Australian Learning and Teaching Council, Learning and Teaching Academic Standards Statement for Architecture

The development of the Learning and Teaching Academic Standards Statement for Architecture (the Statement) centred on requirements for the Master of Architecture and proceeded alongside similar developments in the building and construction discipline under the guidance and support of the Australian Deans of Built Environment and Design (ADBED). Through their representation of Australian architecture programs, ADBED have provided high-level leadership for the Learning and Teaching Academic Standards Project in Architecture (LTAS Architecture). The threshold learning outcomes (TLOs), the description of the nature and extent of the discipline, and accompanying notes were developed through wide consultation with the discipline and profession nationally. They have been considered and debated by ADBED on a number of occasions and have, in their fi nal form, been strongly endorsed by the Deans. ADBED formed the core of the Architecture Reference Group (chaired by an ADBED member) that drew together representatives of every peak organisation for the profession and discipline in Australia. The views of the architectural education community and profession have been provided both through individual submissions and the voices of a number of peak bodies. Over two hundred individuals from the practising profession, the academic workforce and the student cohort have worked together to build consensus about the capabilities expected of a graduate of an Australian Master of Architecture degree. It was critical from the outset that the Statement should embrace the wisdom of the greater ‘tribe’, should ensure that graduates of the Australian Master of Architecture were eligible for professional registration and, at the same time, should allow for scope and diversity in the shape of Australian architectural education. A consultation strategy adopted by the Discipline Scholar involved meetings and workshops in Perth, Melbourne, Sydney, Canberra and Brisbane. Stakeholders from all jurisdictions and most universities participated in the early phases of consultation through a series of workshops that concluded late in October 2010. The Draft Architecture Standards Statement was formed from these early meetings and consultation in respect of that document continued through early 2011. This publication represents the outcomes of work to establish an agreed standards statement for the Master of Architecture. Significant further work remains to ensure the alignment of professional accreditation and recognition procedures with emerging regulatory frameworks cascading from the establishment of the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (TEQSA). The Australian architecture community hopes that mechanisms can be found to integrate TEQSA’s quality assurance purpose with well-established and understood systems of professional accreditation to ensure the good standing of Australian architectural education into the future. The work to build renewed and integrated quality assurance processes and to foster the interests of this project will continue, for at least the next eighteen months, under the auspices of Australian Learning and Teaching Council (ALTC)-funded Architecture Discipline Network (ADN), led by ADBED and Queensland University of Technology. The Discipline Scholar gratefully acknowledges the generous contributions given by those in stakeholder communities to the formulation of the Statement. Professional and academic colleagues have travelled and gathered to shape the Standards Statement. Debate has been vigorous and spirited and the Statement is rich with the purpose, critical thinking and good judgement of the Australian architectural education community. The commitments made to the processes that have produced this Statement reflect a deep and abiding interest by the constituency in architectural education. This commitment bodes well for the vibrancy and productivity of the emergent Architecture Discipline Network (ADN). Endorsement, in writing, was received from the Australian Institute of Architects National Education Committee (AIA NEC): The National Education Committee (NEC) of the Australian Institute of Architects thank you for your work thus far in developing the Learning and Teaching Academic Standards for Architecture In particular, we acknowledge your close consultation with the NEC on the project along with a comprehensive cross-section of the professional and academic communities in architecture. The TLOs with the nuanced levels of capacities – to identify, develop, explain, demonstrate etc – are described at an appropriate level to be understood as minimum expectations for a Master of Architecture graduate. The Architects Accreditation Council of Australia (AACA) has noted: There is a clear correlation between the current processes for accreditation and what may be the procedures in the future following the current review. The requirement of the outcomes as outlined in the draft paper to demonstrate capability is an appropriate way of expressing the measure of whether the learning outcomes have been achieved. The measure of capability as described in the outcome statements is enhanced with explanatory descriptions in the accompanying notes.

Individuals' Responsibility in Corporations

I discuss role responsibly, individual responsibility and collective responsibility in corporate multinational setting. My case study is about minerals used in electronics that come from the Democratic Republic of Congo. What I try to show throughout the thesis is how many things need to be taken into consideration when we discuss the responsibility of individuals in corporations. No easy and simple answers are available. Instead, we must keep in mind the complexity of the situation at all times, judging cases on individual basis, emphasizing the importance of individual judgement and virtue, as well as the responsibility we all share as members of groups and the wider society. I begin by discussing the demands that are placed on us as employees. There is always a potential for a conflict between our different roles and also the wider demands placed on us. Role demands are usually much more specific than the wider question of how we should act as human beings. The terminology of roles can also be misleading as it can create illusions about our work selves being somehow radically separated from our everyday, true selves. The nature of collective decision-making and its implications for responsibility is important too. When discussing the moral responsibility of an employee in a corporate setting, one must take into account arguments from individual and collective responsibility, as well as role ethics. Individual responsibility is not a separate or competing notion from that of collective responsibility. Rather, the two are interlinked. Individuals' responsibilities in collective settings combine both individual responsibility and collective responsibility (which is different from aggregate individual responsibility). In the majority of cases, both will apply in various degrees. Some members might have individual responsibility in addition to the collective responsibility, while others just the collective responsibility. There are also times when no-one bears individual moral responsibility but the members are still responsible for the collective part. My intuition is that collective moral responsibility is strongly linked to the way the collective setting affects individual judgements and moulds the decisions, and how the individuals use the collective setting to further their own ends. Individuals remain the moral agents but responsibility is collective if the actions in question are collective in character. I also explore the impacts of bureaucratic ethic and its influence on the individual. Bureaucracies can compartmentalize work to such a degree that individual human action is reduced to mere behaviour. Responsibility is diffused and the people working in the bureaucracy can come to view their actions to be outside the normal human realm where they would be responsible for what they do. Language games and rules, anonymity, internal power struggles, and the fragmentation of information are just some of the reasons responsibility and morality can get blurry in big institutional settings. Throughout the thesis I defend the following theses: ● People act differently depending on their roles. This is necessary for our society to function, but the more specific role demands should always be kept in check by the wider requirements of being a good human being. ● Acts in corporations (and other large collectives) are not reducible to individual actions, and cannot be explained fully by the behaviour of individual employees. ● Individuals are responsible for the actions that they undertake in the collective as role occupiers and are very rarely off the hook. Hiding behind role demands is usually only an excuse and shows a lack of virtue. ● Individuals in roles can be responsible even when the collective is not. This depends on if the act they performed was corporate in nature or not. ● Bureaucratic structure affects individual thinking and is not always a healthy environment to work in. ● Individual members can share responsibility with the collective and our share of the collective responsibility is strongly linked to our relations. ● Corporations and other collectives can be responsible for harm even when no individual is at fault. The structure and the policies of the collective are crucial. ● Socialization plays an important role in our morality at both work and outside it. We are all responsible for the kind of moral context we create. ● When accepting a role or a position in a collective, we are attaching ourselves with the values of that collective. ● Ethical theories should put more emphasis on good judgement and decision-making instead of vague generalisations. My conclusion is that the individual person is always in the centre when it comes to responsibility, and not so easily off the hook as we sometimes think. What we do, and especially who we choose to associate ourselves with, does matter and we should be more careful when we choose who we work for. Individuals within corporations are responsible for choosing that the corporation they associate with is one that they can ascribe to morally, if not fully, then at least for the most part. Individuals are also inclusively responsible to a varying degree for the collective activities they contribute to, even in overdetermined contexts. We all are responsible for the kind of corporations we choose to support through our actions as consumers, investors and citizens.

Fortescutus illustratus, or a commentary on that nervous treatise De laudibus legum Angliæ, written by Sir John Fortescue ... VVhich treatise ... hee purposely wrote to consolidate his princely minde in love and approbation of the good lawes of England and of the laudable customs of this his native country. The heroique design of whole excellent judgement and loyal addiction to his Prince, is humbly endeavoured to be revived, admired, and advanced.

Mode of access: Internet.

‘Risk, Politics and the ‘Scientification’ of Political Judgement: Prisoner Release and Conflict Transformation in Northern Ireland’

Drawing on research in Northern Ireland into the process of release under the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement, this article explores the identification and classification of risk in relation to prisoners released early under the Sentences (NI) Act. The main argument is that conflict, post-conflict and transitional conditions expose more starkly the political underpinnings of risk-management strategy and the article demonstrates the particular variant of Politicized Risk Assessment (PRA) recently used in the release of prisoners in Northern Ireland

'To do justice and judgement' : the place of passion in public life

Please consult the paper edition of this thesis to read. It is available on the 5th Floor of the Library at Call Number: Z 9999 P65 F47 2003

Caimanes and the Water - Infinite Legal Struggles about a Finite Good

This report is intended to shed more light on the ongoing water struggle in Caimanes, a small urban area in the central northern area of Chile, neighbouring Latin America’s biggest tailings dam. Undoubtedly, the water in Caimanes is running out and the conflict between the opponents of the dam and its owner, a multinational copper enterprise, is getting more and more attention by the national and also international media. In the discussion a judgment of the Chilean Supreme Court from last October plays a central role, because it is said to have granted the people from Caimanes their right to water. After a short introduction with some details about Camaines and the tailings from the dam El Mauro, the key points of this judgment shall be outlined. The final part of the report is dedicated to various institutional problems of the Chilean resources law and policy that can become virulent for the water supply and the environmental well-being of many other urban areas in the industrialized north of Chile.

Beyond ‘good’ and ‘evil’: breaking down binary oppositions in holocaust representations of ‘privileged’ Jews

In 1986, Auschwitz survivor Primo Levi’s paradigmatic essay entitled ‘The Grey Zone’ highlighted the complex and sensitive issue of so-called ‘privileged’ Jews, an issue that remains at the margins of popular and academic discourse on the Holocaust. ‘Privileged’ Jews include those prisoners in the Nazi concentration camps and ghettos who held positions that gave them access to material and other benefits whilst compelling them to act in ways that have been judged both self-serving and harmful to fellow inmates. The unprecedented ethical dilemmas that confronted ‘privileged’ Jews may be viewed as exemplifying the ‘limit’ events or experiences that were characteristic of the Holocaust, situating them at the threshold of representation, understanding and judgement. Levi’s essay singles out history and film as particularly predisposed to a simplifying trend he identifies – the ‘Manichean tendency which shuns half-tints and complexities,’ and resorts to the black-and-white binary opposition(s) of ‘friend’ and ‘enemy,’‘good’ and ‘evil.’ In the case of ‘privileged’ Jews in particular, such binary oppositions would appear to be inadequate. Adopting an interdisciplinary approach that incorporates the fields of history, philosophy and literature, this paper analyses representations of ‘privileged’ Jews, particularly those prisoners of the Sonderkommandos who were forced to work in the crematoria. The paper demonstrates how easily the boundary Levi maps out for moral judgement can be crossed. It is shown that while Levi suggests judgement should be suspended when confronted with the experiences of victims in extremis, moral evaluations of ‘privileged’ Jews permeate discussions and representations of the Holocaust. When confronted with such emotionally and morally freighted issues, judgement may itself be seen as a ‘limit of representation.’

Summer is a good time for informal education

Students look forward to summer because usually it means a break from formal and non-formal education. Formal education refers to education in formal educational institutions, such as pre-schools, primary, secondary and tertiary educational institutions and other registered training organisations. Non-formal education refers to organised educational activity outside the established formal system, that is intended to deliver a defined set of learning objectives to an identifiable group of learners (Chemistry in Australia, October 2014, page 33). Informal education refers to all learning outside the formal non-formal educational system; informal education is often associated with life-long learning as it can include reading non-fiction books and scholarly articles, viewing documentaries and other informal professional development. Informal education can also include travel to other countries and climates. Social constructivist theory maintains that learning occurs in social settings; conversely, most learners are limited by their cultural experiences. For example, Australian students have little first-hand experience of sublimation, but this is commonly observed in very cold climates when frost, ice or snow apparently “disappears” as it sublimes to water vapour, without passing through the liquid state. A favourite summertime activity is to go to the movies, especially in air-conditioned cinemas on a hot day or night. Watching movies are a form of virtual travel, and many educators make use of movies to illustrate chemistry concepts. Some movie producers want a sense of authenticity and work hard to get the details right, even though those details might be incidental to the main plot. For example, in Centurion, Roman soldiers fail in their rescue attempt, and are taunted by the Picts for stupidity -- they would have succeeded if they had only realised that metal become brittle in the cold. Another favourite example comes from The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, when Bilbo, Samwise and Gollum are crossing the Dead Marshes and see lights that appear to float over the Marshes. These wills-o-the-wisp have been known for centuries, and was the subject of a debate between George Washington and his officers. Washington and Thomas Paine, “the Father of the American Revolution”, believed that the lights were due to a flammable gas released from the marsh, while Washington’s officers believed that the lights were due to a flammable liquid on the surface of the marsh. On Guy Fawkes Night, 5 November, 1783, the Washington-Paine experiment showed that when mud at the bottom of a river was disturbed, bubbles of flammable gas rose to the surface of the water. (Unknown to Washington and Paine, Alessandro Volta had performed a similar experiment in 1776.) A problem with informal education is that it is often unguided. Students may find it difficult to discern the difference between scientific reality and an artistic distortion of reality in novels and movies. Educators have an important role here. If we only teach facts and concepts, learners will be dependent on a teacher. If however, we foster students’ curiosity and ability to exercise judgement, they will be able to learn for themselves, not just during the summer, but also in every season of every year.

A study of nurses' judgement of and participation in decision-making for nursing home placement for the elderly

This study investigated the effects of patient variables (physical and cognitive disability, significant others' preference and social support) on nurses' nursing home placement decision-making and explored nurses' participation in the decision-making process.^ The study was conducted in a hospital in Texas. A sample of registered nurses on units that refer patients for nursing home placement were asked to review a series of vignettes describing elderly patients that differed in terms of the study variables and indicate the extent to which they agreed with nursing home placement on a five-point Likert scale. The vignettes were judged to have good content validity by a group of five colleagues (expert consultants) and test-retest reliability based on the Pearson correlation coefficient was satisfactory (average of.75) across all vignettes.^ The study tested the following hypotheses: Nurses have more of a propensity to recommend placement when (1) patients have severe physical disabilities; (2) patients have severe cognitive disabilities; (3) it is the significant others' preference; and (4) patients have no social support nor alternative services. Other hypotheses were that (5) a nurse's characteristics and extent of participation will not have a significant effect on their placement decision; and (6) a patient's social support is the most important, single factor, and the combination of factors of severe physical and cognitive disability, significant others' preference, and no social support nor alternative services will be the most important set of predictors of a nurse's placement decision.^ Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was used to analyze the relationships implied in the hypothesis. A series of one-way ANOVA (bivariate analyses) of the main effects supported hypotheses one-five.^ Overall, the n-way ANOVA (multivariate analyses) of the main effects confirmed that social support was the most important single factor controlling for other variables. The 4-way interaction model confirmed that the most predictive combination of patient characteristics were severe physical and cognitive disability, no social support and the significant others did not desire placement. These analyses provided an understanding of the importance of the influence of specific patient variables on nurses' recommendations regarding placement. ^