Coverage of the Christchurch quake’s impact on the tertiary education sector is at this post, which has been updated over the weekend

1. Quake Study Scientists from GNS Science, Victoria University of Wellington and Stanford University in the US have joined colleagues from Canterbury University to deploy about 40 portable earthquake instruments to record aftershocks over the next few weeks. The fault that ruptured causing the magnitude 7.1 earthquake early Saturday morning was previously unknown, according to University of Canterbury geologist Associate Professor Tim Davies.
2. SIT First to Moan about Stats SIT’s Penny Simmonds has kicked off on complaints about completion stats because they apparently give an unfair impression. Unfortunately she has cherry-picked a few attractive sounding programmes like short courses for business or hairdressing, when I imagine we’ll find this week that SIT’s extramural programmes have significantly dragged down completion rates. Just looking at SIT’s course completions from the Which Course Where site, SIT’s 2007-09 average course completion was 58%, which was pretty low, and you’d expect a much lower qualification completion rate as a result. Anyway, the arguments, as presented in the newspaper article, are quite weak, but I expect we’ll see a lot more of that in the coming week. I’m going to publish a post at 11am on wider completions issues.
3. Massey Teacher Intake Down Massey Uni will only take 370 new teacher education students nationwide next year, down from 575 this year. I assume its mainly due to high pipeline growth over the last couple of years and now they have to manage their roll – the sudden cutting of summer school enrolments a month or two back suggest they weren’t managing their roll to their cap. Massey may also be seeking to use the period of excess demand to shift enrolments into other parts of the institution. Current students are not affected.
4. Massey Fees Up EXMSS, Massey’s extramural students’ assn, is upset about the maximum 4% fee increase at Massey, which has been combined with a 47.5% increase in the student services fee – a fee that went up 100% last year. I wonder what Steven Joyce will make of that? Enrolment fees are also up from $40 to $75 and are now non-refundable, to avoid Massey being hit by “placeholding” applications. Since students don’t have access to a central clearing system for applications, and hence have to apply to multiple universities, it seems to me that the increase in the enrolment fee may also make Massey a bit of money.
5. Top Apprentice Butcher Damian Hanley is NZ’s top retail butcher apprentice - and promptly went out deerstalking in the bush to get over the glitz of the awards.
6. Top Apprentice Floorer Christopher Johnston is the Flooring ITO’s Apprentice of the Year. The lovable Flooring ITO CE Greg Durkin praised him for his “well organised approach and exceptional achievements”.
7. Boat Race The University of Waikato and the University of Cambridge competed in a rowing race on the Waikato River yesterday – Cambridge won.
8. Great Otago Collaboration Otago Uni and Poly have set up a great way to get technology teachers into classrooms. Industry professionals will get their prior learning assessed by the Poly and then probably enter the third year of a Poly degree, after which they will be given entry into the Uni’s secondary teacher education programme. Sounds great!
9. Loan Bludgers Kerre Woodham gets stuck into loan dodgers and bludgers who don’t pay back their loans, and also those who say that education used to be free (although after 20 years of higher fees, it is hard to run an argument like “you didn’t pay, so why should we?”).
10. 15 Jobs Go 15 jobs are going at Otago Uni’s College of Education (12 teaching, 3 admin). The aim of the restructuring was to improve PBRF scores and reduce a deficit.
11. Otago Win Snow Games Otago Uni students won the Snow Games Shield. Here are some photos of the participants on the slopes.
12. Male Moa …were stay at home dads according to a research team including Auckland Uni academics.
13. Whitireia Poetry Whitireia Community Poly is hosting a cafe poetry competition - sounds interesting.
14. Water Fleas Some Otago Uni academics are arguing about whether a water flea is responsible for eating other organisms that caused Lake Hayes to turn brown. They can’t sort it out until the lake turns brown again, but in the meantime the lake looks lovely. (I’m sure Sci-Blogs or the Science Media Centre will summarise that better!) 
15. NZUSA Problems Otago Poly students’ assn is holding a referendum on withdrawal from NZUSA next week, over concerns about expenditure and accountability.
16. Lincoln Site Here’s a marketing-based case study of Lincoln’s new website.
17. Top Fashion An AUT grad has won first and second place in the Westfield Style Pasifika Fashion Awards.
18. Surveying History The ODT has a nice piece on a centenarian emeritus professor of surveying from Otago Uni.
19. Bits and Pieces AUT’s Steve O’Shea is quoted on a Far North whale stranding. The University of Auckland is proud to offer an Award for Leadership associated with the Prime Minister’s Pacific Youth Awards. A Canterbury Uni ergonomics academic has explored why bigger dogs are perceived to be smarter than smaller dogs. The University of Auckland’s Identity Federation solution, CECIL Connect, was awarded the Supreme Innovation Award at the annual Tertiary ICT Innovation awards last week. Two Auckland and Massey Uni academics are quoted in a story on returns from the World Cup. A Waikato team of students won the business case competition in Queenstown. Massey academics have done research on teenagers’ sleep patterns and the January effect in sharemarkets. A Massey student is off to the Commonwealth Games as a boxer – going by the state of the facilities, they probably need chippies and plumbers more
20. Literacy Tool The TEC’s literacy assessment tool is being used in a prison literacy programme, which is doing great things to keep inmates in touch with their children.
21. Cycling Massey is part of a Manawatu bid for NZ’s Cycling Centre of Excellence.