1. New Intl Ed Body Steven Joyce announced yesterday that he would be creating a new Crown entity (NZPA) to take over most of the functions of Education New Zealand, and the offshore representation work of NZTE and the MOE. Education New Zealand gave it support, and it seems the new body will retain the ENZ brand and staff. Anyway, he who has the gold makes the rules and Joyce controls the export education levy and apparently might put some more money into the area too, so he’s made the call. Of course, dedicated readers would remember me covering a leak of this proposal back on 12 Nov 2010.
2. 125 Years – Congrats Massey’s College of Creative Arts is celebrating 125 years this week since the Wellington School of Design was founded in 1886, which grew into Wellington Polytechnic before being swallowed up by Massey. I’ve always loved the photo below of the School’s first director in his office during the 1886-1891 period – note the skull and parrot – and so I scanned it in myself.
3. School Vocations The ITF put out a media release this week welcoming proposed vocational pathways in NCEA.
4. Otago Poly Terms The TEU’s Sandra Grey doesn’t like Otago Poly’s proposal for a 3 term year but the students interviewed unanimously liked it. Hmm.
5. AgExcel The Agriculture ITO has handed out its first four certifications to providers under its AgExcel scheme: Agriculture New Zealand, Dairy Training Ltd, Ruraltec and Aoraki Polytechnic. I wish them well with it.
6. Christchurch Travel CPIT students want some extra money to get to far-flung temporary campuses.
7. Science Education Sir Peter Gluckman launched a report on science education on Tuesday, so Massey used the opportunity to launch a new science degree.
8. Slum Summer A Massey student had a summer internship in Filipino slums via the great organisation AIESEC (yes I belonged to it).
9. Waikato Uni is… celebrating 20 years of legal education and Kingitanga Day, launching a te reo Maori online journal, and collaborating with Canterbury Uni post-quake.
10. Short Bits China conference at Victoria today, while Prof Sir Paul Callaghan gets quoted well here for his day job, rather than his student loan moonlighting. Whitireia hosted Tongan luminaries. Canterbury Uni academics are doing a seismic survey in Christchurch, but then who isn’t these days? There’s some research at Victoria into using technology to teach dance and drama. AUT’s Ella Henry commented on the waterfront/plastic waka up in Auckland. Several academics are aiming for a smokefree world. A UCOL lecturer is proposing a cool train sculpture. New plans are to be unveiled on Friday for the AUT Millennium Institute. The ODT has a blast from the past (100 years ago) on Otago Uni’s domestic science programmes. Unitec is running seminars – first up is public spaces for the homeless. AUT: a lecturer argues for lower tax burdens for small businesses;  creative writing competition winners announced; and radio astronomy work in finals of world competition. Otago Uni’s Hyde St students helped clean up.

1. Community Engagement Canterbury Uni is developing a community engagement course this year – it incorporates service learning and is a nice idea.
2. Fast Yacht Unitec’s Rob Shaw won the Round the North Island race, in a boat he designed.
3. Quake Stories CPIT has programmes up and running. A group of boffins, including some from Otago Uni, have been drilling the Alpine fault – the comments on the story include people worried it will trigger a quake. Meanwhile an Otago Uni boffin is part of a NIWA seismic mapping project. St Patrick’s day drinking tips for Christchurch students. A Massey student is selling t-shorts and will use the money raised to support communities in Christchurch according to his own research. 11 more victims were named yesterday, all from King’s Education. Canterbury Uni will be hosting the Court Theatre’s next run, in a big tent. Victoria and Canterbury Uni boffins contributed to an earthquake prediction paper. A Canterbury Uni earthquake engineer was in both the Christchurch and Japanese earthquakes. The GradConnection firm is running a virtual career fair for Canterbury Uni students.
4. Quake on Stilts A CPIT student was doing a gig on stilts during the quake – and stayed up, which shows she got some great teaching!
5. New Companion Prof Jean Fleming of Otago Uni has been made a Companion of the Royal Society of NZ – her focus is science communication.
6. Farm Day Lincoln’s Telford Farm hosted a farm day for city types. Massey is focusing on water for its local Field Days.
7. Nice Building NMIT’s new arts and media building has made a top 25 list for education buildings.
8. Short Bits A Canterbury Uni earthquake strengthening system is being used in Carterton (was also used at NMIT). More on Whitireia’s birthday celebrations. A Massey fashion lecturer is co-curating an exhibition, while the head of a school support unit at Massey is profiled. The Hocken library has an old Otago map restored and back in the collection. Two Auckland Uni legal boffins don’t like Rodney Hide’s latest bill, while Otago Uni’s Andrew Geddis commented on the IHC carer pay case.

1. Online Music Tai Poutini Polytechnic’s Music and Audio Institute of NZ is running theory classes online until they can check out their Christchurch CBD buildings. Otago Uni has also found some temporary space at a golf club. On a related facilities note, an FAQ from the University of Canterbury’s student accommodation shows how flexible institutions are being with students.
2. SAR A Waikato Uni student went down to Christchurch as part of a search and rescue team.
3. Want a Wheelbarrow The Student Volunteer Army’s wheelbarrows are being sold off on TradeMe.
4. NZ Cricket… has moved its admin staff out to Lincoln University from the CBD - their high performance staff are already there.
5. Stairs in Quakes Auckland Uni’s Charles Clifton probably knows a lot about stair design, and offers some good reasons for why some failed in Christchurch.
6. Indian Student Death? An Indian English language student is believed to have been found dead at Ninety Mile Beach (the death is not suspicious).
7. R&D Review Science and Innovation Minister Wayne Mapp announced a review to see how research and development (R&D) can provide better support to New Zealand’s high-value manufacturing and services sector (NZPA). AUT’s Prof John Raine is chairing it.
8. WITT Chefs…are cooking with fennel.
9. Business Links A Canterbury Uni lecturer is taking on a 60% role at Jade Software – I wish we had more of these business-university links.
10. Libya A Libyan (and Kiwi) PhD student at Waikato Uni comments on the Libyan situation.
11. Summer Shakespeare… in Palmerston North involves 8 UCOL students, and this story is a great opportunity for you to check out UCOL’s Blog,
12. Short Bits A Bay of Plenty Times editorial cites Otago Uni academics’ anti-smoking views. Victoria Uni’s Prof John Wells is on a Porirua Harbour trust. Auckland Uni has a new Chair in Heart Health – Rob Doughty – and a new Law Professor – Janet McLean (funnily enough, she’s at the same university as my cousin in law, the University of Dundee). Drunk Dunedin students affect emergency department stats.

“Question: How do you get the country’s eight universities to co-operate? Answer: Turn off the funding tap.

That was the gist of a cheeky crack last week from entrepreneur, scientist and former New Zealander of the Year Sir Ray Avery, at an event showcasing the fruits of university R&D. It got a good laugh, both from the academics in the audience, who included event host Derek McCormack, vice-chancellor of AUT University, and representatives of businesses.” NZ Herald

He’s quite right – turning off the funding tap would get universities scrambling to find new sources of income. But as an interim step, the series of 14 university-business roadshows highlighted in that NZ Herald article are “a good thing”. It’s a great way to lift the profiles of universities’ researchers amongst businesses and build some soft relationships.

I’ve been enormously impressed at the fact that the universities are working together on this project and I hope that they can both keep it up and wrap around it extra initiatives to make the budding relationships bloom.

Given a backlog of stories, this is today’s second news post. There’s a story below on training DHB board members, which reminds me that ED consultant David Choat was elected to the Capital and Coast DHB ten days ago. I’ve congratulated him personally, but thought I’d let you all know too. Make sure to call him if you need to be bumped up the waiting list

1. TWOA Resurgence TVNZ has done a story on the resurgence of Te Wananga O Aotearoa after a pretty rough time five years ago. The text story is brief but the video has much more detail – it is, however, a once over lightly story and demonstrates the problem of the lack of specialisation in TV reporting.
2. Silly Research Earlier today I mentioned the silly research (well, really it is just advocacy) by Otago Uni academics saying that alcohol was more expensive than bottled water. Water New Zealand agreed, pointing out that water comes out of the tap at less than a cent for 10 litres.
3. Uni Entrance University entrance may get harder or easier depending on how you look at it, according to an NZQA announcement.
4. VSM Vote Tomorrow The VSM Bill goes up for second reading tomorrow and NZUSA has a media release. It won’t pass its third reading until at least the next member’s day, so at least two weeks.
5. Libyan Deal NZ could get $30m from an education deal with Libya, to take on up to 300 scholarship students.
6. Auckland Fees University of Auckland fees will go up by the maximum 4% next year – I’ll send a chocolate fish to anyone who can show that Auckland has ever NOT put up fee by the maximum allowed. Craccum did a preview story.
7. Exhibitions WelTec has a series of events in its School of Creative Technologies exhibition this October and November – first up is an exhibition in Thistle Hall in Wellington (since the ITF is across the road, they have no excuse not to go!). A University of Auckland exhibition on architecture is going to be at Vic’s Adam Art Gallery (I’m only 200m away, but it is up the hill…).
8. Science Writing The shortlist for The Manhire Prize for Creative Science Writing has been released – it’s a joint VUW-RSNZ award. 
9. Short Bits HSI wants 10,000 workers for the Rugby World Cup. SIT nursing students are holding a health expo. Aoraki Poly had a small shrub fire (I meant shrub, not scrub).
10. Media Mentions Timaru’s population (Lincoln and Waikato Unis), training DHB Boards (Otago), seismic engineering (UC).
11. Otago Corner Otago Uni has named a new quality head honcho, is hosting the saboteur priest Fr Peter Murnane, has a physics academic arguing to replace water pipes now before peak oil hits, has secured funding for a zebrafish facility (for more on zebrafish research, read this - it’s really quite interesting),and is tangentially involved in a dental therapist dispute (the DHB is trying to claw back some of the 48 [!] days of leave the staff get). Otago Poly is having a big plant sale this weekend if you’re near Cromwell, where it also just had a cooking competition (here and here).