2014
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Communicating climate change
Climate change is one of the major issues of our time, but presenting the science behind it and what we can do about it is proving to be a challenge.
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Navigating uncharted waters
Victoria University’s Pacific Studies programme has notched up a growing number of firsts.
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Improving government accountability
A commitment to making the New Zealand Government more open, accountable and responsive to its citizens is driving the contribution of two academics from Victoria’s School of Government to the international Open Government Partnership (OGP).
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Exploring the future of te reo
The contemporary and future state of te reo Māori is the focus of a new book, The Value of The Māori Language: Te Hua o te Reo Māori.
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Out of its shell
Extremely rare footage of a tuatara hatching was captured on film at Victoria in July.
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Collaborating for conservation
Whether it’s working out why thieving robins can count their food stash analysing kiwis’ night-time calls, both Victoria University and Wellington’s Zealandia wildlife sanctuary are reaping rewards from their longstanding partnership.
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Revolutionary cancer treatment
A new form of cancer therapy nine years in the making has potential to be the ‘miracle cure’ the world has been waiting for, according to Dr David Ackerley.
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Solving problems with bacteria
In his second year of study, Alistair Brown decided to downsize from whales to bacteria, changing his major from Marine Science to Cell and Molecular Bioscience.
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The tales that treasures can tell
What does a history of our World War I experience look like if we rely less on the surviving documents, and more in the objects that remain?
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Different perspectives on World War I
One hundred years on from World War I, New Zealanders are still finding new ways to remember it.
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Make music, not war
A professor from Te Kōkī New Zealand School of Music is on his way to creating an epic symphony of musical commemoration.
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On top of the world
Presenting to some of the most powerful people in the Commonwealth, making Swiss rolls for Prince Charles and talking about opera with the New Zealand High Commissioner were just a few of the things 20-year-old Katherine McIndoe did in July.
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Innovative teaching tool
New technology in the classroom is creating a more interactive and dynamic learning experience at Victoria.
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Nominations now open for 2015 Distinguished Alumni Awards
Victoria University’s biannual Distinguished Alumni Awards celebrate our outstanding graduates and acknowledge their excellence, achievement and contribution to their profession, community or country.
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Plans for expansion
New building plans for two of Victoria’s campuses will ensure the University has the right environment to achieve its strategic goals.
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New path to leadership
Aspiring principals are being given on-the-job training as part of a new Master’s programme at Victoria.
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A helping hand for our rarest kiwi
A Victoria student’s work on the reintroduction of a critically endangered species of kiwi is helping ensure the iconic New Zealand bird will remain in our forests for generations to come.
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Detecting harmful molecules
A novel sensor that can detect environmental contaminants as miniscule as one pinch of salt in an Olympic-sized swimming pool has been developed by Victoria University researchers.
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Doing business with India
Providing practical advice on doing business in India is the focus of new research by Dr Revti Raman, a senior lecturer in Victoria’s School of Marketing and International Business.
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Prestigious legal appointment
Victoria’s Dean of Law, Professor Tony Smith, has been appointed to a distinguished legal role at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom.
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Shear determination
On the back of his Master’s project ‘going viral’ online, recent School of Design graduate Earl Stewart found himself part of the team that has produced the world’s first woollen running shoe.
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Career kickstart
Students enrolled in Victoria’s Museum and Heritage Studies programme gain a broad range of hands-on experience that is normally not encountered until they fly the academic nest.
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Debating the big issues
From human rights issues to climate change, Victoria University regularly leads debate on important issues of the day through free public lectures.
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Unlocking the brain’s secrets
A simple language test could help medical professionals establish the impact of brain tumours more accurately than has been possible in the past.
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Shifting creativity up a gear
An innovative collaboration gave School of Design students the opportunity to transform BMW New Zealand’s headquarters as part of a special topic course.
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The changing world of work
Changes in the nature of work and employment are reflected in Victoria’s decision to rename its Industrial Relations Centre.
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Summer jobs with a difference
About 300 Victoria students will be brainstorming, problem solving and offering creative solutions to a host of businesses and organisations this summer as part of the University’s Summer Research Scholarships programme.
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Global inspiration
A youth forum in Germany has left two Victoria students with a thirst to learn more and contribute to international affairs.
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New strategic appointments
New strategic appointments are a key step towards Victoria achieving its vision of being a leading capital city university, as well as one of the world’s great civic universities.
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Learning through storytelling
New research shows that taking preschoolers to story-time sessions at the local library could help them with the early stages of learning to read.
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Virtual iwi on Facebook
New Victoria research is showing the extent to which information technology is becoming culturally important for Māori.
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Who’s in my room?
Who’s in my room? is an ongoing series where we ask a prominent alumni to return to their old room at their former Hall of Residence and share stories with the current resident.
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Reunion in the capital
A group of Victoria alumni from New Zealand, Australia, Singapore and Malaysia will soon gather in Wellington to celebrate and remember their student days.
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Writing doctors
A novelist with a doctorate used to be a rare thing, says the director of Victoria’s International Institute of Modern Letters (IIML), but not so these days.
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Writing through pain
A decade of chronic pain has been the creative catalyst for writer Stephanie de Montalk’s latest book, a memoir called How Does It Hurt?, which will be published by Victoria University Press in November.
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Investigating Kim Dotcom’s personal effects
Twenty-two luxury cars, US $175 million in cash, numerous flat screen televisions and computer servers, bank accounts and works of art are among 110 objects referenced in the Adam Art Gallery’s latest exhibition, The Personal Effects of Kim Dotcom.
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Space expert—David Stevenson
Hear from our one of our alumni, space expert—David Stevenson is a Professor of Planetary Science for the California Institute of Technology (Caltech).
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Dance diva—Deirdre Tarrant
Hear from our one of our alumni, dance diva—Deirdre Tarrant Founding Director of Footnote Dance.
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Devil in the detail
Writing can be small and hard to read, says Brian, and many labels on medicine bottles look similar. “It’s all too easy, if you are rushed or tired, to give the wrong drug, or the wrong dose of the right drug.”
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The secret life of cats
What does your cat get up to when you’re not looking? Postdoctoral research fellow Dr Heidy Kikillus and Master’s student Mya Gaby have been sifting through around 80 hours of footage of local Wellington domestic cats to document their behaviour and habits.
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Believe it? Or not…
Objective reasoning is challenging when people evaluate information they already hold an opinion on, a Victoria researcher has found.
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Top accolade for punishment research
The 2013 Royal Society of New Zealand’s Mason Durie Medal was awarded to Professor John Pratt, Victoria’s Director of the Institute of Criminology.
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Doing business with Asia
Most Asian businesses operate seven days a week. That means, says Victoria’s new BNZ Chair in Business in Asia, Professor Siah Hwee Ang, that a New Zealand business operating five days a week will be two days behind within one week and 104 days behind after one year.
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Small survivors
Some of the smallest organisms in the world are crucial to the survival of many species. Dr Andrew Martin, from the School of Biological Sciences, has spent over a decade investigating microalgae and bacteria in Antarctica to understand how microbes might be affected by climate change.
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Tikanga resolves conflict
Most collaborative projects face conflict at some point and if group members lack skills to deal with differences, creativity can grind to a screeching halt.
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People power
People should have the power to create a new constitution whenever they wish, but very few countries actually allow that to happen, according to Law lecturer Dr Joel Colón-Ríos.
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The many talents of mathematicians
Victoria mathematicians provide living proof of the interaction of mathematics and the arts.
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Close-up on restorative justice
In the early 1970s, two probation officers in Ontario, Canada considered how best to deal with two young men who had vandalised 22 properties. They asked a judge if they could take the men to meet the victims and see what reparation could be arranged.
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Dealing with a difficult past
There is a consensus at government level in Germany that the Holocaust can never be forgotten but Spain has yet to reach an official, shared view on the Spanish Civil War.
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Top talent
Professor Grant Guilford began his term as Vice-Chancellor in March. Grant holds a Bachelor of Philosophy and a Bachelor of Veterinary Science from Massey University and a PhD in Nutrition from the University of California, Davis.
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Work in the ‘real world’
Christine Min knew nothing about magazine production when she signed up for a Victoria Bachelor of Arts internship—now her name appears in the credits for the latest issue of global fashion quarterly magazine Lucire.
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Overseas summer course a first
An action-packed summer course abroad has left 25 scholarship recipients with a new perspective on our Asian neighbours.
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From ideas to action
A laboratory-made bone substitute, smart office dividers and a robotic toy for children with autism are some of the innovative projects students have been working on as part of a new programme at Victoria.
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Learning through time travel
In most museums, precious artefacts may be viewed only behind glass. But in Victoria University’s Classics Museum students are allowed to take items out of the cabinets and view them up close.
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Shaping tomorrow’s leaders
A model APEC forum, international food festival and cultural performance night, and a study tour to Rotorua were highlights of a 10-day intercultural leadership programme held late last year at the University.
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Transforming the library experience
Recent changes at the Kelburn Library have transformed the Library into a very different experience from what many alumni will remember.
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A global perspective
If someone told George Nelson at the start of last year that he’d be walking along the beaches of Bali, hearing world leaders speak and drinking a cocktail with John Key, he would have said, “Yeah right!”
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Redesigning Christchurch
Top architecture students from Victoria University have a vision of making Christchurch’s Performing Arts Precinct an epicentre of art, theatre and music.
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Hall without walls
WGTN Hall is one of the newest Halls of Residence on the block, with one big difference—there aren’t any walls.
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Boosting accounting in Malaysia
A new Victoria-led initiative is enabling 140 Malaysian accounting students to experience New Zealand’s high-quality teaching.
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Making legal history
At a landmark occasion late last year, five recent Victoria University law graduates were admitted to the bar in a ceremony conducted in te reo Māori.
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On the road with Elf
Elf Eldridge thinks he may have hit the jackpot with a new job that will take him on the road with robots.
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Missionary man
An ordained Anglican priest who describes himself as “punk at heart” is the supervising chaplain at Ramsey House, an Anglican chaplaincy that has been on campus since the 1960s.
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Ideas on tap
Sit back, relax with a drink and hear about some of Victoria Business School’s latest research.
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When cinema and painting collide
The Adam Art Gallery’s first exhibition of the year, Cinema & Painting, featured in the 2014 New Zealand Festival programme.
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Wellington— a living city
“City of flower-pots, canyon streets and trams, O sterile whore of a thousand bureaucrats!” was poet James K Baxter’s description of Wellington in 1953.
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Who’s in my room?
Who’s in my room? is the first of an ongoing series where we ask a prominent alumni to return to their old room at their former Hall of Residence and share stories with the current resident.
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Siblings stroll down memory lane
The phrase ‘keeping it in the family’ has taken on a whole new meaning for the Sagaga siblings from Wainuiomata.
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Mothers-in-law—friend or foe?
Is the rivalry between a mother-in-law and daughter-in-law real or just a cultural stereotype?
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Bringing English to the jungle
Three hours by boat from the closest town, in the heart of the jungle, has been home for Yong ‘Jarod’ Jik Kam for the last five years.
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From West Africa to windy Wellington
Wellington may be a long way from home for Nigerian PhD student Daniel Akinyele, but it’s providing the perfect location for him to research the potential of wind power.
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A good sport
Despite having “limited sporting ability”, much of the success the 2015 Cricket World Cup rests on Therese Walsh’s small shoulders.
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Passion leads to perfect mix
An eclectic range of studies has turned out to be the perfect mix for Victoria Spackman’s current career.
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On the University art trail
Original artwork by some of New Zealand’s major artists is on public display at all of Victoria’s campuses.
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Leading the charge for child safety
Innovative battery technology designed at Victoria University could soon be helping to save the lives of young children all over the world.
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Technology connects cultures
For many years, Alaska Native lecturer Dr Beth Leonard has been a face on the screen to students at Victoria but this trimester they finally got to meet her in person.
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The economics of product tracing
It’s an issue that crops up regularly in the manufacturing business—a product is found to be contaminated or faulty and must be recalled. Without an effective tracking system through the supply chain, the mistake can cost a company its reputation, or worse, human lives.
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Lifting the lamp on Kerry
When Kerry Donovan Brown was 11, his mother enrolled him in the Christchurch School for Young Writers, where he wrote poems about Persian cats and plotted elaborate storylines for fantasy novels.
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Something wicked this way came
The latest Summer Shakespeare offering of a modern-day, bikergang rendition of Macbeth brought Wellingtonians flocking to the capital’s Botanic Garden to witness the gritty, spine-tingling story unfold.
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Honorary Doctorate recipient—Eleanor Catton, Doctor of Literature
As the youngest-ever recipient of the Man Booker Prize, in 2013 Eleanor Catton was catapulted to the forefront of New Zealand literature.
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Honorary Doctorate—Paul Baines, Doctor of Commerce
A distinguished investment banker and businessman, Paul Baines’ strategic and governance talents have seen him appointed to the boards of some of New Zealand’s largest public, private and not-for-profit organisations.
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Honorary Doctorate—Professor Roger Clark, Doctor of Laws
A pre-eminent public international law, human rights and criminal law scholar, Professor Roger Clark has displayed an exemplary commitment to teaching, international public service and research during his career.