Hobart and William Smith Colleges/Union College Partnership for Global Education

Queensland, Australia Term 2001 Information Page

This document will be updated as the 2000-2001 academic year progress. It will give the most current information on the joint Hobart and William Smith Colleges and Union College Term Abroad which is scheduled for the Fall Term of 2001. It also contains of a series of links to similar Hobart and William Smith programs that took place in 1994, 1996, and 1998. As well there are links to Australia related sites.

Items of Interest

As of 1 February 2001

Here's a great website for Lamington National Park which we will visit during our fourth and fifth week in Queensland.

Items of Interest

As of 11 January 2001

View the tentative schedule and other program details.

The NY Times Book Review featured the new novel by Peter Carey: The True History of the Kelly Gang on its cover January 7th. Carey is a much celebrated Australian novelist Ned Kelly was a legendary late 19th century "bandit" in rural Australia.... and you will hear a lot about him when you are there. To read the review on-line you must register to use the NY TImes site.

Brian Harmer is a New Zealander (Wellington) who writes a weekly news summary (Brian Harmer's WYSIWIG News) of what is happening in NZ. Recently he was in Brisbane at conference and wrote up his impressions of Brisbane. They appear at the top of three of his news columns: The first entry was on December 17, 2000 The second installment was on January 8, 2001 and has some funny mammal encounters. The third installment mentions some names on the Sunshine Coast that will become familiar to you in 9 months.

National Geographic January 2001 issue: "Great Barrier Reef: Australia's Coral Kingdom." Read an intro to the article and see a spectacular multimedia presentation of the reef here. While we will see some of these sights, realize that it took thousands of hours to get these photos.

See Smithsonian Magazine, January 2001 issue: "Camel Trekking in Australia's Outback." Read the entire article here.

Science News December 2, 2000 issue: "Will Mr. Bowerbird fall for a robot?" an interesting article on satin bowerbirds (which we will see at Lamington National Park). Here's the entire article.

Book reommendation: A Sunburned Country by Bill Bryson (I have yet to read it, but it comes highly reccommended from a colleague). Read a review from January Magazine or from the NY Times.

A video reommendation: The Castle which you may appreciate more once you have been to Australia. Read Roger Ebert's review. The review captures the both the charm and lunacy of the film.

A music reccomendation: The Captain by Kasey Chambers.... Heard this on the World Cafe this morning---Australian Country: Her story is a fascinating one. Apparently, her childhood was spent as in the Australian outback far from traditional "civilization." (Her parents were fox hunters.) She learned to play guitar incident to her many evenings singing country classics with her family by the campfire. Indeed, the years weaned on the classics have served Ms. Chambers very, very well. Her parents play in her band!! Read a review.