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Welcome to 2014 O-Week! My name is Jim Elliott and I'm your MC for this short, official part
of the welcome. Curtin University is absolutely delighted to see you all and I trust this
will be the beginning of an experience that will change your life. We begin our programme
with a traditional Indigenous welcome which acknowledges we are gathered here today on
Nyungar land. It's my pleasure to introduce Phillip Walley-Stack. Phillip Walley-Stack
is an Australian-born singer-songwriter considered to be one of Australia's top didgeridoo players.
Over the past 20 years he has performed both nationally and internationally as a didgeridoo
player, traditional dancer, actor and musician. Phil inherits a performance tradition that
pre-dates modern arts. From birth, he has been exposed to a pocket of Whadjuk-Nyungar
culture maintained and passed on by his family for many generations. Firmly entrenched in
this tradition is the custom of Oral storytelling inseparable from song and dance. Please welcome
Phil Walley-Stack and his traditional dancer.
Yeah, you can clap!
The first dance that you saw was the Waitj. The Waitj that we call the Emu. The Emu is
the biggest bird in Australia that can't fly. So Australia is unique for having a bird that
can't fly. Ladies and Gentlemen I'd like to introduce
John Walley, the dancer today. Can you please put your hands together for him. And yes, he is single.
We're here to do a "Welcome to Country".
A welcome to country in my language. I want to talk in Nyungar language from Perth area,
which is right around the southwest of Western Australia which is Nyungar. In particular,
here where we are is called Whadjuk country. The reason why we do a welcome to country
is we're asking our ancestors and the spirits to look over everyone and keep you safe and
it's also respectful and shows a lot of manners and Curtin University have got a lot of manners
and a lot of respect because a lot of events that they have they always have a welcome
to country and I take my hat off to Curtin University, thank you very much for acknowledging
our past ancestors and our culture. The oldest living culture in the world that we should
be very happy about and to spread.
You know what I said eh? What I said was, as you look around you can see the land of
our people. The Nyungar people. It's a beautiful, beautiful country where we live. I asked that
the old people look over you and keep you safe as you walk on our land and may look
over you keep you safe as you journey back to your homes. In our language if everyone
can just repeat after me. Say 'Kaya!' Can you say it abit louder, Kaya! Kaya means hello
in our language. It means 'Hello' or it could mean 'Yes' as well. So anytime you see anybody
you just say Kaya. So I say to you Kaya Wandjoo Nonook Djarn Moort Boodja. Hello everybody
and welcome to my country. Thank you.
Feel free to clap along guys to the beat!
Thanks to Phillip and our Indigenous Welcome
is one part of Curtin's commitment to respect for Indigenous culture in the University and
the wider community. It is now my pleasure to ask our Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Professor
Jill Downie to introduce the Vice-Chancellor to you.
Thank you very much and good morning to you all it's so fantastic to see so many of you
joining us this morning for Orientation and a very big welcome to all of our students
who are also joining us via online live streaming so welcome to those students as well who are
near or far. Thank you very much again to Phillip Walley-Stack and the dancer for the
Indigenous welcome. It was very exhilarating and very refreshing and a wonderful way to
start the events today. As Jim said, a very important part of our tradition here at Curtin.
For those unfamiliar with the University terminology, the Vice-Chancellor is our Chief Executive
Officer so that means that the Vice-Chancellor is the most senior person in the organisation.
It gives me great pleasure today to introduce Professor Deborah Terry who has only joined
us as Vice-Chancellor last week. So she's come to us from the University of Queensland
where she's had a very esteemed career and she's having her own Orientation this week
along with you all. It's not what happens usually. Our last Vice-Chancellor was with
us for more than 7 years. So it's a rare occurrence to have a new Vice-Chancellor and we're very
excited about that and it's great that she can be doing her Orientation at the same time
as you all. But that should make you all feel very comfortable. It now gives me great pleasure
to welcome Professor Terry. Please make her feel welcome.
Thank you very much Jill and can I also thank Phil for the wonderful welcome to country
and I too acknowledge the Nyungar people on whose land we meet, obviously acknowledge
my senior colleagues, Professor Jill Downie, Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Dr Jim Elliott
and his staff. Well, that's absolutely wonderful to be here
as Jill said. You probably actually know slightly more than I do. I arrived a week ago and I
will certainly be orienting myself to the University at the same time as you are. Obviously
fantastic to see so many people here on our Bentley campus for Orientation week. But I
acknowledge that there are other students at one of our other campuses and Curtin is
an International University. It has an International profile with campuses in Malaysia and in Singapore
but also a strong regional profile with campuses at Kalgoorlie and a number of other regional
sites and many of our students who study online. So I welcome all of you here this morning
as well as all of those students who may be accessing this material remotely. As I say
I'm sure that you like me will feel slightly daunted now that you've arrived here at Curtin
University. There's lots of new faces, lots of new things to find out. You've got to find
your way around but I'm sure it also comes with a sense of excitement as you embark as
I am on a new adventure. It will be a steep learning curve, but what
you should do is to focus on the possibilities of the future and the opportunities that we
hope the Curtin experience will unlock for you. When you talk to people like me, people
like Jill and others they'll tell you inevitably that the best years of their lives were the
years that they spent at University. I did all of my study at the Australian National
University in Canberra and I can tell you we would never have had such a wonderful setting
to sit outside. Even if we did, we wouldn't have been able to trust the weather even in
February. But it really is the time of your life wherever you are in your studying, whether
you've come back to Curtin to start a new career, or whether you've just left school,
this is the time where you can really focus on those areas of study that genuinely interest
you. You may find that it takes a bit of time to find out exactly what you're interested
in but that's what University is all about. And it's also a time when you should be thinking
about your values and your perspectives because your time at University is where, we encourage
you and we want you to reflect on some of the big issues of your time, of our time,
the challenges and to engage in debate among yourselves with us, with the University, with
your lecturers about how society should be responding to those challenges in the future.
We're absolutely delighted that you've all chosen to study at Curtin University and our
goal is to provide you with an education from a top University that's known locally, nationally
and globally for academic excellence. But also, we commit to you becoming well-rounded
and altruistic graduates who have the capacity to become leaders in your chosen fields of
study. So I encourage you this week, make the most of O-Week. Soak up the atmosphere.
Attend the sessions. Take tours, find out where you have to be next week. Ask questions.
Meet as many people as you can, but especially find out who your senior student mentor is.
We obviously hope that the positives will way outweigh the negatives of your University
experience but there will probably be ups and downs particularly during the first year.
So if there are downs, I can assure you that we want to help however small the issue, however
you feel it's potentially peripheral to your studies, please do come and talk to our professional
staff and we can put you in the direction of the right support. I encourage you more
broadly to immerse yourself in all that Curtin has to offer you throughout your degree. Yes,
you're here to obtain that degree. That certificate at the end of three or four years. But you
need to make sure not only that you get the best from your course and from your teachers,
but seek opportunities to be involved in our student leadership programme. That looks absolutely
wonderful on your CV and it will give you a whole set of skills that will be useful
for the future. Engage in volunteering. Exactly the same thing. It's good to build your skills.
It looks good on your CV. When an employer's looking to choose between two people with
the same qualification, the same marks that they got through University. They're the things
they pay attention to - Have you engaged in volunteering; Have you engaged in leadership
skills building. And also make sure you think about studying abroad during your degree.
Today is about welcoming you to Curtin University but I hope for many of you we will be saying
farewell for at least part of your degree as you go and study overseas. Many of you
will end up working globally, Internationally or you will end up working in companies in
Western Australia that have a global presence. Employers will tell us over and over again,
students who have sought overseas experiences as students are ones they know understand
global business. Understand what it is to live in a different country and to study in
a different country and that will often give you an edge when you're seeking your first
job. So can I wish you all the very success for your studies here at Curtin University.
Congratulations for being offered a place. We're delighted to see you all. I look forward
to following your achievements with great interest and can I thank you advance for all
that you will do to advance Curtin's reputation into the future. Thank you very much.
Thank you Professor Terry. Some of you might have discovered already how easy it is to
get lost on a campus of this size, and as the Vice-Chancellor is brand new too, if you
see her wandering around looking bewildered you can point her in the direction of Building
100, over that way! Okay. Thank you very much Professor Terry.
Along with our senior executive our final welcome now comes from the senior representative
of the students. The student Guild is your representative body and the University seeks
guild input in all our major decision-making processes. It is therefore very appropriate
that the President of the Guild is able to welcome you today. Please welcome your guild
president Sam Cavallaro.
Hi everybody, I also wanted to acknowledge
that this is Whadjuk-Nyungar country and this land was never ceded and this always was and
always will be Aboriginal land. My name is Sam Cavallaro, I'm the Guild President for
this year. I study Fine Art and I major in Sculpture. I'm here to officially welcome
you on behalf of the Guild and all of the Guild representatives that seeks to represent
you as students and will be doing so throughout this year. And I want to talk to you about
some important aspects of student life. And I hope that you all will be getting involved
in the Guild this year. So welcome everybody to Curtin. The guild is an organisation that
represents Curtin students and stands up for your rights. As a collective organisation
we not only provide a massive range of student support services, discounts and social events,
we prioritise actively defending students' rights. Student representation is at the core
of what we do. The Guild is a democratically elected council of student representatives
that run campaigns, attend University meetings, support social justice and advocate for quality
education. We're kicking off this year with a massive O-Day which is going to be on this
wednesday. So I hope to see everyone here also come on wednesday. This is an opportunity
to check out everything that the Guild has on offer including more than 60 clubs. This
is also your opportunity to meet your Guild representatives, have your say and get involved.
We also have a big year ahead of us with many challenges facing students. The Guild will
be participating in this year's National Day of Action on March 26th against the Government's
proposed fee increases and cuts to University funding. So I wanted to talk to you briefly
about membership and I've seen some of the Guild membership team walking around recently.
Is anyone still in the crowd? With the pink shirts. Yup, over there. Big Wave. If you
want to join the Guild I encourage everyone to do so. Please see someone who's wearing
these t-shirts. They know everything that the Guild has to offer so ask them all the
questions that you want and they'll be able to talk to you about this. And I will have
a go at talking about it as well. The Guild works to represent the interest of students
and provides support and advocacy for all students so please get in contact with us
if you have any issues in the classroom, have faced discrimination or are struggling to
get by. Our services are here to back you up. However, the Guild does provide a special
service and extras for those who opt to purchase full Guild membership. Being a full Guild
member means that you're actively contributing to the only collective organisation that represents
students on campus. Joining the Guild is like joining a Union. It's only with the active
support of our members that we able to continue to stand up for student rights. As well as
supporting the Guild, getting membership means that you get discounts on food and massively
reduced priced coffee which is $2 this year. Running the cafes on campus is just one of
the many thing that we provide the students. Sorry, it's boiling hot up here.
Something that I did want to talk to you all about, might be a bit more of a sombre note
for the start of the University year, is the education cuts that have been proposed by
the Federal Government. Since coming to power the Liberal governement has made it clear
that they are no friends of students. Welfare is under threat with the Government planning
on cutting the Centrelink Startup scholarship, which I know I have relied on in the past
and I imagine anyone here who is on Centrelink will do the same. As well as putting a fee
onto medicare for visits to the doctor. The liberal government has also showed its true
colours in talks about privatising HECS and the HECS help system deepening the student
debt under which currently students take an average of 10 years to repay already. The
liberals are also supportive of a push from some Universities to de-regulate fees which
would mean that there would be no control over how much the Universities would charge
students to study their courses. There are also plans to massively reduce funding to
Universities. Following in the footsteps of the previous labour party the Abbott government
plans to cut billions of dollars out of funding to higher education. The government also has
its eyes set to attack academic freedom with talks of giving government power to remove
funding to academics whose research disagrees with the party's agenda. Christopher Pyne
has also talked about reforming school's curriculum to remove left-wing content and LGBTI and
*** content. The government also revealed that its sights are set on attacking independent
student organisations like the Curtin student guild, and it is no wonder that the liberals
want to get rid of us because we're the only organisation that are capable of standing
up against their plan to attack the rights of students. It's up to all of us as students
to stand against these attacks and demand a quality of education that is accessible
to everyone. This is one of the guiding principles of the Curtin student guild. So, getting involved
in standing up and getting involved in the guild more generally, one of the great avenues
to do that is the National Day of Action which is coming up on March 26th. This will be a
fight-back against the monumental cuts. This is a national event and across the country
students will be taking a stand for their education rights. At Curtin, we'll be holding
an on-campus event that will start at 1230pm and it will be at the rainbow hexagon which
is just up there and then from there we'll be getting buses into the city for a 2pm start
for a public demonstration that's going to have involvement for all of the different
campuses in WA. So just to sum up, this will be a big year for all of you I'm sure and
the guild is here to help you. We also hope that you'll be able to help us by coming along
to the National Day of Action on March 26th and by joining clubs and by purchasing Guild
membership. Please don't hesitate to contact the guild as we will endeavour to help you
in any and all of your problems. And if you would like to get involved in the campaign
against the education cuts or in anything to do with the Guild please contact us for
that as well. You can find us on Facebook or at our website or just drop-in to the building
106F which is up the big main street and right out there and then you'll be able to see the
Guild. Thanks everyone for listening to me and I
hope that you all get involved in the guild this year and come to O-Day! Thanks.
Thank you very much Sam and I'd echo those words that I hope you will support and get
heavily involved in your guild. Well that brings these formal proceedings to a close.
I hope you will use your timetable of O-Week events to enjoy the "Fun stuff" and to engage
in the "Serious stuff" and actually even the "Serious stuff" is fun. So make sure you get
to your departmental and school orientation sessions. Now, if you don't know what they
are you can download your orientation timetable from your Oasis website or you can ask at
your Faculty Student Service Office. If you don't know where your Faculty Student Service
office is you can ask any of our volunteers in their lime-green waistcoats where they
maybe. So by the end of O-Week we want you to feel you know your way around. You feel
it's okay to ask questions if you're not sure about anything. At least have some idea where
you can get help if you need it and most of all we want you to feel you belong at Curtin.