Book chapter draft: Carol-Anne Croker
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Writing to Affect Change
By Carol-Anne Croker
Unpublished chapter, (withdrawn by author 2009)
Creativity Market: Creative Writing in the 21st Century
New Writing Viewpoints Series,
Multilingual Matters, Bristol. UK. 2012
(Edited by) Dominique Hecq
Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives
CC BY-NC
September 13, 2009
Book chapter draft: Carol-Anne Croker
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Writing to affect social change.
I have always believed that the Arts have a unique role in addressing vexed and controversial issues.
Through play scripts, novels, cinematic representation, visual arts installations and public
commentary, issues of social concern can be debated without fear or favour. One needs only to look
at one of the highest grossing films screening around the world in 2009, My Sisters Keeper i by Jodi
Picoult, to note that audiences are made to reflect on the moral and ethical decision to bear a child
as a donor for an ill sibling. Audiences watching the movie (or reading the original novel) will come
away discussing this storyline thus examining their personal values on this issue.
Would I be wrong in thinking that more of the ‘general public’ will emotionally and intellectually
engage with this issue simply by having seen the movie or read the book, instead of listening to
politicians, ethicists, religious leaders and the medical professionals debating it in the broadsheet
papers?
A similar argument for social engagement could be mounted for Lionel Shriver’s Orange Prize for
Fiction winning novel, We Need to Talk About Kevinii, illuminating the issue of secondary school
violence and dysfunctional families; Michael Moore’s award winning documentary, Bowling for
Columbine iii on American gun culture , or even the current Tony award winning play by Yasmina
Reza, The God of Carnageiv looking at contemporary parenting. Australian award winning novel The
Slap v by Christos Tsiolkas tackles the same issues as God of Carnage. These creative works speak to
their audiences and readerships about issues to which they can relate, and allow us to feel
competent to form an opinion and speak about these issues and concerns.
There is nothing new about this, and to write it here seems to be stating the obvious. After all
Aristophanes Lysistratavi (as early as 411 BC) had audiences questioning warfare as means of social
and cultural control.
I am revisiting this line of thought because as a creative writing student within the Academy, I often
question what value my work can have or indeed if it has any scholarly or social value at all. At the
ripe old age of 53 what am I doing studying in University? What am I hoping to achieve? The flippant
answer is to become qualified to earn a reasonable living and support my family and myself into my
old age. But of course this answer is only partially truthful. After all I could work anywhere.
I could teach in secondary schools. I am qualified and I have done so recently. I could work in the
Public Service. I can pass the entrance exam and have done so in the past. I could possibly work in
administration in the private sector. Again, I can and I have. I can even pull a reasonable head on a
draught beer by tap and know the satisfaction of returning from work physically tired after a day on
my feet earning an ‘honest wage’. But none of these jobs or careers offer me what I need
intellectually. I need a challenge and issues to wrap my brain around. I need to read, think, reflect
and then to write. I need to write as much as I need to eat and sleep. It is my way of making sense of
the world I live in.
Everywhere I look I see problems and possible solutions, yet there is often an antipathy or sense of
futility articulated by people in power and those directly affected. I was never one to disagree with
the Einstein’s mantra “Knowledge of what is does not open the door directly to what should be.”
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As early as I can remember I have looked at the things that are said to be immutable and
unchanging and I always saw alternatives. When my mother would walk me to primary school I was
aware that the other mothers were younger than mine and that my mother could not be as active as
they were. Despite being picked on for having a mother (and father) who was (were) ‘different’ to
the norm, I merely saw it as natural and something that I knew instinctively would be my own life
choice. I did not want to be one of the young mothers I saw around me daily, not ever.
I did not know it then, nor could I articulate the reasons I thought this way. My mother was at home,
she was there to walk me to school. She baked and cooked daily. She worked for numerous
voluntary organisations and seemed to me to always be busy doing interesting things outside the
home. Yet she was always there before and after school whereas the younger ‘working’ mothers
were not. I knew I wanted a life full of challenges and interests like my mother. By the time I was in
my twenties I knew that early motherhood was not for me, and increasingly more of my peers felt
the same way. The birth age for mothers escalated as more women entered the paid workforce and
put motherhood on hold (Kippen 2006). vii By the time I was in my thirties and had my own son,
most of the mothers at his primary school were of a similar age cohort to me. There had been a
major demographic shift in Australian marriage and parenting, and it was just as I had always viewed
as ‘normal’.
To this day I see things from what could be considered a ‘skewed angle’. I see potential everywhere.
If only the stakeholders and power brokers had the will or bravery to adopt change. And like the
Death card in the Tarot pack, change is not frightening to me. The status quo is to be feared. This is
why I need to write. In need to describe my alternate visions, hopes and dreams. I need to articulate
the reasons for change. I need to convince people that discriminatory practices and beliefs do not
have to remain discriminatory. Inequality is not necessarily a prerequisite for society to function
effectively.
This is why I am at University. I want to affect change in my world, and my son’s world. I want my
voice heard and respected. I have tried to affect change from within the system many times and
simply had the system turn on me and crush me.
In my most recent incarnation as a secondary school teacher it was obvious to me that the students
did not value education for any intrinsic reasons. School was a place you attended because it was
State-mandated until you were 15 years of age. The choice to leave was also circumscribed by the
economy and lack of unskilled jobs in the labour market for young workers and inadequate social
welfare provisions for independence and training. School was viewed as a social occasion with the
teaching getting in the way of the socialising. It was clear to me that the entire rationale for these
young people to be sitting in class was to get through to the next break when they could freely
discuss relationships between themselves and their peers. This was their way of examining who they
were and what their beliefs were, and discovering that they were separate from their parents and
families in attitude and even moral beliefs. What would shock their parents most (under-age alcohol
consumption, illicit drug use, risk taking behaviours and adolescent sexual experimentation) were
the very issues these students needed to examine and discuss amongst their peers. Education for
them was life education not text book based learning.
Many of the boys were not able to sit quietly in their desks and concentrate on traditional school
curricula. How do we expect a young person to learn about the history, politics, geography and
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agricultural production of a neighbouring country when in all likelihood their experience of travel
does not extend beyond the much anticipated holiday to Bali.
These are the boys a few decades ago were not expected to sit quietly and listen. It was assumed
they would be in the workforce in jobs requiring physical activity and manual dexterity and any
excess energy was channelled towards sport on the weekend.
These are the students (both male and female) who in all probability will finish school in their home
suburb, get a job in the same suburb, marry and reside in the same (or neighbouring) suburb, then
produce children who will attend the same suburban school.
Every time I sought to arrange out of class activity-based experiences the simplest bureaucratic
procedures would act as deterrents. Education department compliance, co-operation from other
teachers who’s subjects may be interfered with, costs, staff student supervision ratios, first aid
qualified personnel, working with children police clearances for all ‘outsiders’ involved or hosting
the activity, and the parental consent slips often left languishing in the bottom of school backpacks
or lockers. Then of course there needed to be demonstrated educational outcomes, often in the
form of projects, workbooks or artefacts constructed (then photographed as records). All of this, just
to get the students actively participating in education, and having fun through participatory learning.
Well needless to say I was perceived as the populist teacher, disrespectful of the core education
curriculum, dismissive of the rigid discipline boundaries. Indeed this is true, I was. But I paid a hefty
price for this student-centred approach to education. I became one of ‘them’; the critic who
appeared hostile to the school system. To this day I am against trying to socialise young people into
the ‘correct and valued’ slots without taking into account the students’ personality, interests and
skills.
Many of my students, (those supposedly with ADHD, Oppositional Defiance Disorder, social
immaturity, amongst other labels with negative baggage), were pigeon-holed as disruptive and
trouble. I would argue that many of them were simply bored, under-challenged or inappropriately
educated in terms of curriculum content. As a teacher I was unable to change this within the school
system. In the Australian State education system change occurs at a glacial pace and from the top
down, not instigated from the bottom up. I soon .... myself of the myth of the charismatic teacher as
depicted in such movies as To Sir With Love viii and The Blackboard Jungle ix. These were fictional
works of creative art not documentaries and whilst charismatic and dedicated staff do work in our
State schools they are often too busy just coping and doing the best job of educating their students,
leaving very little time for collective political action.
Perceived deviance or non-compliance within organisations and institutions is construed as a threat
to be neutralised. It is easy to use the rules and regulations against one solitary individual, and for
that individual to be ‘scape-goated’. I’ve lost count of the times I have succumbed to stress and
anxiety because I am perceived as a threat, as deviant in some intrinsic way. I just do not ‘fit in’. The
consensus amongst my counsellors has been that in my case, for me to instigate change and for it to
occur it would be easier (and healthier) to lobby and agitate from the outside.
Outside, but where outside? In what professional realm? Could the University possibly be seen as
‘outside’ the system?
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I do remember a time in recent memory; the seventies, when in Australia University education was
free, so as to encourage students with academic potential from all walks of life and social stratas into
the tertiary sector. As a working class child, only one member of my extended family had attended
University and he studied architecture, which seemed only an incremental step from the other
males who worked as builders, electricians and tradesmen.
Needless to say no females in my family had attended any form of tertiary study. So for me to
contemplate that future was simply not even an option. But I knew I didn’t want to have a job that I
would have to stop when I “settled down”, a temporary pastime until I attained my desired female
role. As a compromise my parents permitted me to enrol in teacher training as women no longer
had to retire upon marriage and could stay in the workforce. My father, particularly, thought it was a
good career choice as it would enable me to be at home with my (future) children during the school
holidays and after work. There was never a question that this might not be my preferred pathway,
nor did I understand the systemic discrimination that hid from me, a working class female, the
opportunities a University education could offer.
Only after an entertaining and ultimately partially satisfying career in Performing Arts did I begin to
see that not only did I need a creative outlet but I also needed intellectual stimulus as well. With the
safety of enrolling in an Arts undergraduate degree I finally felt that tertiary education could be for
me.
The world of the University was magical. It was a world of esteemed scholars mentoring keen young
students. The tutorials, of no more than ten students, generated long and vibrant discussions on
societal issues and yielded ferocious opinions on aesthetics. These hours would often spill over into
the Bistro at Flinders Uni and continue on across the counter lunch period. If it wasn’t for other
lectures to attend the whole day could have been spent in discussion, as students came and went to
their timetabled classes. We were our own small “Bloomsbury group”! I definitely fantasised that I
was Virginia Woolf.x It seemed obvious that the actors, writers and filmmakers around me were the
next big thing in the Australian arts scene; many indeed became household names and global
celebrities.
Our lecturers were the ones being consulted by the local papers. They wrote opinion columns, and
reviewed arts events around town. They were feted by the policy makers and politicians, attending
summits and social events. It was a time when everything seemed possible.
The Academy was changing. The Anglo-canon was losing its grip on English curriculum, cinema and
media studies were taking their rightful place alongside the visual arts courses. Women’s studies and
post-colonial studies were finding a niche in the Humanities programs. Social change and progressive
debate flourished with the student radicals at the helm of the student newspapers. All of a sudden I
learned that one of our nearest neighbours was East Timor had been placed under martial rule by
Indonesia. xi I learned that my idolised Labor Federal Government had recognised the despotic Pol
Pot’s Khmer Rouge regime. (Henderson 2002) The Australian music Industry was flexing its muscle,
the second-wave of Australian cinema was making inroads into the commercial film Industry, and
Australian plays were being written for Australian audiences. It was a heady time full of promise.
Perhaps I am naive but that is how I conceptualise the University; as a place for activism, critique,
social responsibility and hothouse for innovative thinking. On returning to the University after a
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break of over twenty years, I had lost none of that naivety, or as I would call it, idealism. With the
election of the Federal Labor Government under Kevin Rudd, it seemed that the electorate and the
Country itself had had a ‘wake up call’. We would finally be able to disentangle ourselves from US
colonisation, in the same way we had parted ways with the motherland in the seventies.
I wanted to be part of this again. I wanted to work and study where I knew the conversations were
stimulating and addressing pressing issues. I wanted to see equality of opportunity and access to
education back on the agenda for society. This was why I enrolled in a Master of Arts (Writing)
program and prepared myself to take on a FEEHELPxii debt at this middle stage of my life, after years
of domestic responsibility and no workforce income. I wanted to rekindle my sense of power to
affect change. And whilst not completely self-sacrificing, I did need to earn a living, however above
all I wanted to be part of the generational change that would bring the Academy back from the brink
of neo-conservative corporate managerialism into the realm of social responsibility and community
leadership.
The Rudd Government was signalling a change in discourse for the Creative Arts and the term
Creative Industries was being bandied about in terms of economic value and contribution to social
capital. Policy white and green papers gave rise to the new roadmap for Australian society. Terry
Culter delivered the Review of the National Innovation System(Cutler 2008), quickly followed by
Powering Ideas: an Innovation Agenda for The 21st Century (Senator Kim Carr 2009). These two
reports articulated the links and pathways between education and training, industry policy and
imperatives and the Nation’s economic prosperity in a globalised marketplace. Thus the logical
accompanying policy document was developed after the investigation by Denise Bradley into the
Higher Education sector.(Bradley 2008)
These documents inspired me to believe that my choice to return to the Academy and pursue a
Higher Degree in Creative Writing was a correct decision. One of the issues that drew my attention
was the Government being willing to reconfigure and re-conceptualise what constitutes valuable
research in a contemporary society.
Prime Minister Rudd and his colleagues were determined to break down the barriers between what
is viewed as knowledge, both in the Academy and in society more generally. Knowledge was no
longer to be viewed as purely scientific or quantifiable. The role of the social sciences, the
humanities and the arts were to be valued for their contribution to the Australian society and
economy. The Creative Industries were said to be the drivers of innovation and excellence, and
global competitiveness for our Industries. By harnessing the cultural capital generated by investment
in and research into the creative industries, Australia could only prosper internationally. To me this
seemed to signal a renaissance for the Creative Arts, in the community and in the education sector.
I could find nothing to indicate that this was hollow feel-good rhetoric. The same conceptual
reframing and discourse was happening throughout the EU. Canada, the United States, Great Britain
and many mainland European nations were developing similar policy agendas. (Hecq 2008).
The Bradley report (Bradley 2008) returned to issues close to my heart, opening access to higher
education to students from disadvantaged and lower socio-economic students, along with the
recognition that rigid discipline boundaries were no longer appropriate in educating students for the
‘Information Age’xiii and the ‘Knowledge Nation’. (Croker & Carthew forthcoming). We now have
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the political will for the implementation of the ‘Creative Nation’, the title of the Commonwealth’s
Cultural Policy and political catch phrase first bandied about in the electorate in 1994.
The Prime Minister stated at the closing of the 2020 summit, that Australia needs to “put...to bed
the false dichotomy between the arts and sciences” (Jaaniste 2008) and the Prime Minister goes
further in the policy document In Venturousaustralia: the Review of the National innovation System.
This dichotomy is problematised even further, “Australia’s innovation policy needs to acknowledge
and incorporate the role of the creative and liberal arts.”(Cutler 2008:p.48) It should be a great time
to be a practising creative artist, and an even better time to be working and studying creative arts in
the University sector.
Knowledge transfer is the current priority. Transfer between disciplines, Universities, Industries and
practitioners, researchers and artists. This imperative for building knowledge and disseminating
research, particularly creative arts research within the Universities and communities of practice
finally has recognition at policy level. In the Rudd Governments much publicised ‘education
revolution’ higher education has an intrinsic role to play in this scheme.
For those of us working and studying in the creative disciplines, or the HCA( Humanities and
Creative Arts) cluster alongside our colleagues in the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and
Media) can now share access to competitive grant funding for our research. Not only are HCA
researchers encouraged to apply for the highly prized and sought after Australian Research Centre
grants, we are encouraged to apply under schemes previously limited to STEM sector researchers.
To ensure that our work is valued and deemed instrumental in the knowledge transfer process, our
Higher Education Institutions have been advised that under the new Excellence in Research Australia
system of quality bibliographic collection, our creative works will be deemed research in terms of
points accrued and funding allocated. For creative artists it is recognition that practice and practice-
led research is recognised as part of the innovation cycle and valued accordingly.
Thus I began this final year of my PhD candidature in creative writing with a new energy and sense of
purpose. I could read, think, reflect and indeed write my way to understanding complex issues and
theoretical debates. I do categorise myself as a writer and educator when asked at social functions.
My keyboard is and will for the foreseeable future be my tools of trade. Now that i have
acknowledged that I do belong in an academic community I am faced with some fundamental
philosophical dilemmas.
My creative writing study has given me the opportunity to reflect on the old adage, ‘those than can,
do and those that can’t teach’. As a writer to ‘do’ means constantly being on the marketing treadmill
as in Australia books do not have a long pre-sale shelf life or is the traditional printed codex an
outdated and limited vision of a writers output. The Australia Council would suggest so.
In a publication entitled, The New Writing Universe, (Dena & Gleeson 2008) the role of writers in a
global economy is diagrammatically represented. The career pathways appear endless and
promising. Maybe what is needed is that we need to reconceptualise what it is to be a writer in the
21st Century.
(http://www.australiacouncil.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0006/42648/New_WRITING_Universe.pdf)
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Book chapter draft: Carol-Anne Croker
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And within the schema, where is the writer in the Academy? Can we exist solely as practitioners or
would that be to remain guests or visitors, artists in residence if you will? At one Conference
sponsored by Creative Writing academics, the issue was somewhat contentious. A published writer
in the academy was seen as an avoidance of the Industry, a back door to public subsidised income,
or access to defacto literary grants. The inference was that if the writer was ‘good enough’ to ‘make
it’ in the marketplace they ‘should’ be able to gain highly prestigious and competitive literary grants
to support their creative arts practice, and not be putting their hand out for public dollars through
the higher education sector. Underpinning this logic is a divide and conquer mentality common to
disenfranchised groups; attack competitors to protect access to scare sources of funding, rather than
actively call for unity and demand that the pool of funding be adequately increased. Hidden
beneath this rhetoric is also an insecurity, that one group (those that ‘can’) may allow
administrations to consider creative writing academics as ‘those that can’t.’ I am concerned that it
places a hierarchy of status and value on Government funding with higher education dollars needing
to be quarantined and protected, and Arts Ministry dollars constructed as a form of Community
beneficence or public philanthropy.
I would propose that there is another way to frame the discussion. As writers working in the
Academy, we must be educators, qualified by our knowledge of the Creative Industry in which we
practice, and recognised for our ability to pass on the craft and skills to the next generation of
writers. Thus the teacher becomes one who also ‘can’ and ‘does’.
I contend that the next incremental step is to have creative arts teaching valued within the
Academy, and this is another divisive issue. With the corporate managerial model operating in our
Universities, the drive towards metrics to measure perceived quality measures has intensified as it
has in the private sector. The discourse of business is now the lingua franca of the Academy; the
rationale being that we are producing a product (education) to be marketed (sold) to consumers
(students) in a global industry. In 2009 $13billion dollars is said to be channelled into the Australian
economy from International full-fee paying students. This money is then used to cross-subsidise on-
campus domestic student places and resourcing. This has developed over several years of reduced
funding per capita student by the previous conservative Federal Government. The free market was
believed to control and regulate the Australian economy, and higher education was a product no
different from other consumables.
Our Vice Chancellors quickly became very adept at restructuring courses, marketing their products in
the global education market, whilst creaming off profits for investment in lucrative portfolios. These
portfolios have since lost their capital value due to the 2009 global financial crisis. There is now more
than ever the need to capitalise on the overseas student dollar.
With this increased reliance on student-consumers, has been a need to measure customer
satisfaction. Thus the metrics once common to private enterprise has found the way into the
Academy. This situation is not isolated to Australia; Universities globally have adopted various forms
of Quality Assurance measurement scales. These measures are applied across all disciplinary
divisions and the creative arts are called upon to furnish such statistics for their sector.
It would be pleasing to have every dollar spent by Creative Writing students returned to the Creative
Writing Faculty but this is presupposing an equitable and well resourced higher education sector.
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Without getting into the debate about the ‘Melbourne model’xiv, or the issue of staff ‘voluntary
redundancy’ and ‘rationalisation of humanities subjects’, I will however quote University of
Melbourne Vice Chancellor Glyn Davis who noted in The Australian newspaper xv that Melbourne
University expects to lose $30 million of income derived from undergraduate fee paying students in
the coming academic year, and that he was loathe to increase the number of International students
beyond 11,000 simply to recover lost income. Melbourne claims to have the most International fee
paying students of all the G8 Universities in Australia and points to the Federal Government cutting
grants and subsidies in real terms for University education per capita of student enrolment over
many years, forcing them to rely on cross-subsiding core university responsibilities; education and
research. According to figures published by the National Tertiary Education Union xvi notes that
despite the $1.3 billion increase in the 2009 Federal Budget, for recurrent core learning and teaching
funding, the effect will not be felt until 2011-12 with the actual funding per student in 2009, down
0.3 percent.
Needless to say with Australia weathering an economic slowdown, the HCA disciplines attract far
fewer International fee-paying students, most of whom are looking for (fast and comparatively
cheap) workforce credentials rather than a less instrumental and less industry targeted liberal
education.
The consequence of this move to quality assurance and measurement has impacted on the Arts
faculties. As the disciplines are not generating income via full-fee paying international students (and
in Australia the Federal Government has stringent caps on the number of domestic full-fee paying
places), teaching is the area where esteem and quality can be measured. Esteem factors become the
stuff of marketing campaigns and advertising slogans adorning the corporate banners flapping on
flagpoles on University entrances, and touted in bold lettering in broadsheet advertisements.
In terms of income generation, then, creative arts teaching is on one side of an unequal educational
relationship. One sure way to generate income is through Government funding and the way to
obtain that is via Competitive Research Grants. Thus Research is valued more highly within the
Academy than teaching. Research higher degree students more sought after than undergraduate
students.
For the HCA sector, we appear to have won the research equivalency argument for academic
publication, and theoretically at least, the recognition of creative works as research equivalence
under our ERA, but we have yet to formulate and construct the metrics for Esteem measurement.
Currently, the Council for Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences, the Deans of Arts, Social Sciences and
Humanities, the learned Academies of Humanities and Social Sciences are in consultation with
members and staff to develop such metrics.
Only then will writers in the academy feel comfortable being considered educators. After all, esteem
is easily measured in writing practice by award nominations and prizes, invitations to literary
festivals and symposia, and of course through sales income. But esteem measurements for teachers
remains subjective and difficult to quantify. With the 2008 challenge to the traditional science-based
bibliometrics, HCA groups have managed to compile a journal ranking system, alongside existing
citation indices. And whilst the inclusions and classifications remain problematic for interdisciplinary
or cross-disciplinary journals, it is a basis from which to progress. (Genoni & Haddow 2009)
Book chapter draft: Carol-Anne Croker
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As for me, I feel that I am a professional educator, researcher and writer. My future may be in
continuing to work to ensure that cross-disciplinary curricula and academic journals are recognised
under the ERA scheme, and also working to ensure that writer’s creative outputs are recognised by
all Australian Universities, which will necessitate the construction of bibliometrics for publication
outlets in Australia, as is happening around the globe. But I may simply pass the baton on to the next
generation of scholar-activist-writers within the Academy, and decide that it is easier to influence
cultural change from the outside of the University sector possibly by gathering much valued and
sought after research opportunities in Countries where the system is already ahead of ours. After all
why waste time re-inventing the proverbial wheel. That’s not innovation or creativity.
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Bradley, D 2008, Review of Higher Education Report, Canberra. http://www.deewr.gov.au/highereducation/review/pages/reviewofaustralianhighereducationreport.aspx.
Croker, C-A & Carthew, M (forthcoming) 'The Boat that Rocked'. Cutler, T 2008, Venturous Australia:Report on the Review into the National Innovation System.,
Commonwealth of Australia, Canberra. Viewed September 13, 2009, <http://www.innovation.gov.au/innovationreview/Pages/home.aspx>. .
Dena, C & Gleeson, C 2008, in The Writer's Guide to Making a Digital Living: Choose your own
adventure(ed Fingleton, T) The Australia Council for the Arts. Genoni, P & Haddow, G 2009, 'ERA and the Ranking of Australian Humanities Journals ', Australian
Humanities Review, vol. 46, May Hecq, D 2008, in Australian Association of Writing Programs Annual Conference:Creativity and
Uncertainty(ed Sydney, UoT) Forthcoming - University of Technology Sydney Sydney. Henderson, G 2002, 'Gough's Fans Must Face Facts', The Age, December 3. Jaaniste, L 2008, in QUT Digital RepositoryQueensland University of Technology, Brisbane. Kippen, R 2006, the Rise in the OIder Mother, viewed September 13, 2009,
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb4932/is_3_14/ai_n29309472/. Senator Kim Carr 2009, Powering Ideas: An Innovation Agenda for the Twenty-first Century. ,
Commonwealth Government, Canberra. Viewed September 13, 2009, http://www.innovation.gov.au/innovationreview/Pages/home.aspx.
ENDNOTES:
i http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=mysisterskeeper.htm ii http://orangeprizeproject.blogspot.com/2009/01/we-need-to-talk-about-kevin-mandys.html
iii http://www.bowlingforcolumbine.com/reviews/festivals.php
iv http://www.tonyawards.com/en_US/nominees/shows/200904191240190093843.html
Book chapter draft: Carol-Anne Croker
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v http://www.allenandunwin.com/default.aspx?page=94&book=9781741753592
vi http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/7700
vii http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb4932/is_3_14/ai_n29309472/?tag=content;col1
viiihttp://www.imdb.com/title/tt0062376/
ix http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0047885/
x http://bloomsbury.denise-randle.co.uk/intro.htm
xi http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/indonesia/index.html
xii FEE-HELP commenced in 2005 description taken from the following website accessed September 13, 2009
http://www.backingaustraliasfuture.gov.au/fact_sheets/6.htm Students paying full fees for an undergraduate course do not currently have access to an income contingent loan scheme. This is unfair and clearly works against students with reduced financial means. The new FEE-HELP scheme offers all eligible students an income contingent loan facility to pay their undergraduate or postgraduate fees in courses in public or eligible private higher education institutions. Students will be able to access a loan up to the amount of the full tuition fee charged for the course they are undertaking, to a limit of $50,000. Students studying at private higher education institutions only have access to FEE-HELP if the institution is recognised as a higher education provider by the Australian Government. FEE-HELP will encourage lifelong learning and the upgrading and acquisition of new skills. It will also help to remove barriers to national and personal investment in education, training and skills development. Enrolments in undergraduate fee paying courses in both public and private higher education institutions are likely to increase. This will help to reduce the level of unmet demand for higher education places and enable students to access their preferred course or provider, instead of taking up a Commonwealth supported place in a course they do not want. Debts accrued under FEE-HELP will be indexed to the consumer price index (CPI) but are otherwise interest free. A loan fee of 20 per cent will apply to FEE-HELP loans for undergraduate courses of study only. No loan fee applies to a FEE-HELP loan for fee paying postgraduate courses of study, or for units of study that do not form part of a course of study and are undertaken with OLA, or for bridging courses for overseas trained professionals. xiii
Term first used to describe the latter decades of the 20th
Century with the information revolution and rapid expansion of electronic communication and technological advancement. This first decade of the new Century could still be described as belonging to the ‘innovation age’. xiv
“The Melbourne Model is based on six broad undergraduate programs followed by a professional graduate degree, research higher degree or entry directly into employment. The emphasis on academic breadth as well as disciplinary depth in the new degrees ensures that as a graduate you will have the capacity to negotiate your way successfully in a world where knowledge boundaries are shifting and reforming to create new frontiers and challenges almost daily.” http://www.futurestudents.unimelb.edu.au/about/melbournemodel.html xv
Slattery, L & A Trounsen. University of Melbourne axes 220 jobs to cut losses. The Australian Higher Education Supplement http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25850820-12332,00.html Accessed August 1, 2009. xvi
Kniest, Paul. NTEU Advocate. Volume 16 (2) July 2009. P. 15. http://www.nteu.org.au/publications/advocate/vol16no2 Accessed August 1, 2009.
