From the Dean

As well as enabling core teaching and research programs and student scholarships across a range of disciplines, this generosity also positively impacts the wider community via initiatives like the Refugee Language Program, where refugees and asylum seekers develop their English-language communication skills, or our Link Program, which supports high school students in low socioeconomic schools in Western Sydney and rural and remote New South Wales to pursue tertiary education.

On Tuesday, 18 September 2018, we will celebrate Pave the Way, one of the biggest events on the University’s calendar when our community unites to showcase our incredible achievements in research, education and community outreach programs and to raise funds for selected areas. We have chosen a few different projects to support at this year’s Pave the Way Faculty morning tea, one of which includes the 78ers Legacy Fund, which is a 40-year commemoration of Sydney’s first Mardi Gras. Funds raised will support bursaries and scholarships, research projects, and community-focused activities for students interested in advancing gender and sexual equality, inclusion and diversity. This is a crowdfunding initiative so every amount large or small, counts. Please have a look and see if you would like to participate.

Another project which is an important local initiative is the Glebe Community Project. Established in 2004 by the School of Education and Social Work, the broad aim of the Glebe Community Development Project was to improve the life opportunities of disadvantaged residents within Glebe and Camperdown, particularly those living in public housing. The Project works in partnership with local residents, community groups and the City of Sydney to build community capacity and increase social cohesion in the Glebe and Camperdown communities and you can support this important project here.

We continue to take our ideas to the people through initiatives like Raising the Bar and Outside the Square. This year, Raising the Bar will be held in Sydney on Wednesday, 17 October and a number of FASS academics will be sharing their research in wine bars across the city. Anna Boucher will cut through the noise to make an evidence-based assessment of Australia’s immigration policy; Megan Le Masurier will give insights into the surprising future of print magazines in our increasingly digital world and  Caroline West will take a philosophical approach to the pursuit of happiness.

Outside the Square continues to pack capacity crowds into the Old Rum Store to hear our expert panels of academics and alumni on issues of pressing contemporary importance. Our next session—“The Big Bubble: Will the Australian Housing Crisis Ever End?”—will be on Thursday, 13 September and we have lined up a sociologist, an urban planner and an economist to make some sense of Sydney’s crazy housing market. On Thursday, 11 October, we will bring together a cybersecurity analyst, a media scholar and a white-hat hacker—“Hackers, Breaches, Bots: How Well Do You Understand the Internet”—and really make you think about the possible consequences of your everyday online behaviors. Get some friends together and come along for a fun evening that will also make you smarter.

Proessor Annamarie Jagose
Dean, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences