Australia, Day 10

I have been learning more about the Australian higher education system and some features that are rather unique to Macquarie.
I had a short discussion with my office mates about HECS -- the student loan system in Australia -- that allows graduated students to pay back their loans once they have employment of a certain minimum salary.  At that point, the government starts taking out loan repayments straight out of the pay check, so that it is not up to the student how to repay, and how much to repay; instead, the repayment is more of a tax that gets pulled out of the pay check every month, held by the employer and then paid in lump sum at the end of the year. Students can decide to just pay everything off at once, and one gets a discount -- but the loan itself is of course also carrying interest, so someone is making money off these student loans.
At Macquarie, graduate studies are run a little differently.  Markedly, two items of interest.
1.  Faculty members who want to be supervisors of a graduate student -- aka chair of the dissertation committee -- need to undergo mandatory training on how to do this.  Once the training is completed and it is established that their research agenda is active, they are added to a publicly available roster so that future graduate students can see who is available to work with them.
2.  Graduate students can write a traditional dissertation or thesis or they can write a thesis by publications.  This is essentially a series of articles that are either published or publishable on the candidate's research interest.  Towards graduation and the defense, these articles are then strung together with some connecting narrative for a coherent presentation.  It gives graduates already a portfolio of publications and a potential head start.
One of my office mates took me on a campus tour.  She showed me the library, a building only about 4 years old, with lots, and I mean lots, of informal learning spaces that are packed with students.

Library study corner

Study corner in library

printers and comfy chairs in library

We went back to the old library with its various informal learning spaces, and I especially like the consistent use of color and wood everywhere.  Apparently, the wood is recycled.  I also saw the nice open spaces of green and some other areas.

study corner

lake

outside of student center

study corner

semi private study space with movable wood panels

study alcoves -- and yes, there is a blue corner as well

bringing nature inside through wall paper

The campus is quite beautiful, and now that it is winter, the temperatures are rather nice, in the 70s, or around 18 degrees.  The food court has some amazing food choices, very international, and you can even buy loaves of bread in this court.

I chatted with a Socialist student group on campus -- the joy of lables - here, the Liberals are the conservative party, so the US Republicans -- I bet there is a teachable moment in there somewhere.