US Studies Centre board announced (1 Viewer)

[Triangulum]

http://www.usyd.edu.au/news/84.html?newsstoryid=1887

• Mr Malcolm Binks, (Chair), American Australian Association (AAA) Chairman and businessman
• Professor Don Nutbeam, Provost and Deputy Vice-Chancellor of the University of Sydney
• Mrs Linda Nicholls AO, corporate adviser, company director and former chairman of Australia Post
• Mrs Lucy Turnbull, business leader, company director and former lord mayor of Sydney
• Mr Michael Thawley, Senior Vice President and International Adviser, Capital Strategy Research and former Australian ambassador to the United States
• The Hon Kim Beazley MP, former deputy prime minister, former federal leader of the opposition and former leader of the Australian Labor Party
• Mr Michael Baume AO, former Australian consul-general to New York and member of the House of Representatives and the Senate, and parliamentary secretary
• Mr Joe Skrzynski AM, co-founding partner of Castle Harlan Australian Mezzanine Partners (CHAMP) and Senate Fellow, the University of Sydney
• Mr Ezekiel Solomon,a senior partner of Allens Arthur Robinson in Sydney, formerly resident partner in New York
• Mr Loftus Harris, Director-General, Department of State and Regional Development, NSW Government

The aim of the USSC is to deepen understanding of the United States by creating new knowledge on American culture, politics, business, government and society. The Centre's goal is to be the prime Australian source of information and commentary on the US, especially with respect to US-Australian relations.

The Centre will be home to leading-edge research, and will facilitate academic exchanges as well as offer a range of postgraduate studies at the Masters and PhD levels starting in 2008.

Do any of them have any links to Rupert Murdoch or George Bush? Because if they do the SRC will go insane.

 

[stazi]

that is a veeery impressive board. i wish to sex each and every one of them (only sexed two thus far)

 

[Nebuchanezzar]

I don't have a problem with the US Studies Centre...yet. But if no reliable or worthwhile research is pumped out by them, then I will indeed have a problem. I guess it's just a pity that money is being put into a thing like this, which I believe is quite frivolous and unnessecary, when it could be spent somewhere a little more worthwhile. I've always thought that it'd be nice to see an extension placed on Fisher somewhere (in Victoria park) so that all of the library resources are in the one location. Maybe more money going into worthwhile departments such as microbiology or chemistry, or something like that, would be a neat idea. I just...I can't help but feel that this US Studies Centre business is somewhat wasteful.

But I guess the time for debating about all this US Studies Centre business is over. So meh.

 

[Triangulum]

I guess it's just a pity that money is being put into a thing like this, which I believe is quite frivolous and unnessecary

As an institute of higher learning, don't we want investment in research and teaching? That's hardly frivolous. Also, we won the USSC out of the claws of Melbourne uni. So it's a physical symbol of Usyd's general awesomeness. We rule.

 

[Nebuchanezzar]

As an institute of higher learning, don't we want investment in research and teaching?

So long as the research and teaching is actually useful. I really cannot see any research being done by this centre as worthwhile, or worthy of the amount of resources being given to it.

Of course...there is that whole matter of the centre being nothing more than a propaganda machine for a bit of an iffy cause.

 

[c_james]

There are three ways this can pan out. The US Studies Centre will become a bastion of neoconservative research, liberal research, or both. Personally, I would prefer the third option. As much as I despise neocons, an institution of higher education shouldn't suppress any viewpoint. So I say let the academics wax lyrical about George Bush. With any luck, they'll be countered in due course by more liberal-minded researchers.