US Boeing professor and world expert to speak at SCU on global learning

A world expert in international linkage of groups via the internet and delivery of courses online, will speak at Southern Cross University (SCU) this Thursday, July 17, at 1pm in room U231.

Professor Glyn Rimmington, originally from Australia and now the inaugural Boeing Distinguished Professor of Global Learning at Wichita State University in Kansas in the US, will speak on 'Global Learning: Preparing Students for the Global Workforce.' His chair (professorhip) is supported by the largest endowment ever made by the Boeing company.

Professor Rimmington is responsible for the establishment of a worldwide global learning network that already has 19 member institutions in 10 countries, and is growing exponentially.

Prior to taking this position in September, 2001, he was a senior member of the University of Melbourne’s Faculty of Agriculture, Forestry and Horticulture. Dr Rimmington's work has taken him to many countries, including conducting a 10-year program in China, where he is an adjunct Professor of Multimedia Education at Hebei Agricultural University in Hebei Province, near Beijing, and visiting Fellow of the Chinese Academy of Science.

Professor Rimmington is visiting Australia after delivering two papers at the EdMedia conference in Honolulu. These were co-authored with, among others, Meg O'Reilly of the SCU Teaching and Learning Centre.

Whilst in Australia he is giving talks at three universities and visiting family and friends. He has been, until recently, a co-supervisor of a SCU PhD scholar funded by the CRC for Tourism, Kristin Den Exter, who has just completed her thesis on the use of systems thinking to improve decision making in coastal management.

Prof. Rimmington is a former colleague and friend of Associate Professor Alison Specht, of the School of Environmental Science and Management. They were both PhD students at the University of Queensland. They have worked together many times over the years on environmental modelling, communication, and education delivery and extension in Australia and China.

Professor Specht has been working with landowners in the northern rivers region using web techniques as a way to deliver information and link community groups.

“Glyn worked in environmental and plant modelling in the 80s and set up networks for wheat growers in the Pacific basin to better manage their yields,” she said. “It was at this time that his awareness of the opportunities of multimedia and the internet to bridge countries and continents arose.

“His work now with the University of Wichita and Boeing involves delivering courses throughout the world, using virtual internet web delivery as a major tool to deliver material through universities and industry organisations.”

NB: Professor Rimmington arrives in Lismore on Wednesday afternoon and will be in the area until Saturday. Radio: he would be available to do an interview prior to his talk on Thursday morning.

Contact: Sara Crowe, Media Liaison, Southern Cross University, Lismore, Ph: 02 6620 3144, Email: scrowe@scu.edu.au.