News 20/7 – Grad Outcomes, Sparrow Cull & Fire Dancing

July 20th 2010 at 8:56am, By Dave Guerin

Graduate Outcomes Nandor Tanczos writes a blog on TV3′s website and his latest is on Joyce’s funding related to graduate outcomes idea (he doesn’t like it). I blogged yesterday on Unitec CE Rick Ede’s column and the TEU responded – check it out here.
Sparrow Cull The University of Auckland is culling sparrows in the cafeteria with an air rifle, but I haven’t heard what they’re doing about the postgrad computer lab problem from April.
Research News Vitamin Ccan help protect against cancer according to Uni of Otago researchers (I thought we already knew that?…hmm, turns out we suspected it) There’s a story on the Lincoln/Zhejiang University relationship and the FRST-funded Sauvignon Blanc programme is getting underway – Lincoln and the Uni of Auckland are taking part. A joint American-NZ study with the Uni of Otago has explored the impact of barriers on Auckland’s Grafton Bridge on reducing suicides – I hope the paper is better than the summary!
Top Butchers Here’s the full list of butcher of the year finalists from the Retail Meat ITO.
Coming Back to Otago NZTE has funded an Otago initiative to lure back former students and pupils back to the region. Funnily enough, I just received a Colin James column with the following punchline: “There is a wider electoral point for National: the very people who exit to Australia are probably mostly get-up-and-go sorts who would vote National if they stayed. The spectre is Dunedin, Labour-voting for decades as Dunedinites drifted north (and now west) for higher pay.” (Cue Dunedin/Labour outrage…)
Army Training Massey Uni has won a contract to teach the Brunei Army.
Fire Dancing A Uni of Otago student is off to Italy for a fire-dancing festival - really.
Police Dogs The Police apparently get Massey Uni help for developing the bloodlines of their police dogs.
Chinese Food/Study Otago Poly is looking at some food-related partnerships with China. We’ve been talking about engagement with China recently and new scholarships at Victoria Uni looks pretty impressive (6 months Chinese language tuition and a year at Peking University.
Dyson Awards There’s a story here about one of the finalists in the NZ Dyson Awards - she’s from Massey.