGULATION TO THE CURB Why protest p olitics is more relevant than ever Angelo Tavlaridis, Socialist Alternative

Par t of last year’s federal budget included higher education refor ms that included uncapping university fees, cutting the gover nment contribution to HECS by 20 per cent, charging an interest rate on our HECS debt and lowering the repayment threshold by 10 per cent.

This was par t of a larger attack on the poor in Australia, with the g over nment announcing cuts to Newstar t, a work-for-the-dole scheme, cutting $534 million from indigenous prog rams and scrapping 16,500 jobs in the public sector. This comes at a time when Australia has never been wealthier, inequality has never been this serious, and the rich have never been g reedier.

The g over nment talks about ‘lifters and leaners’; it blames the poor, the disadvantaged and the unemployed to justify its cuts. The leaners in society are the ultra-rich like mining magnate Gina Rinehar t, who received $1.16 billion in tax credit in 2012, and media mogul Ruper t Murdoch who received $882 million in 2013, both heads of corporations that make massive profits.

According to research by the Australian National University, if the proposed changes were to pass, an accounting deg ree would cost $119,783 including $42,183 interest. Ar ts students would fork out $71,567 instead of $24,176; and with a star ting salar y of $52,500 as well as raises, it would take 21 years to repay this.

“If the idea of being subjected to at least twenty years of debt in exchange for a deg ree doesn’t interest you that much, then you 22 Kick Deregulation

should fight back.”

If the idea of being subjected to at least twenty years of debt in exchange for a deg ree doesn’t interest you that much, then you should fight back.

2014 was a g reat year for the student movement.

Students rallied in their thousands to voice their disapproval of the Abbott g over nment’s attacks on higher education.

The three key protests held by the National Union of Students made the higher education refor m bill the most unpopular par t of the budget.

After many successful national protests had taken place, a Fairfax Ipsos poll showed that 64 per cent of respondents opposed deregulation; among university g raduates, 72 per cent opposed deregulation.

This is extraordinar y because deregulation was one of the least talked about policies of Abbott’s class-war budget when it was released. The bill failed in the Senate and students across Australia rejoiced in their first decisive victor y against one of many attacks from the g over nment.

This wasn’t because students asked MPs nicely not to screw them over; it was because they took a stand and fought for their rights. Politicians, as slimy as they are, are not stupid. They can tell which way the wind is blowing, and when people organise and demonstrate in their thousands, there are vicious political consequences for those with bad policy.

Students ran Liberal MPs off campus, disr upted national television and generally caused hell for the g over nment. In August last year, the Prime Minister decided to give a talk at Adelaide University. His g over nment was proposing to cut

millions in funding from this university among others while enslaving its students in debt.

So not only was Abbott attempting to screw over students; he was making a statement to the public that the budget and g over nment were under his control, and that students would just accept the gutting of education funding.

Of course, we students couldn’t let the human embodiment of Montg omer y Bur ns just waltz into our uni without a fight. In a tr uly inspiring display of the tradition of student radicalism we gave Abbott a welcoming par ty he wouldn’t forget. We came in hundreds, disr upted Abbott’s talk and showed that we knew our rights to education and welfare and would defend them.

A number of student g roups across the countr y, such as Socialist Alter native, have been cr ucial to the campaign against the education cuts and, more widely, the budget. The day-in, day-out work of dedicated student-activists and unionists has built these campaigns into successful demonstrations that have actually achieved results.

“The only way we can keep those at the top of society accountable is by mounting pressure from below, and protesting in our thousands.”

We should draw inspiration from the most recent period of radicalisation in our universities: the 60s and 70s. In 1974 the Monash Revolutionar y Communists called for an occupation of the campus after a bitter conflict with the ViceChancellor over elitist entr y exams.

The occupation was characterised by mass meetings, constant discussion and debate.

Workers at the university also par ticipated, and the Revolutionar y Communists took a leading role in threatening the bureaucratic stability of the university.

As the occupation of the administration building continued and expanded, you can imagine the excitement of students as they experienced a glimpse of what university life and lear ning could be about. At the time the editors of Lot’s W ife, the Monash University student newspaper, wrote: ‘We now know concretely that lear ning does not have to be an alienated and alienating experience.’

University does not have to be a slog. It can be an engaging and fulfilling experience, but to achieve this we must str ug gle and defend our rights to education.

The only way we can keep those at the top of society accountable is by mounting pressure from below, and protesting in our thousands.

Abbott and Education Minister Christopher Pyne have mounted another attack on our education by tr ying to cram these ‘refor ms’ through the senate again, and the strateg y proven to be successful last year has to be the one we continue with this year.

Deregulation Debate 23

Interview with

Amanda Rishworth Shadow Assistant Minister for Education On Dit: Can you give us a brief summar y of the higher education changes that the Abbott Gover nment has proposed?

Amanda Rishworth: What they’re proposing is a set of unfair changes that could lead to universities being able to charge what they would like in ter ms of fees, and to students paying a lot more in ter ms of the cost of their education. That is effectively what the proposed changes are doing, at the same time as cutting public money out of higher education.

Can you give us a brief summar y of your opposition to the higher education changes that the Abbott Gover nment has proposed?

We are very, very concerned about the increase in fees for students. We believe that it’s going to have a negative impact and that we will see the cost of degrees increase significantly up to around $100,000. And there’s evidence now from the University of Western Australia that that is the case. But the second thing that we are very concerned about is that these will be a deterrent to choosing to study at university. That is not good for our country.

From what I understand you went to university under the HECS system. Was the fact that you had to at some stage pay off the course of your degree off-putting at the time and do you feel if you were entering university now, would you personally choose not to go to university given the new system?

At the time the cost of my degree and the amount of HECS that I had to repay back was a small proportion. I think it was around about 1/5th, that was my undergraduate degree.

I didn’t at all begrudge actually contributing to the education that I got.

Minister Pyne regards the website whatwillmydegreecost.com.au as “Greens and Labor propaganda”. That site is estimating a cost of $182,292 for a law degree including interest

24 Interview with Amanda Rishworth

under a deregulated system. Is there any truth to that figure given UWA’s announcement of its fees, which see Law costing some $92,00 according to The Australian?

Christopher Pyne has a lot of front to be questioning figures when his department and him as Minister have done no modeling whatsoever on what it will cost students. There has been nothing done in ter ms of scientific or empirical approach to this policy by the department and therefore he is not in a position at all to claim what it might cost because this is an ideological gallop by the Minister. In ter ms of UWA, Christopher Pyne said it was ridiculous to think that degrees would get anywhere even close to $100,000 and you’ve just quoted a number that gets pretty close to $100,000.

Do you think these changes, which as we have seen already, will on average increase a students HECS cost, will be off putting to students from lower socio economic backgrounds?

Well absolutely, they will be off putting to those who do not have as much money or might be first in their family ever to go to university, or mature age students wanting to go back. They may have left school and taken a job for a few years and decided they want to go back, have a career change and for those people—all those groups of people—I think this will be particularly off-putting.

I think when you’ve got a choice, sometimes if your choice is between do I get a mortgage, do I have a family or do I study at university, when those types of choices are put in front of you we shouldn’t be getting people to choose whether or not they take out a mortgage or actually go and get an education.

How would you respond to the criticism that the higher education package disproportionately disadvantages women?

Obviously Christopher Pyne was under significant pressure to make changes and of course the changes that were made to pause the indexation will to a small extent help women that do take time out of the workforce, but you’ve got to remember

under a deregulated system they are going to have a much larger debt to start off with. Nothing can deter people from that larger debt, whether its $92,000 or whether at the UWA where medicine is somewhere over $100,000. These things are going to impact women at the very start so I think that obviously when you actually look at the impact, sure he can tinker round the edges to make it more palatable but women will still end up taking longer to pay off their debt.

You talk about tinkering around the edges, are there any parts of the package that you find appealing or necessar y or that you would consider passing?

We think the whole package is flawed and as I said Christopher Pyne can tinker around the edges but ultimately we fundamentally disagree with the massive cuts to public education and the massive cuts to our universities that are in this package.

What does it say about Labor’s opposition when only one vice-chancellor actually opposes deregulation and all other vice-chancellors from other notable universities support it?

University vice-chancellors are one stake holder in this argument. It’s not surprising that if some of them had the opportunity to charge higher fees and get more income they would do that. They are not the only stakeholders in this debate. There are many other people including students, parents and in general the wider community that have a stake in what actually happens in our universities.

Christopher Pyne seems intent on passing it at some stage this year. What would you rate its chances?

He will try and do deals with the crossbench. I don’t think he has got a lot of chance to pass this because as I said, fundamentally this is unfair and the community is significantly against these changes. I’ve been out talking with students, with parents and this issue doesn’t just get brought up at universities.

understand the changes is a much more effective way to actually get your message across. They have a right to protest but should always be done in a respectful non-violent manner and certainly efforts should be going into actually talking, particularly to future students, and prospective parents of future students.

Amanda, given that the bill has already failed to pass the Senate once, what do you think the chances are of it successfully passing?

Well the first thing I would say is that the sector is perfor ming well.

Secondly I do think it’s a bit rich for the Minister to be talking about how this is so important to fix the budget deficit when indeed his deal with the crossbench ended up whittling away any or almost all the savings that will be made. It really is an ideological folly. Now should people contribute to their higher education? Absolutely. And as one of the few members of Parliament that has done that I don’t begrudge that at all, however it gets to a point where the amount of fees that you have to pay can be prohibitive.

You mentioned that you paid about 25 per cent of your total costs and you said that people are paying up to about 90 per cent under the new system. If it were your scheme that you were bringing before the Parliament, what percentage would you put into the legislation?

Well there is no particular figure because the cost varies across degrees. At the moment students pay about 40 per cent of the cost of their degree. I think that is an appropriate amount. Obviously it varies between degrees so I couldn’t give you a blanket figure, but certainly Christopher Pyne’s claim that the changes will mean that students pay only 50 per cent of their degree is blatantly false and despite what the advertising campaign sug gests. That 50 per cent figure has been disproved, with a number of the fee structures that have come out where business students at a couple of universities that have published their fees are paying up to 90 per cent of their degree.

Do you think students are doing themselves a favour by vehemently protesting against these changes often given that we have seen pictures of students being violent towards Cabinet members?

Look I understand people are very passionate about this issue, especially students. Violence doesn’t get you anywhere and to be honest, having conversations with people that don’t fully

Interviews 25

Interview with

Christopher Pyne Minister for Education and Training On Dit: the On times. not so time at

Minister, I’ve had a look back through Dit archives and you feature several Are there any particularly fond or fond memories that you have of your university?

Christopher Pyne: I did love being at university. I loved student politics and I can’t remember ever having a bad time at uni. I remember writing these pitiful handwritten letters to all the people that I knew in 1st year and 2nd year uni who had been to basically St Ignatius and Loretto cause that was my circle of friends.

When you stood for a spot on the Education Standing Committee in 1985 you remarked that it was your “duty” to do anything possible to stop the introduction of fees for tertiar y education. Did you take the same approach to entering federal Parliament? How do you reconcile your past statements with your current legislative agenda?

Well, I was wrong then and I’m right now. And people should be entitled to learn especially when they are 18 or 17 as I would have been in 1985 (or turning 18 that year) versus a more sensible 47 now.

So you would disregard ever ything that you’ve said in the past in that era?

The argument against the Higher Education Contribution Scheme (HECS) turned out to be wrong and interestingly it is the same argument that we are hearing now from the left. The argument from the left hasn’t changed. They are still arguing wrongly that fees mean that people from lower SES backgrounds don’t go to university.

In the UK there is so called “free education” in Scotland. There are fees in England but the percentage of students from a lower SES going to university is higher and growing in England and lower and falling in Scotland so in fact the argument for free education that it leads to people from low SES background being able to get to university is not born out by fact or experience and it is simply a romantic mythologia of the Whitlam era which sadly the left has not moved on from.

26 Interview with Christopher Pyne

Can you give us a brief summar y of the higher education changes that the Abbott Gover nment has proposed?

Because Labor cut $6.6 billion we are allowing unis to raise more revenue from students so that more Australians will get the opportunity to go to uni and our unis will compete with the best in the world.

For your law degree that you studied at Adelaide University between 1985-88 you paid a grand total of $0. According to whatwillmydegreecost.com.au a student studying the same degree under your deregulated system will be up for $182,292 including interest, which is up from the current $49,000 cap. It will take this student 40 years to pay off. Does this not at all strike you as hypocritical?

Well that website is simply Greens-Labor propaganda. They’ve simple taken the fee, added 20 per cent to it, which is the cut to the commonwealth grant scheme and then added 50 per cent to that figure and said that’s the new fee structure. And of course they’ve applied the 10 year government bond rate so that on a couple of fronts the foundation is entirely false. Secondly no university in Australia has announced fees that come anywhere even halfway close to the ridiculous figures on that website.

The University of Wester n Australia has announced that a medical degree will be costing in excess of $100,000 that is quite a significant amount for many, many students.

Medical graduates are amongst the highest paid people in our society. Because of our HECS they can only ever be asked to pay at the most 8 per cent of their income when they get to $108,000 a year of their income. Because many are likely to be specialists, they will be able to pay that back much faster than almost anybody else in the community.

Minister you are a reasonably wealthy man who was lucky enough to take advantage

of a free education (If only that were true: I have 4 very expensive children). Don’t you think your changes, which will on average increase a students HECS cost, will be offputting to students from lower Socio economic backgrounds? Don’t you think staring at that figure at the start of university and this enor mous figure at the end: don’t you think that will be off putting to those who don’t have a lot in life?

No I think the opposite is the case. All the experience since the introduction of HECS has been that the opposite has occurred. That the charging of fees has led to universities being able to offer vastly more places at university, better quality degrees, that has lead to a massive expansion in people from low SES background going to university.

You’ve failed to pass the bill through the senate. So it is not currently law, so you’re spending I imagine millions of dollars on a vast campaign. Does that not seem particularly fair to the taxpayer, that you’re advertising what is essentially party policy?

Well the infor mation campaign is not about the government’s policy, it’s about the continuation of the HECS and to assure people who are planning to go to university or who are currently there and for that reason it is entirely justifiable.

How would you respond to the criticism that your Higher Ed package disproportionately disadvantages women?

Well, I can’t see that women will be disadvantaged by these refor ms because Vice Chancellors will take into account a capacity of people to repay their HECS debt and for that reason some courses will be more expensive than others. And now that we have changed the 10 year government bond rate to CPI rather than the 10 year government bond rate there will be no compounding interest. And finally of course as part of the 2nd round of this refor m if a person leaves the workforce in order to have a child the HECS debt will be “suspended” if you like for that period of time with a maximum of 5 years so that in fact there will be no interest levied on the HECS debt at all during that period.

Minister, given that the bill has already failed to pass the Senate once, what do you think the chances are of it successfully passing?

Well I think a lot of people are very surprised that I managed to get four votes out of the six that I needed from the crossbenchers. I am working with all the cross benchers and I have reason to believe that with each of the crossbenchers I think there is a prospect of success depending on how the various balls in the air that we have to jug gle and end up falling.

Minister are there any parts of the package that you would consider revising in light of the gover nments failure to pass the bill once?

Well I want to see refor m of the universities pass the senate. It’s vitally important for the future of our universities. If we don’t refor m universities we will eventually fall behind all of our competitors.

So if we don’t do anything, as Universities Australia have said, it is a recipe for mediocrity. As Sandra Harding the VC of James Cook has said, “the status quo is not an option”. Our refor ms are vital.

So there will not be further Americanization, if you will, of our university system?

Well the American system is not comparable with the Australian system because they don’t have a higher education contribution scheme. That’s number one. So they can’t borrow every dollar from the Australian taxpayer and pay it pack at the lowest interest rates they will ever have to pay on a loan in their lives.

There’s also not the billions of dollars of philanthropy that is commonplace in top US universities where for example at Stanford I think every single student at Stanford is on a scholarship.

All the so called “Ivy league” universities have a huge percentage of students that are on scholarships paid for out of philanthropic bequests that we don’t have in Australia. We have the fantastic HECS and there’s nothing of its like in the US so comparing the US to Australian universities is simply a nonsense.

And so you’re looking to increase scholarships available to student from lower SES backgrounds as part of your package?

Of course! The third element of our refor ms is the massive expansion of Commonwealth scholarships.

The big gest Commonwealth scholarship scheme in Australian history which will be skewed to low SES students, rural and regional students.

Interviews 27

Removing the Hurdles to World-Class Education Robert Katsambis, immediate past Liberal Club President

This may come as a surprise to you, but there are no Australian universities in the world’s top 20. This is perhaps the biggest argument for fee deregulation and it is the same argument that the Treasurer put forward on budget night last year.

to 2013 where there were over 720,000 students enrolled in paid-for undergraduate degrees. Quite simply, an extra 340,000 Australian students had the opportunity to go to university when education was not free. When education is “free”, it is only so for the privileged few.

It is the view of the Liberal Party that Australian universities should have the means and incentives to stride for excellence and offer our students a world-class education. The view of the Labor Party and the Greens is that scare campaigns and fallacies should deter mine the future of our universities.

We know that the Left’s answer to that conundrum involves throwing more taxpayer funds at universities by increasing taxes and spending the money of others, money they don’t actually have. We know this because it is their solution to everything. But on the Right we know that there isn’t this bottomless pit of money that we can blindly throw at whatever the Left thinks is politically advantageous that day, and consequently waste money that’s not ours.

This article can be seen partly as a commentary on the deregulation debate, but also as an argument in favour of paid higher education and the need to introduce fee deregulation to ensure a high quality, sustainable university system.

Free Education The Labor Party, the Greens and crazy socialist groups argue against university fee deregulation because, in their opinion, university education should be free. This argument should quickly be dismissed.

Under Whitlam’s free education system only the privileged few could go to university. Only those naturally gifted students who already had the skills before going into university were given the opportunity to have a higher education. This stifled opportunity in higher education, a key tenant of the Left’s philosophy inadvertently compromised through the use of populist rhetoric.

It is because of this that only about 380,000 students were able to have a “free education” in the final year of the elitist scheme Compare this

28 Removing the Hurdles to World-Class Education

Fee Deregulation In 2009 the Rudd Government uncapped university places. Before this, universities were restricted in the number of students they could have in any given degree. Now they are not restricted. This is a move that all sides of politics seeking equality of opportunity in Australian universities should view as a big win.

However, because fees remained capped, the university system cannot handle the demand from more students in the future. The Vice-Chancellors of every university in the country – except one – acknowledge this problem.

The free-market rationale for fee deregulation is simple. Universities can charge more for degrees so that they can have the funds to improve the quality of education. They can compete with each other to run the best degrees and attract the best minds to teach and learn. In short, you benefit from a higher quality education.

Not surprisingly, the only criticism I hear from the student population is from a minority of less than one percent of students that spend all their time violently protesting and standing out in front of the Hub trying to recruit students into archaic, failed ideological experiments.

It seems to be the students that will never use their degrees that are the ones complaining about the cost. I understand their predicament. Why would they want to pay more for a degree that they aren’t going to be using?

Further, Labor and the Greens like to yarn on about fee deregulation leading to higher student debt. They leave out the rest of the story though: this is a debt that students voluntarily accept and in exchange they get reap the benefits of a higher quality education.

When we as Liberals talk about debt, we talk about it in the context of delivering a better quality education to our students. A deregulated education sector is one that will deliver better quality education and endow in our students an ability to succeed in the wider world.

Disadvantaged Students Part of the aim of this article is to combat the false and misleading scare campaign run by Labor and Greens students that fee deregulation will severely compromise the ability of disadvantaged students to go to university and get a high quality tertiary education.

The government’s deregulation package preser ves the HECS-HELP system. Under the governments proposed system of fee deregulation, no student will have to pay one cent up front. Students now will, as before, only have to start paying when they earn over $50,000 per year. This ensures that all

students have the ability to go to university now without having to worry about the cost. It does not discriminate on your current wealth and income.

A student born to a family of millionaires will have to pay the same amount while they are studying as would the poorest student in Australia: NOTHING! With such a system in place, it is totally ludicrous to say that the refor ms favour the rich and lock the poor out of universities.

In fact, one in every five dollars of additional revenue raised will be spent on scholarships for disadvantaged students. If anything, fee deregulation results in more opportunities for disadvantaged students as well as a higher quality education system.

The problem with the government’s refor ms.

By deregulating fees and forcing universities to compete, the government is providing incentives to lift the standard of education and to innovate in our tertiary sector. I do, however, add that the government must also establish an independent regulator to prevent anti-competitive behavior such as price gouging.

Deregulation will not prevent anti-competitive behavior in and of itself. The HELP system means that students won’t pay upfront and have a generous loan scheme which creates a moral hazard, the result being that a lot of students will pay a higher price for their degree that gives them no added value without thinking about the costs and benefits.

The reason for this is that universities will are ultimately money-hungry institutions. Like every other government bureaucracy, they will sell their soul for more funding in order make themselves relevant and to entrench the position of decision makers within the department. They know that most students defer their fees on HECS and that

Deregulation Debate 29

Removing the Hurdles to World-Class Education (Cont inued) Robert Katsambis, immediate past Liberal Club President

they can simply jack-up the price of a degree without giving students more for the higher cost of their degree.

Without some regulation like this, I cannot see how the full potential of competitive system can be realised.

Support from Students Anti-deregulation groups on campus like to claim that they have widespread support from the student cohort. In reality, the support comes from two distinct types of people. The first are the political hacks who have more regard for the offal that gets shoved down their throat than for their education.

They are not concerned with their education or its benefits: they will never make enough money to start paying back their HECS debt, or they will stay at university for the rest of their life and leech off the taxpayer.

So called ‘chardonnay socialists’ are the second, having hidden their exclusive eastern suburbs private school education, they like to embark on political campaigns against the so called ‘ruling classes’, despite the fact that they are fir mly entrenched in said class. Hypocrisy at its finest.

I have often said that students on the Right come to uni to get their degree in order to get into the work force and earn a good living. Students on the Left, be they political hacks or chardonnay socialists, come to uni to shove communist propaganda down the throats of their disinterested cohort.

To put it plainly, the students that benefit from studying at university want these changes.

The students that don’t benefit because of their lackluster commitment to study, want them to be defeated.

30 Removing the Hurdles to World-Class Education

Where from Here?

Now that the deregulation scheme has failed to pass the Senate for the second time, I would hope that as a minimum that government will amend its proposal to include some kind of regulatory oversight to ensure that the policy is not abused.

I will finish on the point that any learning institute should strive for excellence. With the fee restrictions as they currently are, this objective is severely impeded. Unless we can have a framework which forces universities to be competitive and improve the degrees they offer, this cannot happen.

Fee for Thought Is ou r cu r re nt u n i ve rs i t y f u n d i n g sys tem su s tai n ab l e or f ai r?

Mitchell Salt Last month was pretty intense, especially for Adelaide University’s inter national students who had to find their way around a new campus, city, countr y and perhaps a new language.

As a domestic student, the worst I had to go through was finding inventive ways not to pay for course readers and suffering all the random nosebleeds and nausea that come from using MyUni. First world problems.

But many of us were also watching closely what was going on in the Senate with the Higher Education and Research Amendment Bill, brought before the ‘feral’ crossbenchers (two of whom never went to university, and one a for mer editor of On Dit – fun facts!). It was struck down 34 votes to 30.

There was a wave of relief for me and most I knew, especially for some of my friends frightened by the claim there would be '$100,000 degrees’ rolled out by those opposing it, which could only apply to advanced health subjects no one I know is enrolled in. With only 13 per cent of students overall studying health subjects last year in Australia, it would be a pretty small number of students who would have that kind of debt, which makes the 100k degree thing a pretty big furphy.

So, if we aren't paying the fees universities set for themselves, what’s the state of the funding arrangements?

Reliance on government in supporting these institutions isn't sustainable: both major parties are moving far away from the idea that government should have the big gest role in resourcing universities at the tax payer’s expense. They also have cutting, or changing fee structures, in their DNA. From the builders of Menzies and Whitlam to the toll operators of Hawke and Abbott, government won't ever be consistent in the way it allocates resources to our institutions. Nor is the magic of the market suited to the task of maintaining these institutions, as every comparison to the US model for almost a year would have

us believe. Universities that stand on their own financially will be a goal. The only question is when.

Talking to international students, we domestics should be immediately humbled by their expenses Someone from overseas, whatever their income bracket at home, often pay upfont and every year more than four times as much as I do for the same degree. A fun activity I recommend is going online to “Degree Finder”, comparing the costs, then hug ging the nearest overseas student in your course. Many international students rely heavily on family support and their own work ethic to live in conditions many domestic students couldn't manage.

Its pretty clear who are the lifters and who are the leaners of higher education in Australia.

There needs to be a broader debate about where we go after last month’s beat down in the senate, and it should be one carried out by those most affected by changes in policy with universities: students. A third way is possible between both public and private input. It involves students and faculty taking the initiative to maintain and improve the institutions they occupy and making them independent, preser ving their continuation and integrity. If developing this through cultural, financial and intellectual means were to be the big gest expectation of us, and included in the requirements for higher learning, then the development of a sustainable and fair system would not need to be left to the tax payer or the venture capitalist.

A debate about the support offered to international students in providing safe accommodation and workplaces also wouldn’t hurt.

Although we might have a vested interest in the subject, and more than enough political bias to go around, all these books lying around and the expectation that we should think critically might just do the trick.

Fee for Thought 31

Funding Universities Wh at Now? Vic e Chanc ellor Warren Bebbington

You will know the Senate has defeated the Gover nment’s higher education refor m package (including fee deregulation).

What does this mean?

though they have been largely abandoned at many other, less comprehensive universities.

Again, these are subsidised by the fees of other students.

Firstly, you can now be sure you won’t be paying more for your university education in 2016.

HECS and the cur rent capped fee str ucture remains as is.

How did we end up with some students paying the costs of others, and for research? The answer is the Australian taxpayer apparently won’t contribute to university costs to the levels taxpayers in other countries do. Australia is now amongst the lowest OECD countries in public spending on universities. While the US and the UK are near the top, we trail at the bottom, in the company of countries like Slovakia and Bohemia.

But secondly, while I am sure you will be rejoicing at that news, the inequities of the present funding system for students also remain.

As one of the Group of Eight universities – the countr y’s leading research intensive institutions – the University of Adelaide will suffer the most from this outcome. This is because universities like ours under take the lion’s share of the national research agenda, which is hugely expensive and at present significantly subsidised by student fees, rather than fully funded by g over nment g rants.

We also offer the deg rees that are the most expensive to deliver – like medicine, dentistr y and veterinar y science. Students in those courses pay as a maximum fee $10,000 p.a. or $60,000 for a six year course. But the real cost of delivering a medical deg ree is over $300,000.

The gap is in par t subsidised by the fees of students in other, less expensive deg rees.

And we offer the rare cultural and historic fields that attract small enrolments and thus can never pay for themselves – like music, languages and the classics. We think these are impor tant,

32 Funding Universities - What Now?

Some have written to me asking why university enrolment can’t be free, as it is in Scandinavia.

The answer is simple: neither side of politics is proposing the high Scandinavian tax rates that would make this possible. Quite simply, Australians want to pay less tax, not more.

So here we are, with the refor ms defeated but the problem remaining, that costs in universities keep rising, to the point the Commonwealth finds unsustainable.

The g over nment – and indeed Vice-Chancellors like me – failed to clearly communicate the case for refor m to the public, and the discussion became lost in the political point scoring.

The notion of ‘$100,000 deg rees’ was bandied around, when in reality, even if fees went up by a massive 50%, the cost of a three-year deg ree would still have been less than $50,000.

Disadvantaged students would not be able to

afford to enrol, we were told, when in reality, with our wonderful equity-driven HECS system, no student pays up front fees at all, and many of those who later ear n low incomes never pay back a solitar y cent.

So we need to star t again. Both the g over nment and the opposition now say this is g oing to be an issue in the Federal Election next year, and Vice-Chancellors will need to work with both sides of politics to get a long ter m solution.

The University of Adelaide has a vision of small-g roup teaching and well-funded, excellent research. Some Australian universities have allowed classes to keep g rowing to vast size to increase their income and deal with the financial crisis. I do not want to see that ever happen here: we drew a line on expansion three years ag o—we want smaller classes, we are not g oing to g row. But without refor m it’s g oing to take longer to get where we want to be. We will have to work harder to find a better way to fund both education and research.

I welcome your feedback on this impor tant issue – please email me with your ideas or concer ns at: vice-chancellor@adelaide.edu.au

Pr ofessor War r en Bebbington Vice-Chancellor and Pr esident University of Adelaide

Deregulation Debate 33

Hounding for The Truth (No dogs were harmed in the making of this article) Lauren Copland

ABC’s exposé, Making a Killing, highlighted the use of live baiting within the Greyhound Racing industr y and created quite the stir amongst ever yday Australians. What followed was an outpouring of disgust, dismay and devastation that something so cruel could be occurring unchecked within an industr y as large as greyhound racing. There were demands that racing be ceased immediately, statements that all greyhounds were vicious and major backlash towards programs designed to rehome ex-racing greyhounds.

Our voices are the strongest thing that we possess and we should never remain silent on issues that matter, especially when they involve innocent creatures; however, we can’t jump to conclusions or denounce an entire breed based on the heartbreaking actions of a few.

Greyhounds are sight hounds; basically they have been bred, which has occurred for thousands of years, to hunt and their entire 34 Hounding for the Truth

biological design supports this.

They are streamlined, leanly muscled, agile and one of the fastest breeds of dogs (for short stints not endurance). They are also not the only breed suited – well, physically designed – to hunt. If you type ‘Hunting Dogs’ into Google hundreds of different breeds come up, many of which are common and much beloved pets and wouldn’t nor mally be associated with the thought of hunting. This goes to show that most dog breeds have the potential to hunt and to kill other animals if these traits are encouraged or brought out by outside forces, yet often we, the owners, are none the wiser to these predispositions.

As sight hounds it is in their natures to chase, just as it is in a cat’s nature to hunt, yet we don’t see hordes of people labelling cats as vicious for the countless creatures they routinely murder whilst on the prowl. Talk about a double standard. You can’t have one idea about a certain animal and then disregard that action when it occurs in another.

Although, let’s be honest here, it is the trainers enlisting these barbaric, cruel and disgraceful live baiting practices who are the real ones to blame. That being said, we also don’t know how widespread these practices are and can’t, in good conscience, label the entire industry as partaking in them.

Over-breeding is common amongst animal-based sports as owners and trainers need fast animals that are the most viable to suit their purposes; they don’t have the time or money to waste on animals too slow or unsuitable.

Luckily, horses that can’t race can still ser ve multiple purposes: they are used for breeding, sold as domestic pets for riding or even turned into competitive show horses, although there is still a lot of wastage. But greyhounds, unlucky as they are, can only become domestic pets if unwanted or worthless to the industry. Unfortunately some breeders routinely cull the runt of the litter as it is believed they will never amount to anything and time cannot be wasted

rearing a loser – although please note that once again this may not be a wide spread practice and do not think of it as such.

This is why greyhound adoption programs are so crucial and enable the greyhounds some semblance of a nor mal domestic life. Programs such as the Greyhound Adoption Program (GAP), which are often supported by the racing industry itself, focus on rehabilitating the dogs to make them suitable to family life once they find their ‘forever home’ (the home that they are adopted into). These programs involve rigorous training and testing so that they know all of the complications of living inside a house instead of a kennel, such as watching out for glass sliding doors, and their suitability around other animals.

By law all greyhounds must wear a muzzle when outside, unless they have received accreditation through GAP exempting them, which does nothing to the negative stigma and vicious labels that greyhounds have recently been burdened with.

Greyhounds in GAP aren’t rescued per se; their trainers have to sign them up and pay all associated costs to put them through the program before they can be adopted by a family.

(See not all trainers are heartless bastards!) Also, due to a lack of foster carers who train and look after the greyhounds whilst they move through the program, many greyhounds must wait for months before getting into the program and during this time the trainers are still feeding, housing and looking after them.

Article 35

Long revered historically as domestic pets, most notably by the Ancient Eg yptians who quite literally took them to the tomb and by the aristocracy, greyhounds have, in recent times, once again found themselves as beloved pets after their often joyless existence of racing is over. If you end up having a greyhound as a pet you are investing your time, love, money and energ y into a giant couch potato as they prefer to sleep the day away. They are incredibly low maintenance requiring only short walks, very little play time, the occasional bath and cuddles. Many greyhounds that have gone through the program are suited to living with small animals and other dogs with no issues at all. How do I know this? Well, I myself have two exracing greyhounds, Fabian and Willow, the for mer is timidly sweet and the latter sometimes overbearingly affectionate, but they are one of the best breeds

36 Hounding for the Truth

of dog for a pet that I have yet encountered.

Personally, and I know that I am inciting a lot of potentially negative opinions here, I don’t believe that any for m of animal racing should exist, but it isn’t something that is likely to change any time soon, and it definitely isn’t something that could be ceased immediately. If Greyhound Racing were to stop suddenly overnight there would be major downfalls, with many people losing their livelihoods and sources of income and with hundreds of dogs that have suddenly become completely useless put at risk of being killed or creating an unsustainable influx of dogs-into-adoption programs. If any measures are put in to place to stop this industry, they need to be well thought out and paced very carefully to ensure the best, not only for the dogs, but for their owners and trainers.

THE BLACK GOD Davita Koh Artwork by Sarah Boese

I was bor n in a house that existed on the outskirts of Damaria on a stony cliff against the Iron Sea. It was a day of wind and water; the dusty skies a cold grey and pelting rain pounding hard against the window panes.

In the cool room at the back of the house, my mother strained and panted, her life draining from her as she sought desperately to deliver me.

I entered the world on the dawn of her death and the black god drew her in with a breath, leaving only me to salve the wounds of those left behind.

I grew to become an awkward child, old of soul and young of body, with skinny limbs that barely seemed able to hold me up. My first concrete memory was my father’s face looking over my prone body lying on the hard stone of the courtyard barely breathing. The lines on his face dug deep, troughs that expressed his deepest concern and the fear he tried to hide.

I was staring straight up at the sky. I asked him if he had seen them.

He shook his head, muttering under his breath that the copious amount of sugar he fed me that day must have addled my brain because there was nothing in the courtyard. I insisted, telling him to watch the sky for the glimmers, but my father was only interested in getting me to move away from the courtyard before I was hit by an incoming horse cart, or him, as he rode off to visit home bound patients.

As I grew older, the faint glimmers I had seen from the corners of my eyes started appearing more boldly, as if they knew their presence would be welcome. I would see them late in the night, and during the early evening, flitting about the air to the lulling voices of father and his last visiting patient. I watched them play outside the window pane like little lights dancing and swirling in the wind. Sometimes they would drift in through the open window and their soft whispers would light upon my skin.

That ended when I was ten, the first time I saw the black god.

It was mid-afternoon and the sharp rays of the sun stung across my eyes, needling through the windows. My father’s room smelled of old skin and stagnant life at its height, for nothing, not even his lifelong practice of healing could heal the damage of old age. So we sat together, him in quiet repose, and I, tracing the weathered veins on his skin, mar velling at the paper thin, translucent quality.

I watched the black god from the corner of my eye as he landed on the balcony like a passing cloud against the sun; dark, then bright again. He waited and so did I. With a soft exhale, my father’s spirit detached itself from his still body and lifted up. He smiled at me lovingly and brushed a careful hand over my hair before coming to stand beside the black god. They stood there for a moment, staring, perhaps rather curiously, at me.

I smiled. ‘Good bye, father,’ I said softly. I laid the limp hand back gently on the bed and stood up. “Take care of him, good sir,” I said solemnly to the black god. I nodded at them once, curtly, like I had seen adults do when emotions overcome them. The black god laid a gentle hand on my father’s shoulders and a look of surprise crossed my father’s face for a brief time. Old soul, he must have thought to himself. And then a war m expression came over him as particles of light glittered in the sun. They were gone. With his departure, the glimmering lights I used to see faded and did not come back.

There were a few periods in my life when I saw the black god again. I had wandered to Damaria, the great city after my father’s death, where the black god’s temples stood obsidian against the Tavelon Peaks. It was a city of learning and, also, of the royal mages. I stayed there, and as Lady Luck would have, found a benefactor and learnt the craft of healing.

I started seeing the glimmers again. I realised then that those dancing lights I saw when I was eight were that of souls set free to return to the ar ms of the black god. Through my years of learning and visiting the sick and wounded, he would appear, silent and waiting. His presence would, in

The Black God 37

38

the initial years, render a hard knot in my chest, a simmering anger at my own helpless abilities.

But later on, as time passed and I grew older, I started to understand.

It was a cycle. We both stood on the line of creation.

He never spoke to me in our meetings, not one word, but his eyes told the story of renewal, and my anger slowly melted away into calm acceptance.

That was not to last however. In my eightysixth year in the realm of the living, that balance was disrupted. News of the breach in the sky reached my ears and I watched as the reign of Reok Shadowhunt grew and tore at the fabric of the world.

The insidious darkness that clawed its way through the breach ate at the little lights, that which I now saw everywhere. They disappeared, bit by bit and the land itself grew cold and barren. The glimmers, as I came to understand, were not just souls of those dearly departed, but that of all life in the realm.

Violence coloured the air then. The dying world brought out the ugliness in people and shadowed their hearts. Unable to mend the breach, the royal mages fled Damaria, leaving it to rot.

I stayed on stubbornly, but Damaria had changed.

No longer were the cobblestones a glimmering yellow and the city awash in colour. It was, but a dark dirty brown, shrieking evidence of its decay.

The great banners that hung outside the keep wall was torn and tattered from the piercing wind.

after the breach. It was still standing high up on the cliffs on the edge of the ocean, as if nothing had changed. The char ms my father had laid on it had rendered it untouched by time. The old rocking chair was still there. I sat in it, remembering the times my father had cradled me in his ar ms like my mother would have.

I was old now, strong of mind but weak of body.

Old age had taken its toll but I understood what it was that I had to do.

The light shuttered.

The black god stood silently beside me, watching the angry waves breaking over the surf. He was faint, almost only an outline now. ‘I have a gift for you,’ I said, turning slightly to look at him.

Everything was a balance.

He stared at me calmly, waiting, considering. His eyes drew me in and something akin to a smile cur ved his lips in understanding. There was a glint in the light as metal flashed. War m liquid flowed down my ar ms, for ming blood roses on the floor.

When the sky drew to a fiery orange and the sun dipped low over the cur ve of the sea, the coldness that had seeped over me lifted. The black god knelt before me. “Balance,” I whispered. I touched him, like I had always wanted and his wings were war m and smooth under my hands.

END

But Damaria still stood strong with its great walls and it became the refuge for the homeless and poor whose homes had been destroyed by the Shadow Walkers. They took to living in the side alleys and streets that lined the city and whatever empty houses that had been abandoned. The quantities of people who came were testament to the destruction the Shadow Walkers had wrought.

It was only time before unnatural disease struck.

Those of us healers who had stayed behind now faced a disease that would not be cured. I saw the black god everywhere I went, but he was different somehow. His glimmer had grown fainter and fainter the next and every time I saw him, until I realised that the souls no longer went back to him, but were sucked into the gaping maw of the tainted darkness that ravaged the bodies.

I watched him disappear bit by bit, and my heart grew heavy. Everything was a balance. That thought lingered in my mind.

I returned to the house I was born in two years

Short Story 39

The Student Travis Lucas

An education student sits, fists on knees, in his mother’s living room. Surrounded by cream coloured walls and high class light burgundy skirting. It has been three minutes since he moved. His mother comes downstairs adjusting her earrings and asks him to help rearrange the dining table settings. The rest of the family will be there soon. He has spent the mor ning, as usual, completing all the assigned readings his university asked of him, making notes on a legal pad as he read through Chapters One, Two and Three, highlighting all vthe points the book seemed to emphasise. Lear ning.

When the topics were “Teaching” or “Learning” the irony of using a learning mechanism to understand them did not strike him. “Learning” was the title of the chapter, that was the subject for the week, like “Nitrogen” when he had studied Molecular Science, or “Technolog y” in the Basics of Communication. Anti-meta.

When he studied he looked for sentences that seem to repeat themselves, and found the shortest version of them to highlight.

This morning he had highlighted the sentence ‘every teaching environment is a learning opportunity for the teacher’. If you asked him what a teaching environment was, he would be likely to say “a learning opportunity for the teacher” and luckily for him these answers were enough to carry him through his education.

The education student’s mother had laid the table out and soon his aunts – some with husbands - began to arrive. ‘Oh, Nick, I told Har mony she should come, she couldn’t get any time off work.’ Similar stories arrived about the rest of his peers, some were true.

He didn’t mind very much, Har mony was usually rambling about her passion for accordion-jazz and he understood nothing

40 The Student

about it. Nick helped them to find drinks, empty-faced.

His mother had sat him next to his grandmother and opposite the friend they invited to keep her company, Dot. They had been helped into the softest chairs by the attendant husbands, who quickly relocated themselves down the other end. Having already told him how big and handsome he looked upon entry and burning through their conversation starters, Dot and his grandmother began to ask about his life.

‘So, Nicholas, I heard you’re studying to become a teacher now.’ It was almost a question. Nick was a robot, blank and processing. After an uncomfortable eight seconds of silence his mother answered from down the table, ‘yes, Dot, he’s in second year now and he’s doing quite well.’

‘How wonderful to see a young man keen to be back in the classroom.’ And yes, Nick imagines, it would be nice to stay in the same building every day until he died, maybe even to go back to his own high school. Though he would watch rotating rosters of children come in and leave, he could stay – ageless – to repeat the process with the next lot.

It would be better when the students lost their distinguishing features, and it was him and the curriculum, the same Chapters one through twelve for the year. The same topic. Continuity.

The education student had gone out two times in the last summer holidays, both times with the same three friends. He went if they asked. It is not often he has social arrangements, but he doesn’t ignore them.

During all the other times when there is nothing to do – that is, his readings are highlighted and his bed is made – he waits.

Like a dog left in the laundry he stares at the same mark on the wall with the trust that soon master will be back. Once the

door handle turns a bit after six he has completely forgotten his stay in captivity.

orphanage,’ his mother called from the top of the table, chin high.

‘Are you excited to mould young minds?’

‘Oh, that’s nice, but no good for you,’

He had never had a true sense of conviction so when school finished he went straight to university, but not to teaching. Starting in a Bachelor of Arts, he had done some science courses, and after a year of unattended Ger man classes and short four electives, found himself in an education subject. In the teaching building the desks reminded him of the ones he had been sitting at for the previous fourteen years, he passed the assignments. He had realised - sitting in a tutorial one day - that it was where he was most comfortable, sitting at wooden desks pushed into groups of four underneath a whiteboard full of writing to copy down.

He couldn’t lie and say he was inspired by Dead Poet’s Society or The Histor y Boys, or even latent desire to look after children, but those responses did keep people quiet.

Maligned.

‘It’s fine, I see photos of her on Facebook,’ Nick said.

History, the subject, was of particular interest to him because it was not as strict as the laws of physics or chemistry, but not as free-reign as the creative design course he once stumbled into either. And indeed as long as time went on, it was endless.

The enor mity of it he found like a blanket, constant and reassuring, there would always be something he wouldn’t know. When he thought about it, history became a line, and there was no doubt that when one date finished another began that very instant, and although soldiers and merchants roamed around the world, if the practice was done correctly, the sequence would align. Too much detail and the subject could be contentious, but when the scope was large, capsules of time emerged: “The Dark Ages”, “Mao Dynasty”, “Gothic”, “The Renaissance”. Once he wondered what the modern era would be called in history books of the future, but decided that wasn’t his task.

‘And do you have a girlfriend Nicholas?’

Dot asked. Not right now he had responded, looking at the wallpaper.

‘Yes, she looks like she’s having fun over there,’ his mother added, very much about to mention the unseemly men she was often pictured with.

During last holidays his mother had found a crèche that was looking for administrative help. They had no complaints about him.

He took phone calls when it rang, posted envelopes when he was asked. He was acceptable. At the front desk he gave the impression of an alien captaining a spaceship, with his fingertips spread and just touching the melamine surface. His interaction with the children was limited and when he left after six weeks he knew high-school teaching was a better fit. His mother had nabbed him the job in hope of distracting him from the recent breakup, assuming his silences were signs of heartbreak. Like any mother, she assumed he was emotionally distraught when truthfully he had started and continued the relationship out of convenience, and was glad for an amicable reason to end it.

Simple.

Dot continued, ‘There’s a lot of girls in teaching though, isn’t there? Maybe you’ll find another girlfriend at university.’ No visible response. Nick continued eating, the dinner continued, conversation spiking in other parts of the table. Apart from a cough shortly before dessert, Nick was almost completely silent. This was a particular gripe of his mother’s, but she did nothing more to fix it than to shoot him glares he did not notice. Now that Dot had drawn the attention to him briefly the rest of the guests should remember he was there.

The last thing he said to Dot was about thirty minutes later in an effort to give her something to think about instead of more questions; “every teaching environment is a learning opportunity for the teacher.”

‘He had a girlfriend last year but she’s moved to Cambodia now to work in an

Short Story 41

Artwork by Matilda Bristow 42

Review

Grow Home Seamus Mullins

The video games industr y has seen a resurgence in not only indie games, but smaller games produced by larger studios which usually create Triple AAA titles.

World renowned developers have more recently been given creative freedom to produce projects which are special and add something unique to the industr y. One such game which started out as an experiment is Grow Home, a fun and simple adventure platfor mer, about a Robot called BUD, tr ying to save his home planet.

You play as Botanical Utility Droid (BUD) as you attempt to grow a Star Plant, which has been found on a remote planet, and to har vest its seed to be used to grow organic life on a dying home world. You must help grow the plant and climb it into the sky, using your wits and cunning to brave dangerous climbs to reach your goal.

You are dropped into a colourful, beautiful world with little instruction except to grow and climb the plant in front of you. Using BUD’s small hands you traverse the environment and climb the plant into the sky. The game mechanics are simple, but fun and fair, as your journey is dependent on your own ability to manoeuvre around the world without falling and losing any ground you have made.

During your journey you will find BUD to be an adorable, little robot, who stumbles and trips at every step of his journey in a deter mined manner. The animation and design of BUD is fantastic, and although BUD, a mechanical, manufactured robot, is the complete opposite of the organic, natural environment in which he finds himself, he somehow fits in.

Grow Home, although small, is an open world game which allows the player to roam freely and there are many secrets to find throughout the exotic world filled with unique flora to interact with. There are collectables to be found as well; these add a nice touch of challenge to the for mula of climbing and growing the plant. Scattered in these secret areas and hard to reach spots, they take extreme concentration and skill to reach, as you avoid a demoralising fall and possible death.

Grow Home is a fun and colourful game, which uses simple game mechanics to challenge the player and contains a beautiful world to explore and discover with a sweet and fulfilling ending. More often now I seek out these types small creative games and I would is strongly recommended Grow Home to anyone looking for something unique and fun.

Grow Home Review 43

W O M A D Ab out You B y M ax C o op e r WOMADelaide, the Australian leg of the inter national Wor ld Of Music And Dance series of festivals, is an annual delight towards the end of our frantic festival season, and this year’s was no exception. The lineup was outstanding. From Adelaide locals Max Savage and the False Idols, to the phenomenal Orquesta Buena Vista Social Club from Cuba, the schedule was crammed with talented acts from beginning

to end. While headliners Rufus Wainwright and Sinead O’Conner were as stunning as their reputations, the tr ue glor y of WOMAD is in the lesser-known acts. There was more to it than just the music though: the stunning Exxopolis by the Architects of Air had killer queues the entire time it was open, and the daily Colour of Time parade (based on the Indian festival of Holi) was fantastic and full of energ y.

F avori te A c t s

Emma Donovan and the Putbacks Emma Donovan is an outstanding Indigenous singer, having been in the business industr y for the better par t of two decades, and her latest work with The Putbacks shows she is still g oing strong.

Playing songs from their LP Dawn as well as some from Emma’s past (both her own back catalogue and songs taught to her by her family), the soulful perfor mances they put on were outstanding and an amazing contribution from Australia to WOMAD’s World of Music.

Check Out: “Daddy” from Dawn

44 Womad Review

Lake Street Dive

Sharon Van Etten

This Boston band, now based in Brooklyn, have had viral success from a cover of “I Want You Back” by the Jackson 5 they did on a street cor ner, and they’ve been touring off the back of 2014’s Bad Self Por traits with huge success. One of the g reat treats for fans was some of the new material they showed off on their Monday after noon set, but the chemistr y they share made the entire show sparkle.

Sharon Van Etten, another Brooklyn-based ar tist, was easily my favourite perfor mance of the entire weekend. Her soulful, hear t-wrenching music is a tr ue gem, and she managed to hold the crowd rapt from beginning to end.

The brightest colours on stage for her show were the denim blue of her bassist’s jeans and the rich brown of her guitar, and while her singing voice has dark depths under neath its ethereal beauty, her voice when she spoke to the crowd was soft and almost bubbly.

Check Out: “Bad Self Por traits” from Bad Self Por traits

Check Out: “Your Love Is Killing Me” from Are We There?

Fringe Review: Franz Kafka’s The Tr ial

By Lur Alghurabi

Since their establishment in 2011, Black Cat Theatre has taken on adaptations of award-winning titles, bridging the gap between classical works of literature and young, local students and ar tists.

After brining works of Dylan Thomas, Anton Chekhov and Paul Zindel to the South Australian stage, the young g roup aimed even higher at this year’s Fringe Festival. An ambitious task, yet one that has proven par ticularly challenging in the case of Franz K afka’s 1915 The Trial.

To write an adaptation of a book that no one’s finished, not even K afka, is admirably brave. The stor y is packed with plot holes, several characters ser ve no purpose, and the work has no proper ending or resolution.

Joseph K (Hugh Scobie) is ar rested one mor ning, and neither he nor the audience ever lear n why. His warders (Sasha Krieg and Isaac Gates) are mercenaries. The Examining Magistrate (Adam Bates) is an alcoholic who tries to make his wife (Jennifer Bar r y) ever yone’s mistress (wait, what? Why?). The landlady (Mer ridee Rohrlach) is the nar rator who’s also in love with Joseph K (wait, what? Why?), and Joseph himself has a ponytail made out of dreadlocks (again: wait, what?

Why?) Black Cat’s production creates a version that is more comedic than the strongly political novel, but just as loosely put together. The stiff perfor mances of the cast were of no help, and neither were their ill-fitted clothes, monotonous speech and blank expressions. In fact, it was one kid-dressed-as-atree away from being a decent secondar y school production.

Just like Scobie’s dreadlocks, this work is hanging together by a ver y fine thread, and throughout the play, you keep staring at that thread wondering when it will finally snap. The g ood news for Scobie’s Rasta look and career is that despite coming quite close a few times, it impressively never snaps.

The Trial Review 45

A n o pen letter to

Christophe r Py ne Alex Lightbody

You know, I never thought I’d find myself saying this, but we actually have a lot in common. For star ters, we were both bor n and raised in Adelaide. Like you, I was the least spor ty child in my family, and I also tried (quite unsuccessfully) to make my parents proud by excelling at debating instead. You dropped the C-bomb in Parliament, while God knows I’ve uttered my share of inappropriately timed “seeyou-next-Tuesdays”. And last, but definitely not least, both of our futures cur rently reside in a black hole of uncer tainty due to your Higher Education Refor m Bill.

On Tuesday night, the senate rejected your (highly unpopular) Bill for the second time.

I imagine you awkwardly reclined on a couch, working your way through an ar ray of your infamous facial expressions as you wor ried about what compromises or amendments would need to be made for the Bill to be successful next time around. And if it isn’t, what does this mean for your career? How will you fare at the next election? Will Tony still invite you to his bir thday par ty?

Meanwhile, students all over Australia have been rejoicing in your failure, but I fear that their celebration is premature. You seem deter mined to get the Bill passed on its third attempt, with commentators claiming that you’re “in it for the marathon, not the sprint”. Well, I’m violently allergic to r unning of any kind, so I propose we scrap the metaphors and cut to the chase. (Okay I’ve changed my mind about metaphors. But not about r unning. Running is the worst.)

The Bill proposes a series of changes, the most controversial being the deregulation of university fees. This would allow universities to charge whatever they deem appropriate and

46 A Open Letter to Christopher Pyne

conveniently transfer the onus of blame from you to the universities should fees g o up. And while analysts say it is cur rently impossible to predict exactly how high fees may g o, they all ag ree that under deregulation there will be a definite increase.

But wait, I hear you cr y, there are benefits to deregulation too! It is tr ue that it would create a more competitive higher education market, thus forcing universities to lift their standards and improve the teaching that they offer. However, the only people who would stand to benefit from this will be those wealthy enough to afford the increased costs and the private institutions that stand to profit at the expense of students.

Gover nments have long argued that the future of a strong society is dependent on a broad spectr um of the population receiving a g ood education, not only an elite handful. The finances of an individual student should not limit what they are able to study. Deregulation comes at the cost of the students, the people that you, as the Minister for Education, should be suppor ting.

Yo u r s s i n c e r e l y ,

Alex Lightbody

P.S. You sent me a bir thday card last year.

It didn’t even have a cheeky twenty in it like the ones from my nanna. If you don’t change your mind about this Bill, then I would like next year’s to include a contribution to help pay off my HECS.

Emma’s

Dilemmas Hey Emma,

Hey Emma, I’m tr ying to bulk up but I don’t want to bulk up to the point that I can’t fit into my favourite pair of beige, skinny-leg chinos.

What should I do?

-Liam, 18 Liam, what you need to do is become top-heavy, my friend. We’r e talking an intensive, upsidedown-triangle body shape. For years women have been told that their bodies ar e either pear, hour glass, r ectangle or apple or, I don’t know, julienned f*cking car r ot slice. Gone ar e the days when we just experienced a feeling of mild disdain ever y time we caught sight of ourselves in a mir r or, without knowing what we wer e supposed to say. ‘Oh, I wish that my br easts wer e a bit mor e even’, we might once have said. ‘I think that br easts ar e supposed to go her e’, we might once have also said.

In the inter ests of gender equality r egarding how insecur e we all feel about our bodies though, Liam, I am going to invent a new male body shape to laboriously aspir e to, and it is going to be called ‘upside down illuminati triangle.’ Let it be known that I am only putting the word ‘illuminati’ in ther e as a cheap stab at youthmarket r elevance.

Basically what you’r e going to want to do is any nor mal training pr ogram, but you’r e going to want to ditch squats of any kind. No need to thank me. Just glad that you’ve given me the opportunity to change the world, in some small way.

I think people who are on medication for anxiety and shit are just weak and should lear n to deal with their shit themselves like it’s not that hard to just breathe deeply is it?

-Decklan, 24 Decklan, you ar e oh so cor r ect!

I’ve also, for the longest of times, been of the opinion that people with type I diabetes should just buckle up and f*cking lear n how to pr oduce insulin all on their own. I mean, pr etty much ever yone else can do it. W hy ar e they being so pr ecious? Just be a man and lear n how to...

Emma, I’d like to know what’s your opinion on the whole university fee deregulation drama?

-Sasha, 22 Honestly, darling , I think I’ve gotten to this point of complete and utter apathy in life. So much so that you could say, ‘oh my god, did you know that it will be way harder for people fr om poor er backgr ounds to get an education at well-r espected academic institutions now?’ and I’d be like, ‘yeah, nah, have you seen this video mashup they’ve made of our Prime Minister tr ying to eat a raw onion, and a sort of vaguely r elated video (because it also involves someone eating an onion) of Jim Car r ey eating one in The Grinch? F*ckin hilarious. Hilarious. Hi-la-ri-ous.

Emma’s Dilemmas 47

CROSSWORD / DIVE RSIONS

across

down

2

1

5 8 9 13 16 17 18

Mastering the Sambola at an elite east coast lear ning establishment. (3 wds) ‘Blue, you’re my boy!’ (2 wds) “Teenage Dir tbag” film. (1 wd) Serena van der Woodsen g oes to college. (1 wd) America’s Next Top Model g oes to (fictional) Columbus University. (2 wds) Dr. Charles Xavier cheats at university challenge. (3 wds) Champagne flutes atop hurdles as Vangelis plays in the backg round. (4 wds) Genius Private Ryan solves algebraic equations at MIT. (3 wds) Crossword by: Masya Zabidi

48 Crossword/Diversions

3 4 6 5 7 10 11 12 14 15

90s rom-com involving students who attend the University of Melbour ne.(4 wds) June Car ter bends and snaps. (2 wds) Ang r y jazz dr umming. (1 wd) Aristocratic student takes Aloysius, his cuddly teddy bear, to Oxford University with him. (2 wds) Grouchy Gordon Gekko teaches creative writing at Pittsburgh University. (2 wds) Facebook: Origins stor y. (3 wds) Zack Mor ris plots to find a suicidal roommate to achieve straight As. (4 wds) Female version of Good Will Hunting. (3 wds) Maximus Being a mathetmatician at MIT. (3 wds) M and Horace Slughor n meet at Oxford Univeristy and fall in love. (1 wd)