1. Fees up Lincoln’s fees are up 4% but the story also has some enrolment stats which show that it’s down, but nowhere near as much as Canterbury (media release, NewstalkZB). Here’s also an AUSA media release on fees and the Auckland protestors’ demands.
2. Quake Stuff Canterbury’s Prof Jarg Pettinga spoke yesterday at the Royal Commission on faults, including the need for a new tool to find hidden faults (RNZ, TVNZ with the video, NZ Herald). Canterbury’s George Parker has an op-ed on bringing the circus to town. New Canterbury scholarships and management students are helping out in the community.
3. Hall of Fame Massey’s design hall of fame has four new inductees, including the design school’s founder (from the 1880s) Arthur Riley.
4. Cannibalism There are allegations of cannibals in the Pacific and Canterbury’s Ruth McManus comments on our fascination with the topic.
5. Bishop in Trouble? Otago Uni’s Greg Dawes reckons that Dunedin’s Catholic bishop might be in trouble for criticising the Pope, but a priest thinks it’ll all be sweet.
6. Rena A volunteer’s experience of the Massey bird facility, while others have knitted penguin PJs (I kid you not – there’s a photo). Steve Maharey and John Key check out the penguins. Nice review of the constructive work by BOPP people.
7. Second Careers University features in the second careers of many of these people.
8. Baby Fish Jeffrey Shima, of Victoria, is checking out how baby fish breed in Wellington Harbour (it’s a good spot for them).
9. VSM Massey student newspaper may fold due to VSM, according to this stupid story. Since student media is in the list of approved uses of the student services levy and since Massey has collected enough money to cover all current students’ assn fees, I can’t see any scenario where Chaff will fold.
10. Top Website Victoria’s Deaf Studies Research Unit received an Australia-NZ Internet award (Idealog). The actual site is a bit dull, but I assume the award was for the online dictionary of NZ Sign Language.
11. Confucius Victoria’s Prof David Lamond presented research in Beijing on how Confucian thinking affects Chinese business ethics.
12. Science Comms Aimee over at SciBlogs has a nice review of a Victoria initiative for science communications – like speaking with your friends.
13. RWC The link between heart troubles and watching rugby is being explored by CPIT’s Peter Olsen.
14. Short Bits Waikato: Paraguayan grad gets right job; expats getting back into Kiwi life; Warren Deane farewelled. Otago Uni: measles has been contained for the moment; ride-share scheme dumped; more on freezing soft toys; Prof Tony Kettle on enzymes; postgrad’s pho bo recipe; Prof Barry Taylor on overweight people. Auckland: meningococcal vaccine research. TWOA: whakairo tutor has great experience in Peru. Massey: smart young scientist helped by Massey academics: Marsden funding for English project. Canterbury: homework programme going well. UCOL: Anne Tolley visiting. ATTTO: went pink for the Pink Ribbon Appeal day on Friday; developed an online tool for prospective pilots.

Budget

• Joyce on loans and general tertiary education,
• Auckland Uni said there was a shortfall on inflation. Universities NZ on below-inflation increase. BEST Pacific Institute of Education on PTE boost. UCOL concerned about cuts for over 55s. NZUSA said it was short-sighted and OPSA said it was outrageous. TEU said funding was dropping. Ngai Tahu’s Mark Solomon liked the focus on Christchurch.
• Media focused mainly on loan constraints with minor mentions of funding falling below inflation (NZPA, RNZ, RNZ audio, NewstalkZB, TV3 list of changes, One News on loans, Dom Post and again, Stuff, NZ Herald). RNZ also covered reaction from NZUSA, Jim Anderton, Peter Dunne, The Greens. The EPMU didn’t like cuts.
• Massey’s Jane Parker on KiwiSaver.
• Comment/Blogs: TV3 editor on loans for over 55s and Patrick Gower on tinkering; Otago’s Paul Hansen called for interest on student loans; Science sector summary by SMC; EXMSS VP blogging on loan changes.

1. Filibustering National’s Allan Peachey accused Labour of wasting $31,000 an hour by filibustering on a non-controversial bill to avoid discussing the VSM bill.
2. Presidential Bid A Wintec grad is seeking to become president of the Transnistrian Moldavian Republic.
3. Dairy Trainee of the Year…is profiled here.
4. GIs Story on research into US GIs in NZ during WW2 by Otago and Auckland academics.
5. The TEU…won another round in its ITP MECA case, is challenging Wintec management again, and also challenging Wintec over security teaching staff restructuring (I think they’re a bit fixated on Wintec this month J), and is threatening the University of Auckland with not submitting PBRF research portfolios (the VC is not impressed).
6. Flatting Dispute…between Otago Uni and its students.
7. Canterbury Uni…is opening up spaces but has taken a financial hit from the quake.
8. Short Bits Waikato: cool-looking exhibition; uni student recognised for surf lifesaving; masters student talking to HIV positive men; looking at ancient flowers; reading mouse footprints; . A CPIT student wants to play chess. Massey: had a champion skipper on campus; takahe; top woman bowler; rangatahi court. Auckland: Chamber Choir is touring. AUT and knitwear,plus grads off to Cannes ad awards. MIT students helped raise money for the SPCA. Otago: film by student won awards; checkups by medical students; basketballers. NMIT horticulture patron. Corrections Inmate Employment is up for an award. NorthTec cooking competition. Vic academic on social media. Unitec: speed dating; film win; concertino premiere.

1. Security Scandal The scandal of the security firm that gave its staff answers to ETITO assessments continues, with the whistleblower having been sacked. Her union, Unite, is on the case and asserts that she was fired for speaking to the media and releasing the assessor guide(s) to the union. There are two sides to every story, but this doesn’t look good for the employer. TV3 covered the issue last night and couldn’t get any comment from the employer, but did get comments from the (ex) employee, Unite and ETITO. Unite is still running the line that the cheating practice is rife in the security industry but hasn’t put up any more evidence yet. The Dominion Post, which investigated the original story, has more detail this morning, as does the ODT.
2. Extra PTE Money? The TEU has developed an item from one of our ED Insider reports into a bigger story – Steven Joyce said last week that he was keen to address the capital component denied to PTEs and the TEU has got comment from the Greens and Labour. In the sidebar of that link, you’ll see other good TEU stories on new funding rates and a deal for parents at the University of Auckland.
3. Undie 500 TV3 covered the Undie 500 site in Seddon, Marlborough.
4. New PBRF Guidelines The TEC has got good business support for the new PBRF guidelines, released yesterday.
5. Conferences The University of Canterbury is running a two-day symposium on Antarctic politics next week. The University of Auckland is running a conference on white collar crime and serious fraud.
6. Want to Link to STEO? STEO, an MOE site that caters to the data side of tertiary education, had has its copyright policy criticised by Russell Brown on top blog Public Address. He’s concerned that STEO and other sites require you to ask for permission before you link to their site - oops, now I’m in trouble! What a silly policy. I’m with Russell on this one.
7. Job Cuts at Massey and NMIT NZPA covered the TEU’s media release about 53 jobs being axed at Massey University (and The Manawatu Standard has a little more detail), but NMIT is looking to cut 20 FTES as part of a drive to save $2m pa. Programmes will also be cut from 90 to 80. The full consultation document will go to staff in late July.
8. SIT Hostel Criticised SIT’s Grand Hall of Residence is under fire for poor conditions again today, with a long article and an editorial in The Southland Times.
9. Maori Course At Risk WITT’s course in the Taranaki Maori dialect is at risk due to low enrolments but various options are being explored.
10. Maori Art Book A Massey PhD student has had a book on the visual language of Maori art published.
11. Farmers and  Science Jon Morgan, a specialist agriculture writer, has written a great piece for the Dominion Post on a technology transfer workshop at Massey University (with AgResearch input) where 250 farmers attended and 80 were turned away. Have a read of it as it’s a great case study of how science, or research in general, can be linked to real world productivity improvements. Imagine if we could do this in more sectors across the economy.
12. Research University of Auckland researchers are taking part in a worldwide trial of a polypill - four pills in one – to treat cardiac disease, while others have found that a drug can help to repair noise-induced hearing loss. An Otago Uni associate professor has written on the impact of genetics on heart disease. I meant to cover this a few weeks ago, but Vic’s Wetox sludge processing product got some good coverage by US magazine Fast Company. Other Otago Uni researchers are trying to work out if dogs know when humans are sad or angry.
13. New Music University of Auckland staff are looking into new music technologies - I quite like John Coulter’s “‘Speaking Stick’, a hollowed manuka branch combined with wireless digital technologies, emits rich and deep bassoon-like tones, as well as the sounds of the New Zealand forest, as it is played and moved about the stage”.
14. Top Rowers/Boxers/Programmers Two Otago Uni rowers are off to the world university rowing champs in Hungary. Bay of Plenty Poly pool guard and gym instructor is also a top boxer and is trying to raise money to get to the world champs in Barbados. The Auckland Uni OneBeep technology team is confident ahead of their Microsoft Imagine Cup world competition in Poland.
15. Exhibitions A Canty Uni lecturer has an exhibition down that way, while AUT has worked with the Akld City Council on an exhibition with scale models of Akld through time - I’d been waiting for some images for that.

1. Comparing university tuition fees with PBRF performance,by Warren Smart, shows that bachelors degree tuition fees and research quality are positively linked, but only weakly (0.09 regression factor). This is no great surprise, as universities generally kept fees at similar levels in the 90s (Victoria and Otago had them a bit lower) and fee increases have been heavily constrained in the period since the PBRF started to measure research quality. This is one for the policy diehards only, but it is good to see research published that just tests a hypothesis without startling results – too often this stuff gets hidden, but it all helps outr understanding.
2. Training Opportunities: Exploring what happens two months later, by Paul Mahoney,shows that the most important factors in gaining positive outcomes (employment, further education and training) are credits achieved per week, region, employment history and course field – gender had a very small impact. There are some ‘obvious’ findings, such as those that achieve credits and have been in long-term employment previously are more likely to get a job. But some fo the detail is quite interesting, such as what outcomes are more likely for different course fields. I think this research is very relevant to both policy-making and TEC contracting decisions – it may help target successful providers, but also identify what groups Training Opportunities work best (and worst) for. This is a great example of how research can support programme improvement and it would be great to see a TEC response on reports like this, even a few months down the track.
3. Tertiary education, skills and productivity, by David Earle, is an update of a 2007 article. In summary, tertiary education matters, but only if you use it right – this issue is dear to ED’s heart (see the sidebar). The paper is well worth reading as an overview of the topic.