Southern Cross Matters

This is precisely the ethos that runs through the profile of Damien Maher in this edition of Southern Cross Matters. As you read that material, I’m sure you’ll derive a deep sense of the motivating force that pushes him to explore new frontiers of knowledge and the enormous significance for him of seeing that work translated into impact and application.

It is the same ethos that has informed the approach taken at the Lismore campus as we support the organisations and institutions that together provide the fabric that undergirds our community such that we protect and build upon our vitality and sustain our reasons to be optimistic as to the future.

I believe that the Southern Cross Model is also informed by this same approach – and that in our willingness to take risks and to expend enormous time and energy in the quest for a better way of learning and teaching, we will find our reward in the deeper engagement, intellectual development and success of our students and their subsequent contributions to society.

As we continue to prepare ourselves for our future, for our priorities in that future and for the challenging trade-offs that we will need to deliberate upon during that journey, it will serve us well to continue to remind ourselves of the power of looking outwards, of engagement with our communities and of the central importance of excellence through impact.

I hope you find this edition of Southern Cross Matters enjoyable and inspirational and look forward to your continued suggestions for matters of interest for future versions.

Professor Tyrone M Carlin
Vice Chancellor and President

As a specialist in hydrobiogeochemistry, Damien’s work covers a range of topics from local water quality issues and solutions, to global biogeochemical and hydrological cycles. His research team have been working on a collaborative project with Rous County Council and the Department of Planning and Environment to monitor water quality in the Richmond River. Following the devastating weather events in February and March, the team have been busy investigating the chronic impacts of the flooding on the NSW North Coast, including the deoxygenation of the Richmond River catchment, resulting in extensive fish kill.

“My SCU colleagues and I are working with local and state governments to undertake regular sampling of water throughout the Richmond River, installation and maintenance of water quality loggers, as well as some experimental work to understand how the river responds to these kinds of massive floods,” Professor Maher said.
“We will use this information to develop and calibrate water quality models, with the ultimate aim of providing management options to government. As part of this project we are also looking to map out erosion in the catchment, which has been extensive. This will help inform government on where restoration works should be prioritised to reduce the long-term effects of soils being moved from the land to the waterways,” he said.

Damien has always had a passion for the environment, in particular rivers, estuaries and the coastal ocean. He has been exploring these relationships for the best part of two decades and new discoveries keep inspiring him to find out more.

“One of the discoveries we have found is that there are microbes living in the bark that can transform nitrogen gas into nitrogen that the trees can use to grow. This is a really exciting discovery, and may change the way we view the global nitrogen budget, and how forest ecosystems will respond to climate change,” Professor Maher said.
Damien credits his collaborations with University colleagues, industry and government as the backbone of delivering research with impact.

“It’s important to realise that good research cannot be undertaken in isolation. Collaborating with other researchers and industry partners has not only helped shape my research focus, but has also provided pathways for translation of research into practice. It is extremely rewarding to see the research I have been a part of being applied to real-world issues.”

A recovery centre continues to operate out of V block, distributing donated goods, food and clothing. More than 30 services are using or have used the campus as temporary or semi-temporary accommodation, including Centrelink, Service NSW, insurance and banking facilities, LegalAid, community services organisations and emergency services including the NSW Police. “It's a version of the concept of town and gown in a way, where you're really bringing parts of the town to the university where it makes sense to do so. That's definitely the way of the future and I think it’s good for students as it provides opportunities for them as well,” said Allan Morris, Vice President (Operations).

Head2Health, the new mental health consulting space is operating out of P block, providing space for mental health services alongside general practitioners and allied health professionals who are operating from the P Block Health Clinic, where pathology services are also located.

The Business Hub in A Block’s Enterprise Lab, set up by Business NSW, is also providing an essential space for people to reboot and re-imagine commercial activities. Regional Manager of Business NSW Jane Laverty said between 20-50 businesses were accessing the hub every day to access workspaces, wifi, support and business recovery information. “The whole goal of the hub for us to retain as many businesses in the Northern Rivers as we possibly can,” she said.

The biogeochemist from Southern Cross University’s Faculty of Science and Engineering will lead two ARC Discovery Projects in the same round, taking him from Australia’s flooded inland deserts to the shallow ocean floor along the Great Barrier Reef.

Professor Eyre said he was thrilled to be collaborating with NASA, who will conduct satellite work for the $456,000 project ‘Resolving the role of dryland flooding in the global carbon cycle’ and CSIRO, who will use the findings to inform global carbon cycle modelling.

“This builds on our previous work at Kati Thanda-Lake Eyre in remote Central Australia when it flooded in 2019. My colleague Professor Dirk Erler and I hired a helicopter to gather water samples and became the first scientists to measure greenhouse gas emissions from an inland salt lake and associated flooded river systems,” Professor Eyre said.

“We’ll now prepare everything and wait for the next flood in the Kati Thanda-Lake Eyre’s catchment to do some more detailed sampling, as well as some sampling in the dry, which may lead to the discovery of some of the planet’s missing sources of methane.”

Meanwhile Professor Eyre’s $437,000 project ‘Shallow water carbonate sediment dissolution in the global carbon cycle’ – his latest on the Great Barrier Reef – will determine the amount of alkalinity and calcium released as sands on the continental shelf dissolve, which will also contribute to a better understanding of the global carbon cycle.

These grants are Professor Eyre’s 31st and 32nd ARC-funded projects, with three successful ARC projects in the past year, off the back of another ARC Linkage project awarded at the end of 2020.

Responding to a survey about the Southern Cross Model on the University’s social media channels, students said they enjoyed having the module content ‘all in the one place’ as well as the more frequent breaks in the academic calendar. The ability to focus on fewer subjects and fitting study around full-time work were also a bonus for students.

The most frequent challenge students experienced was the amount of content to get through in six weeks.

Social Work and Community Welfare Course Coordinator Dr Darran Stonehouse, who taught his first Southern Cross Model unit in Term 1, said the balance between self-learning content and longer class hours required tweaking during the Term. “I had to make adjustments to the learning activities planned for the classes,” he said.

The team showcased all the advantages of Southern Cross University and the Gold Coast as a study destination.

“We addressed our new courses, industry collaborations, employability opportunities for international students, and future partnership opportunities with Indian institutions,” Subhi said.

Other events included the Director's Meet and Networking Event in Nepal and plenty of agent reactivation visits in New Delhi, Gurgaon, and Noida.

Monty Singh met with Australia's Ambassador to Nepal, Her Excellency Ms Felicity Volk, at the Australian Embassy in Nepal and discussed strengthening overall relations. The International team has relationships with over 30 of the top colleges in Nepal for hospitality, finance, and management.

A new edition to the 2022 international strategy is the introduction of SCU Info Week, where the elected international agent decorates the whole office with Southern Cross branding and promotes the University for a week to prospective students.

So, what’s next for the International team? Sponsoring the biggest basketball league in Nepal, with an estimated reach of 1 million viewers globally!

The Southern Cross interactive cube lightbox brightened the campus, with festival-goers invited to grab a piece of chalk and answer, ‘what is the most valuable thing you’ve ever learnt?’ Responses ranged from ‘bring a blanket into the cinema’ to ‘never stop learning’.

Another highlight was the inaugural Southern Cross Nextwave Accelerator workshop run by Digital Media Lecturer Uwe Terton. He led 30 finalists from schools across the region to create a short montage in the intensive three-hour workshop.

“I am very grateful to have been given the opportunity to facilitate one of the Nextwave Accelerator workshops around film montage. The event is important in nurturing creative talent within the Coffs Harbour community,” said Uwe.

Winding up two weeks of festivities was a panel discussion following the screening of 'Carbon: the unauthorised biography.’ The discussion featured many familiar Southern Cross faces, such as Associate Professor Christian Sanders, Environmental Analysis Laboratory Technical Manager Nadia Toppler, and Marine Science student Luke Austin, who was recently awarded the AgriFutures Horizon Scholarship.