Welcome back to our very first online students from semester one and welcome to new students for semester two.  As Steve has said: "all units will be open by the end of today (Monday 26th), when you will be able to access unit outlines and topics for the first three weeks" (see older topics).

Much has happened to our Centre for Integrated Human Studies over the past month and is still happening; the future looks promising and that includes your programs and your continued involvement with our IHS community.   

The most important change is our move to the School of Animal Biology within the Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences.  In many ways this is a much better fit; we now have close ties with ecologists, economists, human geographers and agriculturists;  agriculture is of course central to food security, a crucial global issue for the 21st century.  The move also means significant improvement to our finances and staffing (both were stretched in first semester).  Steve Johnson is now Deputy Director of CIHS and has a full time appointment.  He continues to be involved with curriculum development, educational design and tutoring.  Josh Reynolds has joined us part time and will be involved in educational design, system administration and tutoring.  Karen Connolly has returned to us part time and is involved with communications, marketing and student administration.  Collectively, our little team is forging ahead;  expect exciting times.

I have been invited to Malaysia next week to present our vision of Education for World Futures.  This includes public presentations and workshops at a number of venues including my major host, Wawasan (Vision) Open University.  One of our cherished goals is to involve students and staff from different countries in collaborative projects; this will be a major focus of the visit.

I close with a sincere note of thanks to our first semester students;  your enthusiasm and productions helped establish our collective aim to make a major contribution to education for world futures. 

I will add occasional notes on Centre activities etc to the IHS Commons forum and look forward to working with you this semester.

Neville