Uniken

Creator
University of New South Wales. Public Affairs Unit
Call Number
Nf 378.944 UNI
Created/Published
Kensington, N.S.W. : University of New South Wales, [1975]-2015
Issue
1982, no. 2 (5 - 18 Mar., 1982)
Images
6
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Text

UNIKEN  

THE UNIVERSITY OF NEW SOUTH WALES  

No. 143 (No. of 1982)  

Published fortnightly by the Public Affairs Unit  

Registered by Australia Post Publication No. NBF 4388  

March 1982  

All work and no  

play makes  

dull students  

The Vice-Chancellor, Professor Michael Birt,  

and the President of the Students' Union,  

Michael Ward, agreed on one thing in  

their joint welcome to students during  

Orientation Week that participation in  

extracurricular activities is essential if you  

want to get the most out of university  

life.  

Both highlighted the fact that UNSW has  

over 100 clubs and societies, making it  

rich and rewarding place.  

While generally in favour of students' enjoying them-  

selves, Professor Birt pointed out that the  

primary purpose of coming to university was to  

study. He cautioned against too many late  

nights, suggesting this could lend support to the  

definition of professor as 'someone who talks  

in somebody else's sleep'.  

Professor Birt said he believed the two basic reasons  

people attended university were to satisfy their  

curiosity about the world and its occupants and  

to fulfil vocational aims. At UNSW, which he  

described as one of the great centres of learning  

in the world, students could do both, he said.  

After extending special welcome to mature age  

students, whom he said had unique contribu-  

tion to make, he offered everyone some good  

advice in case they found themselves in the  

unfortunate situation of either failing or  

needing to drop out.  

He suggested that if student found he or she and  

the university were incompatible, then the  

break should be made sooner rather than later.  

He also advised students to acquaint themselves  

with the 'Show Cause' rules (via the faculty  

handbooks). While on the subject of failing,  

he took the opportunity to quash the rumour  

that predetermined number of students are  

automatically failed each year, saying this  

simply was not so.  

Professor Birt stressed that if anyone had any  

doubts about university life in genera), he or  

she should talk to member of the academic  

staff or student counsellor as soon as possible.  

His parting advice was: study hard, but get more out  

of university life than just the academic side of  

it.  

This message was reiterated by Michael Ward. He  

said, though, that he suspected lot of people  

came to university only because they got high  

enough marks in the HSC and didn't know  

what they wanted to do. Rather than being  

curious about the world, he suggested, they  

were curious about themselves.  

The road to self-discovery required one to act as an  

individual and to look beyond the store of  

knowledge readily available at university, he  

said. His own experience had shown that learn-  

ing from academics, who he said were qualified  

in their own particular areas but not as  

teachers, could be very difficult. One solution,  

he suggested, was to ask them lot of ques-  

tions.  

The SU President also advised new students, partic-  

ularly those fresh from secondary school, not  

to be concerned if academic staff were not  

interested in them as individuals. He claimed  

that, to some academics involved in complex  

field of scientific research, teaching, say, first  

year chemistry, was just chore.  

Despite such obstacles, university life can be reward-  

ing, he said.  

Students survey disabled access  

Taking to wheelchairs themselves was  

part of the experience for group of UNSW  

architecture students surveying the difficulties  

of access to public buildings faced by disabled  

people.  

The surveys, of council-owned properties  

like town halls, libraries, senior citizens'  

clubs and pools, were carried out for state-  

wide Municipal Access Project (MAP)  

organized by the Local Government Associa-  

tion for the International Year of Disabled  

Persons.  

One hundred and eighty first year students  

took part, surveying properties in Hornsby,  

Liverpool, Canterbury, Concord, Hunters Hill, North  

Sydney and Waverley. Their participation in the  

project was the culmination of session-long Living  

Unit subject, which is the first practical application  

of design in their course and focusses on the needs of  

the individual person.  

'Architects of all people need to know who  

they are designing for and to be able to detect poten-  

tial hazards before the event', says course organizer,  

Paul Johnson, Senior Lecturer in the School of Arch-  

itefcture.  

'The project was done as an advisory service,  

not as finger-pointing exercise', he says. MAP  

survey teams, which included disabled people,  

reported back to the councils with suggestions for  

improvements, bearing in mind impending changes  

to the building regulations which will require better  

access for disabled people to new non-residential  

buildings.  

Student Joan Lees says the experience was an  

eye opener. 'Unless you get into wheelchair it is  

difficult to understand problems of access. At  

briefing session at the NSW Society for Crippled  

Children, lots of the students tried out wheelchairs.  

Later, as part of our survey, we did park at  

Hornsby which was supposedly designed with  

disabled people in mind but had some groundcover  

of bark chips that was impossible for wheelchair to  

negotiate.'  

Each of the groups included disabled person  

as guide. Joan's team included partially sighted  

person, which she says made her aware of things she  

had not considered before, such as the need for  

handrails to be brightly painted so they would stand  

out from the background.  

And despite the best intentions, ramps were not  

the complete answer for people in wheelchairs. 'I  

thought all the problems would be solved by ramps',  

says another student, Vince A. Pirrello, 'but talking  

to disabled people, found this is not the case'.  

Sometimes ramps were too steep or they had lip  

which was difficult to bump over.  

'Another thing that came to light', says Joan,  

'is the variety of disabled people in wheelchairs,  

with vision disabilities, people with arthritis; even  

elderly people and mothers with young children are  

disabled in way'.  

Inside  

Orientation pictures page  

Committee feature page  

Safety after dark .... page  

Origins page  

Photographs this issue: Public Affairs Unit  

Seen enjoying the free coffee  

and biscuits served after the  

Vice-Chancellor's welcome  

to new students are (left to  

right) Michele Harding  

(Architecture I), Jon  

Priestley (Commerce/Law I)  

and David Thomson (Archi-  

tecture I). Michele did her  

HSC at Loretto Kirribilli,  

Jon at Riverview College and  

David at Kuring-gai High.  

Mature age student Bernard  

Glovasky, licensed builder  

enrolled in Architecture I.  

Filing into their first Psychology lecture in the  

Clancy Auditorium, this group of freshers looked  

enthusiastic about beginning new phase of their  

lives.  

Paul Johnson, Senior Lecturer in the School of Architecture, with (from left) students Samantha  

Giordimaina, Phillip Parker, Vince A. Pirello and Joan Lees, who took part in the access surveys.  

Cite

Citation options:
Work identifier

http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-255476004

APA citation

University of New South Wales. Public Affairs Unit & University of New South Wales, issuing body. (1975). Uniken Retrieved June 13, 2025, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-255476004

MLA citation

University of New South Wales. Public Affairs Unit and University of New South Wales, issuing body. Uniken Kensington, N.S.W: University of New South Wales, 1975. Web. 13 June 2025 <http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-255476004>

Harvard/Australian citation

University of New South Wales. Public Affairs Unit & University of New South Wales, issuing body. 1975, Uniken University of New South Wales, Kensington, N.S.W viewed 13 June 2025 http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-255476004

Wikipedia citation

{{Citation
  | author1=University of New South Wales. Public Affairs Unit.
  | author2=University of New South Wales, issuing body.
  | title=Uniken.
  | year=1975
  | section=volumes : illustrations ; 30-43 cm.
  | issn=0312-7877
  | issue=1982, no. 2 (5 - 18 Mar., 1982)
  | location=Kensington, N.S.W
  | publisher=University of New South Wales
  | url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-255476004
  | id=nla.obj-255476004
  | access-date=13 June 2025
  | via=Trove
}}

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