$100m Darwin city deal to pay for new uni campus

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has announced $100 million for Darwin, including a new city campus for Charles Darwin University.

What the new city campus of Charles Darwin University is planned to look like

In today’s Higher Ed Daily Brief: Bonanza for Darwin, lost words

Money for the Top End

It must be election season. Prime Minister Scott Morrison is up north today where he is announcing $100 million for the Darwin city deal, whose signature feature is a new city campus for Charles Darwin University.

Not surprisingly, vice-chancellor Simon Maddocks is well pleased. “This ten year plan is exactly the impetus needed to re-energise and grow Darwin and the NT, and to propel CDU into its next major stage of development,” he says.

Professor Maddocks has long had his eye on boosting the number of international students at his university, which is both close to Asia and is located in a multicultural city in which Asian students feel at home.

The new city campus will offer the “vibrant learning and living environment that international students expect,” he says.

Consultants have assured the university that the new city campus could increase economic output in the Darwin region by over $250 million in the next 15 years.

Bonza birthday

The Australian National Dictionary is celebrating its 30th birthday. The dictionary, produced at an eponymous centre at the Australian National University, was first published in 1988 and records the history of uniquely Australian words from their first known use in print to up to their most recent usage.

Amanda Laugesen, director of the Australian National Dictionary Centre, says that the perception that American English was replacing Australian English isn’t true.

“Certainly we see American terms, especially slang, coming into our language, but our research reveals a lot of new words continue to enter Australian English,” she says.

As examples of new phrases she offers “koala diplomacy” (giving koalas to other countries to put in zoos) and “doing a Johnny Farnham” (reappearing after an apparent retirement).

Then there are the words falling out of use which are being replaced by new slang terms. Such as “bogan” which now used across Australia replacing the regional terms such as chigga (Tasmania), westie (NSW), booner (ACT), and bevan (Queensland) which largely meant the same thing.