CNZM

• Prof Margaret Brimble for services to science. She is from the University of Auckland.
• Prof Peter Hughes for services to the State. Former CE of MSD and now at Victoria.
• Dr James Wharehuia Milroy, QSO, of Hamilton. For services to Māori language. He is a former Prof of Māori at Waikato.

ONZM

• Professor Anthony Hewton Angelo, of Wellington for services to legal education. He is at Victoria.
• Professor Michael Warne Ardagh, of Christchurch for services to emergency medicine. He is a professor with the University of Otago.
• Professor David Stephen Lamb, of Wellington for services to health. He is a professor with the University of Otago.
• Dr Donald Lindsay Mathieson, QC, of Waikanae for services to the law and legal education. He was previously a law professor at Victoria.
• Emeritus Professor Peter Gerard Walls, of Wellington for services to music. He was previously a music professor at Victoria.

MNZM

• Mr David John Craven, of Palmerston North for services to hockey administration. He was a long-time IT manager at Massey.
• Associate Professor Annette Diana Huntington, of Wellington for services to nursing research. She is at Massey.
• Associate Professor Merata Kawharu, of Dunedin for services to Māori education. She is based at Auckland.

QSO

• Ms Karen Margaret Sewell, of Wellington for services to the State. She is the former CE of MOE, NZQA and ERO.

QSM

• Mr Paul Leslie Ferris, of Glenorchy for services to education. He is a former school principal but has recently been the acting head of the Catholic Institute of Aotearoa New Zealand, a PTE.

Massey also identified seven grads who had received honours.

Two Kiwis with tertiary education connections were also honoured in the UK’s New Year’s Honours List. Gill Greer, a former AVC at Victoria, was awarded a CBE for her work on sexual health for women and girls around the world. John Buchanan has been knighted for services to industry – he retains NZ links and is on the University of Auckland’s business school advisory board.

Thumbs-Up is my somewhat irregular feature celebrating good ideas or outcomes in the tertiary education sector.

1. Whitireia Buildings Whitireia has pulled out of a $3m contribution to a performing arts development in Porirua, both because they’ve moved their course into Wellington and approved a $20m development at Porirua for classrooms etc to replace prefabs. It’s upset some people in Porirua, but it’s hard to fault the priorities.
2. Industry Training The MOE will be getting a strong submission from Horticulture NZ on the industry training review.
3. Congrats Richard Richard Handley, WITT CE, has been congratulated by iwi on meeting Treaty responsibilities.
4. Titles Race? Ha ha, last week I suggested that Auckland’s appointment of 13 Distinguished Professors might start an arms race around titles and now Lincoln has named one! To be fair, the decision would have been made before Auckland’s release, but it does look like a developing trend anyway.
5. VSM Hearing Te Mana Akonga has apparently gained a Waitangi Tribunal hearing into its claims about VSM legislation.
6. Tough Competition The Spirit of Adventure is running a special trip for unemployed 17-20 year olds.
7. Raukawa App Te Wananga O Raukawa has had some bad news recently but I just came across this cool app they have, eWai, that has waiata tawhito on it. If I have it correctly, they are the traditional chants heard on marae.
8. Extras: Victoria now has the triple crown of business school accreditation; Methven summer school enrolments; new construction and student facilities at UCOL Wairarapa.

Research & Innovation

1. Food Science Lincoln’s first professor of food science, Charles Brennan, sees a bright future in the area for NZ.
2. Extras: Auckland cigarette research; three Canterbury researchers to give papers at human-computer interaction conference; new Victoria climate change book.

Public Issues

1. Aviation Oddity The person who allegedly impersonated Massey’s Frank Sharp, head of the aviation school, in an email that was entered into evidence at a coroner’s inquiry into an aviation accident has been revealed. It turns out that Peter Kirker, a CAA employee (he resigned last week), may have sent the email but the charges will be defended. This is very odd, but has got media coverage from RNZ, NewstalkZB, APNZ, APNZ, One News, NZN, Dom Post, Fairfax and Fairfax.
2. Summer Reading Massey’s Prof Tom Nicholson has devised a kids summer reading programme, funded by a donation, to stop kids falling back in reading ability during the break.
3. Charter Schools Auckland’s Peter O’Connor gets a swerve from Karl Du Fresne over charter schools views.
4. Extras: Unitec’s Keith Rankin on the global debt crisis; Massey’s Chris Wilkins on the war on P; Auckland’s Michael Littlewood on KiwiSaver; Otago Uni’s Najib Lafraie on an Otago Museum exhibition; Waiariki’s Narissa Bayler on social media tribute pages; WITT’s Robyn Trewern making salads.

Students

1. SVA Nelson The Student Volunteer Army is heading off to help in Nelson.
2. Glacier Art Auckland student Amelia Hitchcock collaborated with Massey’s Martin Brook and Rob Dykes to create art on a glacier lake.
3. EIT…fashion end of year show (nice pics) and art exhibition.
4. Extras: Canterbury grads get fire safety design awards in Singapore.

Stakeholders

1. Squid AUT is showing off its giant squid at Auckland Museum this summer.
2. Rowing Lincoln’s Martin Berka is rowing across the Tasman (with a group) but is battling a bad foot infection (release).
3. Extras: Unitec’s Jamie Lane is also a top snowboarding coach/selector; Otago Uni’s Dave Gerrard moonlights as the chair of the Drowning Prevention Council; Waikato’s Prof David Hamilton helping improve lake quality; Massey is supporting a new Wellington Fashion Week.

Teaching & Learning

1. Extras: ATITO’s first carding technician grad; EIT’s new music programme.

1. Bye Jonathan! Jonathan Walmisley is moving on from Telford, having served as CE and then as head of the Telford division of Lincoln since January. The ODT has a long profile of him. I’ve enjoyed working with Jonathan immensely and wish him all the best.
2. Home Auctions NMIT has sold relocatable homes built by students before they have been completed. Meanwhile, Campus Living Villages is auctioning off a 5-bedroom apartment in Christchurch at a $1 reserve – check out the auction here. ED Blog friend Darel Hall is the man behind it.
3. Penguin SOS The emperor penguin has gripped the nation as we wait to see if it recovers. Massey’s Prof John Cockrem is NZ’s expert on the penguins and got in on the action. Someone at Massey will also be checking out feathers to determine sex and home colony. I’m not covering every story on this but will cover new material.
4. Alasdair Thompson Alasdair Thompson’s dopey comments sparked some academic responses amongst all the general angst. Cecilia Tarrant, Executive-in-Residence at Auckland Uni thought his comments were “unbelievable and incredible, but also wrong“. Auckland’s Ananish Chaudhuri explored the reasons for the gender pay gap in an op-ed (which Canterbury’s Eric Crampton reviewed). AUT’s Rachel Morrison thought the comments were outrageous.
5. Massey Vets The matuku or bittern is doing well after surgery at Massey, while Massey vets and students have been checking out birds after a tanker truck spill at Awakino. 12 students, in 4 groups of 3, will each spend a week in Samoa helping out an animal charity group. I wonder is Massey actually has to market its veterinary degree at all with all the free media they get for their veterinary hospital’s exploits.
6. WITT Poll Surprise A poll by WITT journalism students shows Labour’s Andrew Little well behind Jonathan Young in the race for the New Plymouth seat – Victoria’s Jon Johansson was surprised.
7. UFB Transfield is looking to hire up to 450 people to help build ultrafast broadband and Infratrain CE Philip Aldridge says his organisation is ready to help train them and others.
8. LinkedIn Savviness In a naked promotion, LinkedIn came up with a dopey index of savviness to identify the top users of LinkedIn. Anyway, Te Wananga O Aotearoa did well for female networkers while the MOE did well for male networkers. While, we’re on that topic, feel free to connect with me if we’ve worked together before.
9. PM and India John Key is likely to make some educational announcements on his trip to India.
10. Organic Planting Lincoln’s Prof Steve Wratten features in this very interesting piece on companion planting in organic environments.
11. New Waikato DVC…is Prof Alister Jones.
12. Goat@AUT AUT trainee chefs are serving up goat at the training restaurant, as part of the Monteith’s Wild Food challenge.
13. Trades Academies The Sunday Star-Times had a piece on trades academies – probably the most interesting part is an expansion of criticism by the PPTA’s Robin Duff.
14. DNA Evidence Canterbury academics have collaborated with ESR scientists to work on how juries interpret DNA evidence. While it looks interesting, the article on the Uni’s website is a good example of why humanities training helps to develop writing skills (or, at the least, editing skills).
15. Minimum Wage A couple of weeks back, Massey VC Steve Maharey wrote a column in NBR about why minimum wages are necessary. I figured it was behind the paywall but it wasn’t and Canterbury’s Eric Crampton responded to it yesterday. The Anti-Dismal blog also suggests that Maharey has no academic expertise in this area (although he didn’t claim such expertise in the column).
16. Quake Stuff An article on people leaving Christchurch has figures on Canterbury Uni and NZ Language Centres.
17. Supercomputing Claire Rodgers has done a good story at Stuff on the supercomputing partnership between CRIs and universities, including comparing it to a previous supercomputing shared facility in NZ.
18. Scams and Trust Victoria’s Marc Wilson has some interesting insight into why people get scammed.
19. Deaf Dictionary Victoria has launched the Online Multimedia Dictionary of New Zealand Sign Language (NZPA).
20. Driveway Accidents In a long story on young children hurt or killed by cars in driveways, Massey’s Janet Molyneux is in a sidebar about pets hurt in driveways. I must say, I really struggle not to assign a lot of blame to the adults when driveway accidents occur.
21. Top Joiner Jonny Brown is the Joinery ITO apprentice of the year – he takes block courses at UCOL.
22. Timaru MasterChef? Good on Aoraki Polytechnic for starting a campaign to bring MasterChef’s South Island audition to Timaru – 775 people liked the Facebook page when I checked it out. They might even get the local paper onside!
23. SIT Update SIT’s opening a gallery for student art in its downtown premises and had a surprise concert for a retiring music teacher.
24. Joy’s Downer Mike Joy of Massey predicted mass extinctions at a Forest and Bird conference where he won an award (and Joy on DOC job cuts).
25. Adult Education The NZ Herald had a long article at the weekend about adult education in Auckland., What interested me most was the Chinese New Settlers Services Trust, which serves about 12,000 learners pa.
26. Wet Work Victoria master’s student Bridget Johnson is planting trees in a wetland for her thesis.
27. Anatomy Quiz Not enough medical students are up with their anatomy (only 85%), according to research, so the curriculum will change. Seems like a good project and response.
28. Short Bits Bay of Plenty Poly: Tania Berryman on nail care standards. Otago Uni: Stephen Wing on a lavender lobster; Pat Shannon in a long piece on social work and community development; Prof Jim Mann on obesity and diabetes; Matthew Croucher on dementia care. UCOL: 12 year old does well in an innovation competition. Victoria: Robert Ayson on defence job cuts. Another piece on the South Auckland CHB-tertiary education centre. Canterbury: Ekant Veer on social media marketing; a student is in an NZ junior korfball team. Story on the Learning State-Local Government ITO merger. Auckland: Prof Matthew Collett on the physics of forward passes in rugby. Wintec’s Matariki Wearable Arts show. ACT’s Heather Roy is retiring at the election but still hopes to get her VSM Bill through. Otago Poly student seminar on mobility scooter safety.

The merger proposal does explain one odd inclusion in the Education Amendment Bill (no. 4), which required all new regulations by NZQA to be signed off the the Minister (update: well, all but one). A merger with ERO will make the new body a much more operational body (ERO checks schools against guidelines set by the MOE) and under the new Bill, NZQA will also become a more operational body, ceding more policy power to the Minister (and effectively the MOE, which advises the Minister).

The details will be released down the track and we’ll be in a better place to assess whether it’s a good idea then, but what is your initial reaction?