Jovana Mastilovic
Lesvos (Greece) July 2017
More than one million people, mostly originating from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan arrived in Europe in 2015 to seek asylum. The majority of these people crossed the Aegean Sea from Turkey to Greece with over half a million people arriving on the Greek island, Lesvos. In response, the European Commission published an European Agenda on Migration, which enforced ‘hotspot’ facilities at the external borders of the EU; there are five in Greece—on the islands of Chios, Kos, Leros, Lesvos and Samos, and four in Italy in Lampedusa, Pozzallo, Taranto and Trapani. These centers are reserved spaces where the initial reception, identification and registration of all asylum seekers now arriving to Europe occur.
In July 2017, I visited the Moria Identification and Reception Center on Lesvos, which is the largest ‘hotspot’ facility on Lesvos, where according to the Head of the Regional Asylum Office, approximately 3000 of the
Category: Griffith University Feed
Master’s opens door to teaching career
It was while completing his honours in psychology at a Gold Coast school that Phillip Pearce first realised teaching would become his raison d’etre.
“I always had a passion for child developmental psychology, discovered I loved being in a school environment and so enrolled in the Master of Primary Teaching at Griffith,’’ he said.
“My study has given me the perfect balance of theory underpinned with practical knowledge.
“The lecturers come from the classroom so they are all super experienced. We can be discussing various pedagogical theories and they are able to relate it back to real life.
“It’s made me more confident in my pracs and I know teaching is the right career for me.”
Phillip, who works part-time at a Gold Coast school, said the flexibility of the Master’s program enabled him and other students to work while studying.
“I can structure my timetable around work. It’s intense, but manageable.”
An advocate for Positive Education,
A career in psycho-oncology results in Queen’s Birthday Honours
Professor Suzanne Chambers from Griffith University’s Menzies Health Institute Queensland, has become a recipient of this year’s Queen’s Birthday Honours with the award of Officer in the General Division of the Order of Australia.
A recognised international expert on the psychological effects of cancer and how best to provide support for individuals and couples, Professor Chambers is a multi-award-winning researcher.
“I feel very humbled and honoured to receive this award in recognition of my contribution to psycho-oncology,” says Professor Chambers. “I hope this award recognises the burden that families and people with prostate cancer carry, as well as the need for researchers to continue with the work they do in this area.”
Drawing from more than 25 years of health psychology and research, Suzanne has numerous strings to her bow, including being an Australian Research Council Future Fellow, author of a book entitled Facing the Tiger: A Guide for Men with Prostate Cancer
Public health workers in the spotlight in new Griffith film
A uniquely Queensland story of strong disaster management in the context of climate change is the focus of a new Griffith University produced film.
The 50-minute documentary Dealing with Disasters: The Silent Achievers in Public Health provides a compelling look at the efforts of Queensland’s public health workers, and those they collaborated with, to manage a large-scale and intense set of disasters: the Summer of Sorrow.
In 2010-2011, eighty per cent of the enormous state of Queensland was beset by severe flooding and cyclones. Over close to a year, public health workers, in collaboration with emergency management, local government, and the NGO sector, worked tirelessly to prevent loss of life, outbreaks of disease, and other harms.
“With our changing climate increasingly creating more extreme events and disasters, there is more need than ever to be able to manage those disasters,” says Professor Cordia Chu, the film’s co-producer from Griffith’s Centre for Environment and
Griffith celebrates 20 years at Logan
The Logan community came together as one to mark Griffith University’s 20-year celebration at its newest campus.
A who’s who of one of Australia’s fastest growing urban centres mixed and mingled with the evening highlighted by the cutting of a specially-designed cake representing the campus’ former home as a dairy grazing pasture.
1998 marked the beginning
As Griffith University expanded its reach from its southern Brisbane base of Nathan in the early 1990s, the Logan region seemed an ideal fit for the growing learning institution.
A greenfield site at Meadowbrook, where cattle were more prominent than cars, was gazetted to be home for Griffith’s fifth campus.
Read Griffith’s Archives on how the Logan Campus came to fruition
And 20 years since its opening, Griffith’s Logan campus is now a vital part of Queensland’s fastest-growing population corridor.
From a maiden intake of 500 students in 1998, Logan now has a cohort of more than 2000, and in that
MBA Asia Study Tour opens recruitment executive’s eyes
When MBA alumnus Louisa Hinchen returned from Griffith University’s Asia-Pacific Study Tour, she knew she’d just experienced something that would change the way she did business.
The Chief Operating Officer at industry-leading recruitment agency Hallis says gaining a hands-on understanding of how business is done in a cross-cultural landscape helped her to realise the potential in securing additional business for her company.
“The Study Tour in South Korea gave me a much broader focus on where I wanted to do business and who I wanted to do business with,” she explains. “Now my focus is on actively seeking out global and local organisations who are either currently trading globally or interested in expanding their business offshore.”
And she found the trip so valuable, she was determined to come back and be a vocal ambassador.
“Travelling as a tourist is one thing, but travelling as part of an MBA group opened the doors
Animation students to showcase work on world stage
Animation students from Griffith Film School have been selected to showcase their work at the Melbourne International Animation Festival this week.
Brodie Stephenson’s stop-motion short Fifty-Two is one of the films screening in Melbourne.
His graduate project has created waves on the international festival circuit: it won Best Animation at the Tiblisi International Student Film Festival, was shortlisted for the BAFTA Student Film Awards and also screened at the Cannes Film Festival.
The film was part of his Honours project, which explored ways to create independent stop motion movies on a shoestring budget.
The young filmmaker has been astounded at the response to Fifty-Two, a post-apocalyptic thriller with a powerful twist.
“It’s super exciting,” he said.
“Getting selected to screen at festivals here in Australia and overseas has given my film a wider audience – and it’s been fantastic watching it up on the big screen with an audience.”
This was Brodie’s first foray into stop motion – a notoriously
Journalism students nominated for mid-year Walkleys
When Lilly McKenzie signed onto the Griffith University Student Media Centre at the GC2018 Commonwealth Games and discovered a group of Indigenous protesters had set up camp near Surfers Paradise, she immediately asked to cover the issue.
“I asked whether we could join the protesters, so got in touch with the organisers and told them we’d love to stay if we could,’’ the final-year journalism student recalls.
“They wanted media coverage and because we were student journalists they knew we didn’t have a particular agenda.”
As it turned out, Lilly and fellow student Dylan Crawford, were the only journalists on the ground reporting from the actual protest site. Their resulting story and photographs, published in the Sydney Morning Herald and Brisbane Times, have earned them a Walkley Young Journalist of the Year nomination in the Student Journalist category.
“The police cordoned off the area when the protests started during the Queen’s baton relay and
Education summit prepares creative educators of tomorrow
How can teachers use creativity in the classroom to engage students and enhance learning? How can students develop their creative thinking and learning capacities? These questions were explored at the Queensland Creativity Summit on Tuesday, June 12.
Hosted by Griffith University’s School of Education and Professional Studies, with the support of the Queensland College of Teachers and the Queensland Council of Deans of Education, the summit examined the twin facets of creativity in the classroom:
Teaching creatively – using novel and inventive approaches to make learning more engaging, interesting and effective and;
Teaching for creativity – approaches designed to develop and enhance learners’ own creative abilities.
“Creativity has always been a part of teaching and learning, it’s a general capability across our curriculum and at a national level we recognise its importance,” says Professor Donna Pendergast, Dean of the School of Education and Professional Studies.
“The focus of the summit is to demonstrate how to
New to university? GET/UPP is the program for you
Attending university can be a daunting experience, especially for students enrolling for the first time or, as the case may be, the first time in years.
That’s where GET/UPP – the Griffith Educational Tertiary/University Prep Program – comes in, with the aim of helping new students build their confidence and polish their skills to ensure they’re able to get the most out of their studies right from the outset.
Book your head start to university now with GET/UPP
For Bachelor of Business student Strauss Ngawaka, undertaking GET/UPP was a crucial step in preparing himself for a return to tertiary education after nearly 20 years’ experience in the workforce.
“It was just about trying to find your feet at uni,” Strauss, who completed the program in 2015, recounts. “And it’s familiarising yourself with the environment at university, how things work, and how to navigate your way around the different processes that go on there.
“For