Freedom Ride

I’m saddened to say that I hadn’t heard of the ‘Freedom Ride’ before. 

Everyone deserves the opportunity to study

I have always supported indigenous students in their journey to achieve a degree and because of this, I have many wonderful, amazing, talented indigenous friends, so any event that helps highlight their endeavours, I want to know about so I can support it. 

So I’m sad because a lot of my indigenous friends didn’t tell me about this wonderful event that happened 50 years ago. Why?

Basically, they hadn’t heard of it either. It was really a lifetime ago. 

So let me tell you quickly what the ‘Freedom Ride’ was and what it achieved. With a journey through northwest New South Wales in Australia a bus with two indigenous students and 28 non-indigenous students left Sydney University and travelled to towns including Dubbo, Walgett, Kempsey and Moree, to highlight the discrimination being experienced by indigenous students, not  only at university, but at public swimming pools, restaurants, public halls and clubs and societies in Australia.  

The original ‘Freedom Ride’ receive excellent media coverage, and due to this, the plight of indigenous people  was able to be heard.  

Many people joined the group.

Action was taken.

Voices were heard.

I’m certainly glad about that.

If you’d like to read more, here’s a link for you.

http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/fiftieth-anniversary-reenactment-of-freedom-ride-goes-north-to-fight-discrimination-against-aboriginal-people-20150218-13hl4l.html

Referencing. The bane of every student’s life really.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

How many references have I cited in my life?

I remember my first week at uni.  I was a very dedicated monkey and wanted all my monkey family to be proud of me as I entered university life.

 

I went to all the scheduled classes on timetabling, wellbeing, stress reduction, library data base access, IT workshops, class allocations and of course writing and referencing.

The writing and referencing course was listed as ‘extremely’ important to attend, so attend I did.

I met a wonderful lady in this session, a friend that remained with me throughout my uni life and for some years after until we went our own ways. 

This two hour session was long, boring and gave us so much information about writing and referencing that it was just overwhelming.

There were many comments by the facilitator along the lines of ‘Don’t worry,  you’ll get the hang of this’ and ‘ Don’t worry, your lecturers and tutors will remind you about all this each week’.

I remember my new friend, at the end of the two hours, walking out, a little more frazzled than she was when she walked in, saying ‘Thank Heavens that’s over and we never have to hear about referencing again!’

How wrong she was.

Oweek here in Australia!

You can smell Oweek from here in Australia!

Yes, the traditional Oweek celebrations are gearing up in each university in Australia. It’s the time when honoured traditions are fulfilled from foot races, to debates, to beer tents, to dressing up and roaming the campus abound! 

Doesn’t matter how big or small the campus is, each university will have some sort of meet and greet team ready for newbies, some sort of entertainment and definitely lots of academic and administration staff hanging around ready to answer the easy and not so easy questions. 

When I was younger monkey, my university only had 2000 students. Now it’s over 10,000 there. 

Mind you, the Oweek celebrations seem the same!  Which can be a good thing.  We had an annual foot race to honour a student that passed away in Oweek many moons ago. Each year his Mum and Dad come along and do the honours of starting the race, and presenting the winner a trophy. It’s a nice reminder to stay safe, and also shows the heart of the campus.

What traditions does your university have?