Nick Rowley certainly seems to have revitalised GOVT2552 since 2014. All of the content is interesting. Rather than two-hour lecture and one-hour tutorial, he held a two-hour seminar. For many of those seminars, the second hour of the class was dedicated to group work. Initially I thought this format wasted time and precluded me from gaining much from the class, but upon reflection I think it made the class more engaging, and the lessons were learnt better than they would have been otherwise. It also meant the group presentations were all of high standard. While his directions, especially to assignment requirements, were at times vague, and/or ambiguous, and the principal readings for the two major assessment tasks were scheduled after those task were due, he is a characterful and charismatic unit coordinator who clearly cares about what he does, and for that I cannot give less than five stars.

Anonymous, Semester 2, 2017

Could have been far more engaging, but it was delivered in a very dry format and I found the content muddled and wishy-washy. The out-of-touch tutor really lets the course down and so does the extensive (and expensive) reading list which doesn't seem to add much value.

Anonymous, Semester 1, 2014

It's an interesting subject, but it's difficult to get a clear understanding of what needs to be learnt and what doesn't. No recordings, pretty much no lecture slides, and a lot of dense reading.

Anonymous, Semester 1, 2014