This will be the last news post until 6 April.

1. Northtec Arts A NorthTec arts graduate and student duo are exhibiting at Auckland’s Lane Gallery until 17 April – check it out. I loved the glass skull at left.
2. Manawatu the Smartest In a rather dubious online poll by the Neurological Foundation, Manawatu has been named the smartest region in NZ.
3. Unpopular Engineers The University of Canterbury’s Engineering students are not welcome to bring the Undy 500 to Marlborough, which has been a bit of a disaster for Dunedin.
4. Dunedin Pub I wrote yesterday about proposals for students or Marc Ellis to take over Dunedin’s Gardies pub, but the University of Otago is in the final stages of buying it and will close it down. The ODT covers it, and there’s video at TV3 and Dunedin’s Channel 9.
5. VSM Submissions Closed More than 3,200 students have signed an OUSA petition against voluntary student membership and people throughout New Zealand have been sending in submissions on either side of the VSM Bill. Submissions closed last night and the Education and Science Committee will be hearing them shortly.
6. Beauty Course UCOL Whanganui (they use the “h”) has started a beauty course.
7. Aquaculture NMIT is teaching an aquaculture course at the new Cawthron Institute facility dedicated to aquaculture research