On Thursday 6th August we held our second NCV Formal Dinner for the year. It was a wonderful night. 120 residents, staff and board members gathered for a beautiful three course dinner, an inspiring talk from our guest speaker, a brilliant piano performance by one of our residents and an opportunity for great conversation. Hae-Na Lee inspired everyone with a performance of the Beethoven - Piano Sonata No.17 (Tempest - 3rd movement). Formal dinners have long been an important part of collegiate life and New College has a rich tradition of such events. The decision to have these dinners in a postgraduate self-catered community, was the result of requests from residents to enjoy dinners similar to those run at New College. The dining room at New College (across the road from NCV) provides the perfect venue for such events.
Our guest speaker was
Professor Veena Sahajwalla who leads research on Sustainable Materials Processing at University of New South Wales (UNSW). She is one of the University’s distinguished Scientia professors. Before moving to UNSW she was a research scientist at the
CSIRO. Along with her research team at UNSW, she works with many companies across the globe that support her research. She was appointed as Director, Centre for Sustainable Materials Research and Technology in 2008. She is also Associate Dean Strategic Industry Relations, Faculty of Science. Her research is focussed on sustainability of materials processing, including recycling of waste plastics in steelmaking, lowering of energy and emissions in metals processing, iron/steel making technologies, ferro-alloys and non-ferrous metals processing. Her address was a challenging talk about industry relationships and how postgraduate students can enhance the relevance of their research to industry and also increase their employability when their studies are completed.
The night finished with with coffee, conversation and lots of opportunities for residents to take photographs (see some of the photos taken by residents below). Our next formal dinner will have an arts focus and will feature the CEO of
Musica Viva, Mary Jo Capps.
NCV August Formal Dinner
I have just returned from Monday night supper. At NCV we have a regular supper every Monday evening starting at 9.00pm. They are hosted by the Senior Residents on each floor. The NCV provides the food (cake, donuts, fruit etc) and the residents make tea or coffee or bring their own drink. Carmen and I usually work our way down from the 7th floor calling in on each group. Tonight was a great chance to meet some of our 40 new residents who have joined us from Thailand, USA, China, Indonesia, Australia, Iceland etc. A female engineering student from Iceland, now that's diversity! All of the 40 new residents who joined others mid-year are postgrads studying an incredible array of subjects - planning, biology, international relations, finance, arts management, environmental engineering, medicine, economics (to name a few).
Above: Level 6 residents enjoying supper
Above (& Top): Some of the residents of Level 3 enjoying supper together
