Despite modest resources being applied to the Research Centre for Greek Studies operating within La Trobe University, the university told Neos Kosmos this week that the 2008 commitment by Deputy Vice-Chancellor of Research, Professor Tim Brown to establish a new Centre for Hellenic Studies, has been achieved.
Four years ago a review of EKEME – the National Centre for Hellenic Studies and Research housed at La Trobe since the 1990s, resulted in its closure.
As part of that review, La Trobe’s Deputy Vice-Chancellor of Research, Professor Tim Brown made an commitment to replace EKEME with an “academically-orientated” Centre for Hellenic Studies, to be housed in the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences.
As a result, in 2010 Professor Chris Mackie was appointed to the position of Professorial Director of the Research Centre for Greek Studies. Professor Mackie’s over arching title is Head of Historical and European Studies.
At the time of his appointment, Vice-Chancellor Professor Paul Johnson described the new centre as “an affirmation of La Trobe’s long-standing commitment to Greek Studies, [to] promote research in topics related to Greece, its language, modern history and the study of Greek diasporas around the world.”
Professor Johnson added that the centre would be instrumental in “increasing higher education access for students from Greek backgrounds.”
Critics within Victoria’s Greek community have regularly voiced concerns over La Trobe’s progress in fulfilling the promise made by Professor Brown in 2008.
Those concerns were heightened last year when the university failed to renew the contract of a full-time member of staff involved in delivering its program of contemporary Greek Studies.
Due to what the university describes as a “change in the teaching profile”, the full-time post was not retained in 2012. Instead sessional funding has been used to finance a part-time post.
The Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences has recently lost 40 positions as a result of budget savings, though “Greek Studies has been protected from these latest cuts,” said Professor Chris Mackie.
In a statement prepared for Neos Kosmos this week, La Trobe’s Director of Media and Communications, Mr Mark Pearce said: “In 2009, La Trobe University made a commitment to integrate the new Research Centre for Greek Studies fully within the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences. The goal was to enable cross-disciplinary research and encourage new strands of investigation of the place of Greece in the Mediterranean. That goal has been achieved.
“The Research Centre for Greek Studies is a small centre within the School of Historical and European Studies. It is devoted to research on ancient and modern Greek topics. The aim is to bring people with Greek-focused research together, both within the university, and outside.”
Mr Pearce said that the centre had played a pivotal role in the creation of the Dardalis Archive Project Committee, established to manage the collection of millions of documents relating to Greek settlement in Australia. The archive been housed at La Trobe since it was part of EKEME’s responsibilities.
“Continuing discussions are being held with the Greek Orthodox Community of Melbourne and Victoria to work together on collaborative projects, both research and teaching,” said Mr Pearce.
The university points to its ‘La Trobe in the City’ courses covering a range of Greek Studies – including Homer, Greek philosophy, classical mythology, and the survival of ancient Greece in the modern world as further evidence of its activities.
The centre’s main research project this year was presented at the inaugural Mediterranean Studies conference in Melbourne, focusing on the ancient Greek colonisation of South Italy and Sicily.
The university says its commitment to Greek Studies has been further demonstrated when the area of study was declared a “non-affected area” in a recently completed Organisation Impact Change Statement – part of La Trobe’s internal planning procedures.
“This meant that Greek Studies (ancient and modern) could embark on strategic thinking about the best way to advance Greek culture. Our aim is to rebuild La Trobe as a very Hellenically-focused university,” said Mr Pearce.
One pioneering initiative La Trobe points to, showing the centre’s global reach, is the roll-out of first semester course materials on the history of ancient Greece using Apple’s iTunes.
La Trobe has six first-semester courses on iTunes U, with a total of 100,000 subscribers who have made 2.3 million downloads, making it the fifth most popular course on Apple’s online educational platform.
It is the only Australian university currently offering courses through iTunes which it views as a shop window to full online degrees. The university is considering how best it can take advantage of its iTunes profile.
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