News 6/8 – Top Teachers, New NZVCC Name (and Quiz 4 U), Canty Excludes 350

August 6th 2010 at 8:10am, By Dave Guerin

  1. Tertiary Teaching Excellence Ako Aotearoa held their annual Tertiary Teaching Excellence Awards on Wednesday night. Here are the releases by the winners’ institutions. There are no media stories yet. I think it’s a mistake by Ako Aotearoa to rely simply on the local releases to drive local stories about the winners – this is a big awards ceremony and is intended to support public recognition of top teachers. If no-one outside the tertiary sector knows of the overall awards, doesn’t that weaken the rationale?  There will be stories over the next couple of days as local reporters pick up on local winners, but it would be nice to see some national coverage of the winners.
  2. Universities New Zealand The NZVCC have changed their name to Universities New Zealand. It’s a simple name and a nice logo (at left), but I have a quiz for readers. What birds would best represent the vice-chancellors (or the universities) and why? You may well make fun of them, but let’s keep it seemly.
  3. Canterbury Excludes 350 Students But not because of caps, but due to poor academic progress. This is something I was thinking about last night actually (before seeing the story). As new academic progression standards come in, the debate about people refused entry will shift from “the government won’t fund them” to “their marks weren’t good enough”. It doesn’t matter that the impact will be quite similar in many cases – the debate will shift by early next year and funding caps are unlikely to be an election issue. If you look at this story, the students’ assn supports the proposal.
  4. TO Funding Goes In the age-old struggle between education and welfare, Training Opportunities funding is being split 60/40, with MSD getting 40% for short-term programmes. Business NZ supported it. I’ll have more analysis in ED Insider.
  5. Adventure Protest Students are speaking out against the proposed cut of NMIT’s adventure tourism course.
  6. Export Education There was another story on the English language school census and on Education NZ’s conference.
  7. Tooth Grinder A dentistry student found a tooth grinder research subject in her own flat.
  8. The Night Withers No, it’s not morning, but night classes in Waikato have apparently withered away this year.
  9. Otago Changes Otago Uni’s business school might lose 10 jobs from a departmental merger. OUSA and Otago Poly have come out in support of keeping neurosurgery services in Dunedin.
  10. UCOL News UCOL academics have been researching interval training, while an “all-girl” team is getting ready for the Nestle Toque D’Or competition.
  11. Online Counselling There was a wee stir yesterday about text counselling and it turns out that AUT has been offering text, live chat, and text counselling since 2005, as part of a wider service.
  12. Ngati Whatua Unitec has signed an education agreement with local iwi Ngati Whatua o Orakei.

6 Responses to News 6/8 – Top Teachers, New NZVCC Name (and Quiz 4 U), Canty Excludes 350

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Dean Carroll

August 6th, 2010 at 8:50 am

I am very pleased with the re-naming of NZVCC (that the Palmer Govt enshrined in 1989 leg that the organisation representing university sector should be focused purely on the CEOs not the organisations still grates however Dave). Hopefully focus will follow nomenclature.

Personally I think that the symbolism is brilliant, inspired and cannot think of a better metaphor for our country’s plight given that one of the major public policy issue facing tertiary education is the flight of our best and brightest overseas (mainly to Australia). You will note that almost all the birds are flying away, and not looking back.

I think they might be Godwits, which is optimistic if you know that particular birds behaviour (and also your New Zealand literature).

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Dean Carroll

August 6th, 2010 at 8:57 am

also from a functional perspective you can shoot some of the 8 birds (Lincoln, AUT anyone?) and still maintain design integrity.

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Dave Guerin

August 6th, 2010 at 10:56 am

Thanks Dean – the birds are apparently a flock of Caspian terns and the Maori name literally translates as a flock of Capsian terns, but has more figurative meanings too. I think the ability to add and delete birds over time provides great flexibility.

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Dean Carroll

August 6th, 2010 at 12:07 pm

right so they oversized (as terns go), screech a lot, have a voracious appetite and Wikipedia tells me they come with a large Orange-red bill (would that be the colour of the Hundy?). Yeap the NZVCC focus group got it about right Dave.

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Dave Guerin

August 6th, 2010 at 12:13 pm

Well, a speaker did say they looked very sharp in flight at the launch last night and I think the VC’s do look pretty sharp. I also like that the current chair, Derek, has a fine mullet.

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Dean Carroll

August 6th, 2010 at 12:25 pm

are you sure it wasn’t “that looks like Roy Sharp in flight?”

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