In the late ’90s, Claire Zorn was discouraged from taking three-unit related English because her class ranking was not high enough. It’s now 2015, and she’s just won the Children’s Book Council ‘Book of the Year’ Award (‘CBCA’) for young adult fiction. “I’m very, very cynical about our education system,” she said. A self-proclaimed ‘glitch’, the multiple-award winning author credits very little of her success to her school years, saying she learned to develop concepts and produce works in her undergraduate degree at Western Sydney University. In her controversial acceptance speech for her CBCA earlier this month, Mrs Zorn reached…
Author: Meg Powell
Two University of Wollongong Hockey Club (UOWHC) players are contenders for the Australian Olympic Hockey Team. Tristan White and Flynn Ogilvie are in Malaysia taking part in a rigorous training program that started in early March. Together, they are two of four Wollongong locals that have been selected to play for the Kookaburras, with the potential to be flying off to Rio for the Olympic Games. “They’ve been pretty full on in a training block since early March,” Hockey Australia’s Lawrence West said. “Malaysia is actually quite a difficult region because they have such a passionate crowd, so it’s quite good practice…
Social housing is at crisis point for the Illawarra region, with some people waiting up top 10 years to secure housing, according to a new report. A guide released by the Family and Community Services shows how long applicants will be waiting and the results are worrying, with nothing available sooner than two years. Between the last official counts in 2006 and 2011, the homeless population of Wollongong rose 84 per cent, unemployment was higher and workforce participation was lower than state and national averages. With factors like the gradual downsizing of Bluescope Steel, the unemployment rate will continue increasing over…
Moves are underway to make the University of Wollongong’s iconic duck ponds cleaner, greener and safer. UOW Landscaping Services is addressing the potential of algal blooms and pollution, and the risk of people slipping into the ponds. Landscaping officers are planting aquatic grasses at the ponds that they hope will act as natural filters, clean the water, and improve the look of the ponds. “The nutrients go into the pond which creates the azola that covers the pond that creates a hazard of people walking on it, thinking it is a hard surface,” UOW Landscaping Services officer Mark Haining said. https://youtu.be/quCCVSYWwrI…