"He gave man speech, and speech created thought"
"Which is the measure of the universe"
Shelly

Inaugural Campbell Lecture 2000

I am deeply honoured by having been given the opportunity to introduce the first of the "Campbell Lecture 2000" series.

This series of lectures will further enhance the indisputably high academic standard of the Campbell Bar. Lectures will only be presented when a speaker of significantly high standing is available. We are fortunate to be able to arrange such a speaker for this evening.

The speaker's qualifications are without question extraordinary. His background includes a series of incidents that equip him well to deliver an address of superb quality. This man, as a result of a misunderstanding with a bottle of beer, a person of the opposite sex and the manager of a student residence, shared a dwelling (of sorts) with that ragbag (ie doesn't believe in privatisation) economist Ken Davidson. This man attended The Don's Party (ie the one the Williamson play was modelled on). This man drove a wooden spoked car to Alice Springs.

Like a fine wine his character is complex - his surname would suggested a middle eastern origin - he was once nearly executed by terrorists because of this. (since then there have been no shortage of other reasons for people to suggest his execution) - yet his general temperament is Mediterranean - who knows what strange twists lay knotted in his DNA helix?

Of course we are talking about Neville Rosengren - the man who earlier this week tore from his tortured soul his emotions and flung them across cyber space in his allstaff email titled "Computer and slide projection facilities".

The topic of the talk will be based on the material contained in that email.

"Frustration, bordering on rage - personal experiences with technology."

by Neville Rosengren

at the Campbell Bar lectern starting promptly somewhere between 5:30 and 6:00 this evening.

(Bar prices as usual - special conditions may apply.)

Dear Teaching Staff,

I can think of no other way than to use the allstaff e-mail.

This message is in no way critical of any group mentioned below. To the contrary, in the limit of their obviously stretched resources, I have received prompt and courteous assistance from all when problems arise... BUT!

Is anyone else experiencing the frustration - bordering on rage - that I am, regarding the diverse arrangements needed to activate and guarantee the successful operation of the Computer projection (and to a lesser extent 35mm slide facilities) in Lecture rooms? For example, in the McKay Theatre if you use both facilities (a very frequent event in Geology lectures), you need to:

1. visit the Media Services office (to get the remote to turn on the Computer Projector - it's busy there at times)

2. Ascertain that the door to the projection box is unlocked (the building supervisor/Caretaker) is needed here.

3. Hope that the remote control for the 35mm projector is in there.

4. Hope that the computer is bootable and workable otherwise the DSSG is also needed.

5. Get your stuff loaded and working.

6. Have no practical means of obtaining assistance in the case ofh ardware/software problems during the lecture.

7. Return the remote control to Media Services etc.etc.etc....

Much of this of course you must fit in the short time available between the lecture room emptying and either (or both of) coming from or going to another class (and going through an abbreviated version of the same in another theatre e.g.

In the Circular Lecture Theatre:

1. Get a key to the Computer cupboard from Media Services or the Student Services Office (can be busy there too)

2. Hope that the projection room door is unlocked

3. Ditto 3 to 7 above.

If you are in the Applied Science 2.14 lecture room:

1. Trust that the remote control has been returned to the right place in the Applied Science 2 office (two floors away) by previous users.

2. Organised a slide projector beforehand

3. Ditto and ditto.

(what do you do for 8:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m + lectures in any of the aboveplaces???) As the rooms mentioned are in frequent use, there is usually no opportunity beforehand to check systems apart from doing it in the crush between exiting & entering students.

In two of the above places, computer systems have difficulty coping with large graphics files on Power Point and are either extremely slow to load, refuse to load! or crash on the job.

I dunno, I raged about this a couple of years ago to the highest officer on the campus - security, systems and facilities have marginally improved - but there is still a tenuous link between having a relaxing (stimulating) and rewarding lecture experience using materials and technologies that we are encouraged to (remember the QA forms!), and the potential for lock-outs, systems failures or other impediments to good teaching.

My geological colleagues at Bundoora (who have the same QA's about teaching excellence etc.) do not encounter such problems - they have their own teaching rooms with adequate equipment and do not have to queue for access with the rest of the campus.

Am I a nutter in the wilderness, hypersensitive, incompetent or have unrealistic expectations?. What do we do about the above? and how do we do it? or really should not someone else do something it about it for us - after all - we do the teaching!

P.S. This salvo is a consequence of: My Aust. Environments first lecture to 120+ was severely compromised by a system refusal in the CLT on Monday morning - and came dangerously close to another crisis in the same place again this morning (despite the fact that I had made dummy runs yesterday p.m. & in the pre-dawn to-day. (You work out how I got the keys for that exercise!)

Yours desperately

Neville
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