ET LABORE

AUTUMN 2005

MAGAZINE OF THE UNIVERSITY OF AUCKLAND

BIOTECH BRAINS MEAN BUSINESS

NEW STUDENTSMADE WELCOME

OWEN GLENN’SRECORD GIFT

FIRST HOOD FELLOWS NAMED

SPACE-AGEFABRICS

THE UNIVERSITY OF AUCKLANDNEW ZEALAND

SMART SCIENCE

1AUTUMN 2005

CONTENTS

2 VIEW FROM THE TOP

The new Vice-Chancellor, Professor Stuart McCutcheon,is excited to be leading the country's premier university.

5 SAVVY SCIENCE

University of Auckland scientists are speaking the language of business in the biotech century.

8 RED MEANS GO

Newcomers on campus get a cheery welcome from an army of Uniguides in a successful new programme.

14 MATERIAL DIFFERENCE

A mechanical engineering PhD student works at the cutting edge of materials science.

18 A HEAD FOR BUSINESS

The name of the new Business School building will recognisethe generosity of a successful New Zealand entrepreneur.

24 NUMBER CRUNCHER

The first group of Hood Fellows includes a world-classUniversity of Auckland mathematician.

26 SEEING THE FUTURE

An online tool developed by a University of Aucklandepidemiologist will help GPs predict patients’ health risk.

182

INGENIO ET LABORE

DISTINGUISHED ALUMNI

KEEP IN TOUCH WITH US

BUSINESS HISTORY

HOW TO BUILD A RACING CAR

ET

LA

BO

RE

CREATING and sustaining a world-classuniversity is a team effort.The articles inthe pages that follow highlight the workof just some of the staff at The Universityof Auckland whose achievementsexemplify the institution’s ambition to berecognised internationally for the qualityof its research and teaching. As the newVice-Chancellor, Professor StuartMcCutcheon, remarks on page 3, noNew Zealand university will ever displacethe likes of Harvard and Oxford fromthe positions they have achieved –reflecting centuries of intellectualdevelopment and generous support – but it won’t be for want of trying.

Professor McCutcheon knows he leadsan institution in extraordinarily goodheart, staffed with researchers andteachers who exemplify the fine Kiwitradition of using limited resources soeffectively that they can proudly standalongside their more richly endowedcounterparts on the international stage.We hope you will enjoy reading aboutsome of them here, alongside theachievements of high-flying alumni whohave made their mark both at home andabroad.

This fifth issue of Ingenio also celebratesthe vision of donors and philanthropistswho have been so impressed by theUniversity’s commitment to excellencethat they have offered generous financialsupport to specific initiatives. For its part,the University is constantly striving todevelop partnerships with both privateenterprise and government to ensurethat the research undertaken by itspeople will inform the nation’s economic,social, and cultural development.

This issue incorporates some changesreflecting a readership survey weconducted over the summer, whichshowed us that alumni and friends regardIngenio as an important link to theUniversity. You will find some importantcontact details on page 21 and we urgeyou to keep in touch with us so weknow what you think.

PETER CALDEREditor

VIEW FROMTHE TOPThe new Vice-Chancellor started on January 1, but he hit the ground running.

He talks to Ingenio editor PETER CALDER about the challenges ahead.

2 INGENIO

3AUTUMN 2005

It’s a good view from the Vice-Chancellor’s office on the top floor of theRegistry in what is officially known as

Alfred Nathan House. Beyond thehandsome wooded expanse of Albert Park,which stretches away to the west, the topsof the city towers peep above the trees. Inthe afternoon sun, it’s as pretty a picture asyou can get in central Auckland.

But the man behind the big desk doesn’tspend a lot of time taking in the view. Thenew VC, Professor Stuart McCutcheon,officially occupied the room only onJanuary 1, succeeding Dr John Hood whois now VC at Oxford (Professor RaewynDalziel, the Deputy Vice-Chancellor(Academic), had occupied the position inthe interim). But it is safe to say that he hitthe ground running. In the six monthsbetween his appointment and his startingwork he had several meetings with Deansand other senior managers. “It was not acompletely cold start,” he says. “There’sbeen quite a lot of learning going on.”

McCutcheon, 50, who came to TheUniversity of Auckland from four years asVC at Victoria University of Wellington,says he is excited by the challenge of thecountry’s biggest university job.

“Auckland is, by any standard, thepremier New Zealand university,” he says,“and the job was particularly attractivebecause Auckland has such a very strongresearch base.”

He is no stranger to that area ofmanagement; he was DVC (Research) atMassey University before taking up theVictoria job. But Auckland, he explains,“has taken on the real challenge for NewZealand universities which is to startthinking and benchmarking with a verystrong international focus”.

He is under no illusion that TheUniversity of Auckland faces a stiffchallenge in doing so, since the universitysector here is under-resourced byinternational standards: even in ournearest neighbour, Australia, universitiesare funded at twice the rate of ours. ButMcCutcheon is undaunted.

“No New Zealand university is evergoing to be Harvard or Oxford orPrinceton. That’s not just about money butit’s also to do with history. It takes a verylong time, and a massive investment tobuild up a first-class university. ButAuckland is currently ranked somewherebetween 50th and 200th in the world,depending on what rules you plug into theranking. Given that there are severalthousand universities in the world, that’s apretty good starting point from which tocreate new ambitions for the institution.”

The University of Auckland has theadvantage of being in the largestpopulation centre and enjoys the supportof some “very generous” donors, the VCsays.

“But the reality is that that resource will always be limited in size because you don’t have great personal wealth inNew Zealand and there is a limitedindustrial base from which to generateresearch.

“So we also need to use the resources wedo have more cleverly than ourinternational competitors. If you have a lotof resource, there is a temptation to not bevery strategic with it. New Zealanders arequite good at using what we haveeffectively: we work hard, we’re notwasteful. Sometimes I think we err in the other direction; we can be under-ambitious. But we can be pretty nimble

and our rankings show that. And whilewe’re at it, taking a bigger share of theinternational resource would do us noharm, either.”

The last decade has been something of awatershed in our understanding as a

nation that the wholesale public funding ofhigh-quality, research-led universityeducation is a thing of the past. It has beena paradigm shift in the thinking of peoplewho believe that paying for education isthe Government’s job.

“It was the Government’s job until theearly 1990s,” says McCutcheon. “It’s onlysince then that we have seen a pattern of adeclining Government subsidy for eachstudent – thus increasing fees – and at thesame time a massive increase in thenumbers of students. The idea that you

save for your education or that you supportthe education system were not part of theNew Zealand way of doing things, althoughthey have been understood in othercountries for many years.”

In such a funding environment, TheUniversity of Auckland has maintained itsedge in a number of ways: thePerformance-Based Research Fund(PBRF), which allocates some of thepublic research funding on the basis of auniversity’s research quality and outputrather than its raw student numbers has,unsurprisingly, worked in Auckland’sfavour because its research outputs are sohigh. At the same time, the University hasvigorously pursued private funding forresearch and aggressively marketed theresearch it has done; and finally, it hasbenefited from the generosity of individualdonors who believe in backing winners.

“Staff here have been extraordinarilysuccessful at generating support fromphilanthropy and private researchpurchasers who clearly understand andappreciate what The University ofAuckland is trying to do.”

McCutcheon’s predecessor had aprofound influence on the institution heran for five years and on the tertiary sectoras a whole, but if the new man is dauntedby the size of the shoes he has to fill, heshows no sign of it.

“John Hood and I worked closelytogether on the New Zealand Vice-Chancellors’ Committee,” he says, “and,although we sometimes approach thingsdifferently, what we see as important isfundamentally the same. John did afantastic job of getting the Universitythrough some very serious challenges to a

+ NEW VC STUART McCUTCHEON: "I don’t believe in fixing things that aren’t broken.”PHOTOS: GODFREY BOEHNKE

position where we are able to play to ourstrengths.”

In any case, McCutcheon does not believe in fixing things that aren’tbroken.

“Unless you have to, it’s unwise toshake organisations up for the hell of it. Universities are by their natureconservative institutions and big shake-ups of such organisations candestabilise them for a long time.”

As a Wellingtonian coming toAuckland, he has been unfazed by the traditional north-south rivalry,exemplified by the last Mayor ofAuckland’s highly publicised slangingmatches with his Wellingtoncounterpart. But he says the differencesare striking.

“Wellington is very clearly a public-sector town; here the focus is muchmore on relationships with business.But one of the things I can do is help theUniversity with its relationship with theGovernment and the public sector, notbecause I’m particularly political butbecause, by virtue of having been inWellington, I have quite goodrelationships with the ministries and theministers.”

He is concerned by the threats totraditional independence of

universities posed by variousGovernment initiatives, in particular thePublic Finance (State SectorManagement) Act which seeks to treatuniversities like any other part of thestate sector.

“I think it is conceivable that theGovernment isn’t so much hell-bent on control as on theintegration of various parts of what it sees as the state sector but it adopted a pretty blunt instrument to do it,” he says. “We have a vast array of accountability mechanisms andI’m very happy for the University to be accountable for the money the Government spends on us; I’m a taxpayer too. But the Governmentpays us to deliver something. There’s abig difference between insisting thatBMW deliver you a good car which is

the same as the one you ordered asopposed to stepping in and dictating toBMW how they should run theirbusiness.”

Among the biggest challenges facinguniversities in the 21st century will

be the issue of whether they should seekmore students or better ones. The“massification” of university educationhas been a feature of the last 15 years –national student numbers haveballooned from 67,000 to 130,000 since1990 – and meanwhile the population isvirtually static, but ageing.

“We are going to have to expect moreand more productivity from peoplebecause our youngsters are going tohave to support an ageing population.Meanwhile the nature of work ischanging: many of the jobs our studentswill do haven’t been invented yet. Sothey’re going to have to be moreproductive in jobs they don’t yetcomprehend.

“That raises big issues abouteducation in the sense of preparingpeople for a lifetime of work and alifetime of being useful members ofsociety as opposed to giving them skillsthat are useful tomorrow. Employerswant skills that are going to be usefultomorrow because there is a shortage oflabour. So there is an issue about thenature of education as well as an issueabout what proportion of the populationshould be in university and what kind ofeducation they should receive.”

Those remarks underline theperennial tension between growth andquality: should The University ofAuckland seek to grow – its current rollis more than 35,000 – or ratherconcentrate on taking the very beststudents?

“That is certainly a discussion weneed to have. And if we are going to talkabout being elite, in the positive senseof creating opportunities for the nation’sbrightest students, we need to talk alsoabout the students who are very bright and who aren’t making it touniversity because of their socio-economic circumstances.” i

Ingenio – a magazine of The University of Auckland

Autumn 2005ISSN 1176-211X

EditorPeter Calder

Art directionRichard Hesom-Williams

DesignNick CollinsPeter Watson

Contributing writersJason KingSue ReidyJoanna WaneBill Williams

PhotographyGodfrey BoehnkeGeoff Dale

Advertising ManagerDon Wilson

ProductionFirst in Print

Contact details

IngenioExternal Relations

The University of AucklandPrivate Bag 92 019AUCKLAND

University House 19A Princes StreetAUCKLANDTelephone: +64 9 373 7599 ext 87698 Facsimile: +64 9 373 7047Email: alumni@auckland.ac.nzWebsite: www.auckland.ac.nz/ingenio

Advertising enquiries:Don Wilson – PO Box 38-618, Howick,AUCKLANDTelephone: +64 9 535 7275Facsimile: +64 9 535 7295Mobile: +64 27 480 1868E-mail: don_wilson@xtra.co.nz

CopyrightArticles reflect personal opinions and are notthose of The University of Auckland. Noparts of this publication may be reproducedwithout prior consent of The University ofAuckland. All rights reserved.

© The University of Auckland 2005

“WE ARE GOING TO HAVE TO EXPECT MORE AND

MORE PRODUCTIVITY FROM PEOPLE BECAUSE

OUR YOUNGSTERS ARE GOING TO HAVE TO

SUPPORT AN AGEING POPULATION.”

4 INGENIO

5AUTUMN 2005

Across Symonds Street from theleafy grounds of Old GovernmentHouse is the Thomas Building,

home of the School of Biological Sciences.Thousands of students have walkedthrough these doors since 1968 to spendtheir days in the laboratories and seminarrooms, working towards degrees.

But the school long ago recognised thatit has to be more than a place of learning.The 21st century has already been dubbedthe biotech century and the scientists hererepresent a potent nucleus of knowledgeand expertise. The result is what

classicists would call a chimera – a hybridentity created by the meeting of scienceand business. They remain distinctdisciplines but the school has become aplace where they can understand eachother.

A wander through today’s ThomasBuilding is revealing: here more than 30graduate students are working withProfessor Garth Cooper on research forProtemix, the company he founded in 1999to develop effective therapies for theworldwide scourge of diabetes; there is thelocal office of another spin-off

biotechnology firm, Biomatters, where aquartet of programmers share space with agroup of students in the Institute ofBioinformatics on the ground floor; up aflight of stairs is the office of David Saul,one of the scientists behind yet anotherbiotech start up Pacific Gem, founded on a novel application for DNA forensicswork.

The Protemix story is well-known.Cooper, hailed as New Zealander of theYear by North and South magazine in2003, is a veteran of the biotech industryin the United States. There he synthesised

SAVVYSCIENCE

Biotechnology requires science to understand business – and vice versa. JASON

KING looks at how University of Auckland scientists are reinventing themselves.

+ BIOTECH BRAINS: Instituteof Bioinformatics head ProfessorAllen Rodrigo, left; SBS directorProfessor Joerg Kistler, seated;and Julio Ferreira, chieftechnology officer of Biomatters.

PHOTO: GEOFF DALE

the compound amylin, a peptide hormonefor the treatment of diabetes, andsubsequently co-founded Amylin Pharma-ceuticals, now a Nasdaq-listed companywith a market capitalisation of $US2.4billion. Since 1999 Protemix hasdeveloped into one of the New Zealandbiotech industry’s great hopes. The latestbreakthrough has been this year’s ongoingsuccess with the clinical trials of thecompound Laszarin, which has proveneffective in reducing the dangerous heartenlargement that accompanies diabetes.

Pacific Gem is in the throes of start-up;much has to be kept under wraps at thebehest of private biotech entrepreneurNeville Jordan. But already up andrunning is Biomatters, a company foundedby former School of Biological Sciencegraduates Alexei Drummond, JulioFerreira, Athena Ferreira and artsgraduate-turned-new business entrepreneurDaniel Batten.

Initially housed at The University ofAuckland’s business incubator project

the ICEHOUSE, since late last yearBiomatters has taken up residency in theThomas Building at the Institute ofBioinformatics where the company’s staffcan immerse themselves in the disciplinesthat are their core business.

The head of the institute, ProfessorAllen Rodrigo, who supervisedDrummond’s PhD thesis several years ago,sits on the Biomatters scientific advisoryboard. The institute itself has beenoperating only since the middle of 2003,which is a mark of the discipline’s novelty.

As scientists delved into the genome,they found themselves dealing with hugemasses of data. For example, the instituteis involved in analysing the genome of thewastewater bacteria Acidovorax, whosesequence of 4.3 million bases was

developed in a project led by Dr SusanTurner in the School of BiologicalSciences.

Put baldly, bioinformatics is thecomputational organisation of biologicaldatabases. But more than simplyorganising data, it provides the tools toanalyse and mine those databases to testhypotheses. Rodrigo puts it succinctly:“Bioinformatics converts data intoinformation and information intoknowledge.”

So life sciences students come to theinstitute to arm themselves with thecomputational skills they need to makesense of their work. And more. “We’retotally interdisciplinary,” Rodrigo says.“We bring computer scientists andmathematicians into the fold as it were, totry to use their methods in the biologicalsciences.”

The fledgling Biomatters hunts in whatit calls the post-genomic world, creatingsoftware and other bioinformatic solutionsfor scientists working in medical andgenetics science. The company’s flagshipproduct is Cheesecake, a softwareprogramme that allows scientists tomanage aspects from animal husbandry to

ethics reporting and experimental designfor in vivo laboratory research. AthenaFerreira tested an early version ofCheesecake while completing doctoralresearch at the School of BiologicalSciences. She completed her research ninemonths ahead of schedule and felt thesoftware tool allowed her the experimentalfreedom and success that led to hergaining a post-doctoral place at OxfordUniversity.

Rodrigo says sharing space withBiomatters had to be a mutually

beneficial arrangement. Biomatters offersfour studentships and Rodrigo wasselective about what work students woulddo. “We wanted them to have creative rolesthat suited their various levels. We takethe view that good education comes aboutwhen graduates have an understanding ofwhat it is like out there, how companieswork and the science behind thosecompanies.”

In addition to the studentships, theinstitute has the rights to a licence for oneof the company’s new software products i-Seek, a programme designed to speed upthe analysis of DNA sequences.

In return? Biomatters chief technicalofficer – and Athena’s brother – JulioFerreira says: “What Biomatters neededwas to be in an environment whereeverybody is talking about bioinformatics,where the science is active. We get thebenefits of full immersion in thediscipline, the flow of information andideas.”

Biomatters is only the latest in a seriesof joint ventures for the Institute ofBioinformatics. It owes its origins to a co-funding agreement between TheUniversity of Auckland and AgResearch,the country’s largest Crown ResearchInstitute. A recent project is the joint

When young scientist Priv Bradoo mentions the name of the new organisation Chiasma,life science students know immediately what she is on about. The chiasma is the

cross-shaped connection formed when male and female chromosomes meet. It’s a key stage in conception and, considering the fledgling organisation’s aims, an entirely apt name. Launched last September, Chiasma is the life sciences equivalent of Spark, thebusiness booster group created by the Postgraduate Students Association, the BusinessSchool and its affiliated business accelerator, The ICEHOUSE.

“We’re in the age of biomedicine,” says Bradoo, 23, a final-year doctoral student at theLiggins Institute at The University of Auckland’s Medical School, “so a few of us felt it wastime to create Chiasma, to help biological science students to think outside the square in anentrepreneurial way.”

Chiasma mimics the structure of the biotech start-ups. Bradoo is the chief executive, hercolleague Swati Sharma is chief operating officer and a student executive of 10 divide up

CATCHING THE LIFE

“BIOINFORMATICS

CONVERTS DATA

INTO INFORMATION

AND INFORMATION

INTO KNOWLEDGE.”

+ BRADOO: In the age ofbiomedicine.

6 INGENIO

venture with Weta Digital, film-makerPeter Jackson’s special effects company.The institute has contracted space on WetaDigital’s super-computer array forgenomics contracts it carries out for arange of clients overseas. Weta keeps its computers busy between special effects duties; the institute gains access to the fastest computers in thecountry.

Presiding over the new entrepreneurialculture at the School of BiologicalSciences is its Director Professor JoergKistler. The genial Swiss has no biotechstart-ups on his CV, though he jokes that ifone delves far enough into any Swissperson’s background, banking or financeturns up. As it happens his father was anaccountant.

“In a traditional university, the focus issingularly on good teaching and researchwith an entirely scholarly focus. I believe amodern university must also support theeconomic goals of the country.”

He says the excellent basic researchthe school creates should be

translated into applications and productsfor the biotech sector. Accept that and itbecomes incumbent upon the University toprovide learning that augments traditionalroles.

Kistler says: “We want to producescientists who are business-savvy and canwork directly in the emerging biotechsector.”

He says experience and research showthat it is much easier to graft businessskills onto scientists than for managementto grasp the intricacies of science. In theUnited States, 900 students at 45universities are working towards aqualification called the Professional

Science Master that aims to make generalscience graduates business-savvy. In2002, Cambridge University launched itsMaster of BioScience Enterprise, aimed atlife science students. Robyn Scott, aformer graduate of the School of BiologicalSciences, proved sharp enough to earn oneof the 20 hotly contested places in thisyear’s intake.

Kistler wants to make sure New Zealandis not left behind. The plan is to offer twonew programmes in 2006, a PostgraduateDiploma in Bioscience Enterprise and aMaster of Bioscience Enterprise. Theseprogrammes include training on the legal,regulatory, financial and managementaspects of bringing scientific discoveryinto the market.

Life sciences students had their firsttaste of the new courses at a summerschool last year where a range of guestspeakers from biotech companies lectured

on topics ranging from the intricacies ofintellectual property to raising venturecapital.

For Kistler it is a simple equation. Bypartnering with industry, the school gainsprojects for graduate students and thefunding to pay for them.

“We get the volume of researchnecessary to buy and operate large andexpensive equipment. The school hasrecently invested $4 million in massspectrometry. It’s a daunting amount.

“The traditional funding fromGovernment is simply not sufficient.Partnering with industry lets the School ofBiological Sciences gain access to non-conventional money that allows us togrow.”

In return the companies gain access totop quality students. Kistler: “Doctoralstudents are great workers: they arecommitted for three years and they possessyoung and fresh minds.”

By growing, the School of BiologicalSciences can retain and attract the top-calibre staff it needs to remaininternationally competitive, he says.

“If we’re going to attract the best peoplethey need to see that our infrastructure is world-class. Academics want to gosomewhere they can be competitive.”

The dividends are evident. The schoolhas recently recruited staff from theScripps Research Institute in La Jolla,California, the University of CaliforniaBerkeley, Oxford University and ImperialCollege. “They have come from these topplaces to Auckland and I never saw thatbefore,” says Kistler. “It tells me we areon the right track.”i

SCIENCE WAVEresponsibilities such as event management, marketing and sponsorship. Bradoo washeavily involved with Spark but saw the need for a specific organisation for lifesciences students. The National Research Centre for Growth and Development andbiotech industry organisation NZBio agreed and put up $40,000.

So far about 250 students have signed on. A Career Catalyst workshop earlier thisyear with room for 40 students was oversubscribed by twice that number.

In March, Chiasma announced the winners of I-Volve, a student competition for newbiotech ideas with $5000 for the chief prize.

It’s early days yet, but Chiasma has caught a wave. Says Bradoo: “Chiasma is aboutlifting the entrepreneurial vision of students and letting them know just how strong thelocal biotech industry is. In the area of innovation it’s the quality of the idea rather thanthe size of the organisation that counts. That’s the way New Zealand can foot it againstgiant corporations.” i

7AUTUMN 2005

On the first day of Orientation, theRed Army invaded. A force of150 highly trained foot soldiers

was deployed among the clowns and streetmusicians, searching out new recruitsbefore dividing into tight-knit specialistunits. Dressed in distinctive red T-shirts,the Uniguides were back in action.

The Uniguides are the most visible partof a buddy programme designed to helpfirst-year students settle in. They provideone-on-one support to newcomers duringthe crucial first six weeks on campus whenthe shock of landing in a new communityof more than 35,000 can be so dauntingthat students stumble at the first hurdle.

The Uniguide scheme was verysuccessful in retaining students last year.By the end of the year, only one per cent ofstudents paired with a Uniguide had quittheir studies.

This year, the programme has beensignificantly expanded: the number ofUniguides has been doubled and the

volunteer guides undergo a more intensivetraining process which focuses onproviding emotional as well as practicalsupport.

The Group Manager of Student Support,Bill Crome, says the size of the Aucklandcampus can seem overwhelming.

“Evidence from Australia suggests thatif you don’t meet someone in the first twoweeks, it’s much more difficult to meetstudents later,” he says. “With all thedifferent degrees and range of courseshere, students who went to the same schoolcan arrive on campus and never see eachother.”

The Uniguide concept was among anumber of initiatives which arose out

of recommendations by the Student LifeCommission, established in 2002 inresponse to concerns that the Universitywasn’t meeting the needs of anincreasingly diverse student population(last year, 16 per cent were internationals).

In January, a new Student SupportOffice, incorporating a range of servicesinto a “one-stop shop”, opened in theStudent Commons building. The officehelps students with information oneverything from rental accommodation andemergency financial support to findingplaces of worship on campus.

The headquarters for both the Uniguideand Orientation programmes, the SSO isalso one of the contact points for theUniversity’s 5500 international students,whether they’re looking for advice, a placeto live or need to sign up for the mandatorypersonal and health insurance.

Crome says that it’s now recognised thatnew students need one-on-one interaction,not mass induction, to make the transitionto university life. He’s taken on a part-timeresearcher to monitor student feedbackand make sure the students are gettingwhat they need from the scheme.

“If someone needs accommodation, ourstaff can make the phone call to the real

RED SQUADIn the first few weeks of the year, smiling red-shirted volunteers were

on hand to help newcomers. JOANNA WANE meets the Uniguides.

+ WELCOMING PARTY: Uniguides assemble among the crowds at Orientation.PHOTOS: GODFREY BOEHNKE

8 INGENIO

How do you use the library website?Where do I get my student IDcard? How much does it cost to

join the gym?These were just a few of the questions a

group of eight first-year students pitchedat Uniguide Lisa Hsin as she showed themround the City Campus after anOrientation Welcome powhiri at theUniversity’s Waipapa Marae.

Among them were international studentsfrom Hong Kong, Sweden, South Koreaand South Africa, plus an Australian andan Aucklander. Most were straight out ofhigh school, but the eldest was a maturestudent in her 40s. All of them, like Lisa,were studying law.

After a 90-minute tour, the groupswapped email addresses and arranged tomeet the following Thursday to iron outany problems encountered in their firstweek.

For the next six weeks, Lisa (a LawSchool veteran now in her third year) will betheir equivalent of an Alcoholics Anony-mous buddy: a friendly face to call on foradvice, a support person when times getrough and a lifeline if they’re at risk of suc-cumbing to the pressure and dropping out.

“Some are just really happy to havesomeone to talk to,” says Lisa, who hopesher latest recruits will build lastingfriendships and form their own study group

at the end of the year. “When you’re new tothe University, it’s seems very big andimpersonal. Auckland is all cellphonesand everybody looks so much cooler thanyou. Uniguides are where that personaltouch comes in.”

This is Lisa’s second year as a volunteerUniguide and she’s brought to the role herown experiences as a new kid on the block.Originally from Taiwan, she moved to NewZealand with her family when she was nineand knows what it’s like to be thrown intoa totally foreign environment.

Last year, she put a lonely Singaporeanstudent in touch with the University’sKiwi-Asian Club, which runs social events

helping international students maintaincontact with people from their owncultures. But it’s not only internationalstudents who can feel isolated, she says.With a couple of hundred studentsjamming into first-year law lectures, it’seasy to get lost in the crowd.

In her first year, Lisa made few newfriends and decided against joining anyclubs because she didn’t want to risk beingdistracted and failing her exams. “It wasvery scary for me,” she says. “A Uniguideisn’t there as a coach for your studies, butwe can point you in the right direction. Itgives you a person to go to when you needhelp rather than being left on your own.”

PERSONAL TOUCH MAKES ALL THE DIFFERENCE

i

+ FRIENDLY FACE: “A Uniguide can point you in the right direction,” says Lisa Hsin.

THE UNIGUIDE

SCHEME WAS VERY

SUCCESSFUL IN

RETAINING

STUDENTS LAST

YEAR. BY THE END

OF THE YEAR, ONLY

ONE PER CENT OF

STUDENTS PAIRED

WITH A UNIGUIDE

HAD QUIT THEIR

STUDIES.

estate agent and arrange for them to pick the student up. If someone’s sud-denly short of money or their flatmates have all walked out, they can come in andhave a chat about applying for emergencyfunds.”

Internationally recognised in the field ofstudent support, Crome has established

research links with universities undertakingsimilar projects in Canada, Scotland, theUnited States and Australia. Last year, hewas invited to present his work at theUniversity of South Carolina’s First YearExperience Conference and was guestspeaker at another international gatheringin Nashville, Tennessee.

“Initially we took ideas from here andthere all over the place, but now we’re prettymuch leading the world in terms of knowingour student base and meeting their needs,”he says.

The Uniguide volunteers have at least oneyear of university life behind them and gobefore an interview panel before beingselected. Co-ordinators Samini Kumar and

Amy Jerram look for students who are notonly clued up about the university systembut are also good listeners.

“Last year we concentrated on providingpractical support and getting aroundcampus,” says Kumar. “This year, they’ll beon the look-out for the students’ emotionalwell-being, too. For example, a lot ofstudents have been bullied at school.Uniguides aren’t counsellors, but they’ll beaware of some of those issues.”

First-year students who sign up for thescheme are divided into groups of up to adozen and paired with a Uniguide from theirfaculty. Most have weekly get-togethers,sometimes over free tea and coffee which isavailable every morning in one of thefunction rooms at the Auckland UniversityStudents’ Association. They stay in regulartouch by email.

Over the six-week programme, contactgradually drops off as students gainconfidence and become more independent.For a Uniguide, the ultimate measure of success is the opposite of a university’s: adropout rate of 100 per cent. i

9AUTUMN 2005

10 INGENIO

It has to be said that Lindsay Diggelmanndoes not fit the stereotype of amediaevalist. This does not look like a

man whose mission in life is to pore overdusty documents and fragile manuscriptsattempting to tease out of the historicalrecord new intelligence about the past.

His brisk manner and rapid-fire speech– he starts answering questions beforethey’re completely asked – are moresuggestive of his last career, a decade as aforeign exchange dealer with the globalbanking giant Citibank.

But then, Diggelmann, 40, is anythingbut your average mediaevalist. In May, hewill be capped PhD on the strength of athesis about an ancient topic which heresearched by the most modern of means.

His thesis examines how the socialinstitutions of marriage and inheritancegave rise to political change in Englandand France from 1100 to 1215. And hecompleted the whole thing without leavingNew Zealand.

That fact is not as bizarre as it may seem toan outsider: when he started work on thethesis, he assumed he would need to go toBritain and France to do some of the research.

“But once I started to look in the libraryhere,” he says, “it became apparent thatwe have a very good collection of usefulmaterial, much of which had beengathering dust for several decades. Therewas an absolute goldmine there, waiting tobe explored and, as time went on, it wasobvious that there was enough for mypurposes.”

The way in which Diggelmann workedon his thesis, which is entitled Marriage,inheritance and the balance of power in12th-century England and France, is a

testament to the quality of the library atThe University of Auckland. He was ableto access leather-bound facsimile volumesof papal documents (in Latin, a languagewhich he necessarily had to gain a goodcommand of).

“It’s an excellent collection,” he says,“and a credit to previous generations ofscholars who built it up. It certainly helpedthat some of the great collections of mediaeval documents are available online. They’re there, in the library – 220-odd volumes sitting on the shelves – butwhen you access them online you can do digital searches for words and

phrases which allows particular kinds ofanalysis.”

The central argument of the thesis is thatmarriages in the “top end” of mediaevalsociety – royalty and the nobility – and thenetwork of inheritances that resultedcaused a fundamental shift between thebeginning and end of the century in the waypolitical power was exerted. His researchsources included chronicle histories, legaland financial documents, charters,diplomatic treaties, letters and contem-porary works of imaginative literature. Healso drew upon extensive secondaryliterature in historical research and relatedfields such as anthropology, politicalscience and literary criticism.

Diggelmann says it posed no difficultynot being able to “smell the

documents” and having to work at onestage removed from his sources.

“There are mediaevalists who aremanuscript experts. That’s not me,” hesays. “What I do is more about interpretingtexts that others have painstakinglyprovided for us.”

Some might think that 800 years ofscholarship had discovered all there was toknow about the 12th century. ButDiggelmann explains that the historian isalways exploring the interplay betweenmodern ideas and the past.

“Every generation looks at the pastthrough its own eyes. The last 30 years orso has seen a revolution in the way weexamine the past, with post-colonial andpost-modern analysis. So I am looking atthe 12th century from a different point ofview. It’s not just about what actuallyhappened but about interpreting the pastwith new perspectives unfamiliar toprevious generations of historians.”

A University of Auckland graduate inEnglish nearly 20 years ago, Diggelmannhad always wanted to return to academiaand pursue a doctorate. After studyingundergraduate courses in French, Italianand History, he enrolled for his PhD underthe supervision of Dr Kim Phillips, a seniorlecturer in the Department of History andan accomplished medievalist herself.

PAST MASTERA mediaeval scholar minutely inspected what happened 800 years ago on the

other side of the world without leaving Auckland.

+ HISTORY MAN: “Every generation looks at the past through its own eyes,” says Diggelmann.PHOTO: GODFREY BOEHNKE

i

N E W S

Fostering dynamic leadershipRaising the quality of leadership in New

Zealand is the ambitious aim of aginger group called Exceleratorestablished by the Business School.

A group of national organisations —Westpac, the Tindall Foundation, BellGully, Deloitte, Hudson and Sleepyhead— have pledged $3 million to supportExcelerator. Sir Edmund Hillary is itspatron.

Excelerator aims to enhance theunderstanding, valuing and championingof leadership. It is cultivating leadershiptalent through “future leaders” and“advanced leaders” programmes, a virtualleadership network, and research.

At the recent launch of Excelerator,Chief Executive Dr Lester Levy said thepurpose of the institute was to ensure the country would have talented andskilled leaders not just in business, butalso in education, community, charity,government, sport and the creative arts.

Dr Levy, who heads the growingExcelerator team, has extensive manage-ment and governance experience inhealthcare, biotechnology, and film andtelevision production and is author of thebook Leadership and the Whirlpool Effect.

“Leadership is neither a position nor atitle, and it has no upper limits orboundaries,” said Dr Levy. “Its goal issimply to strive for outstandingperformance.

“The role of the leader is to createconfidence and a sense of possibility.People in organisations, in communitiesand in countries are capable of greatthings, yet so often their purpose ismisdirected and their efforts are mediocre.Leadership is about releasing the humanspirit.”

+ CULTIVATING TALENT: ExceleratorChief Executive Lester Levy.

Half of the 44 national Top AchieverDoctoral Scholarships recently

awarded by the Tertiary EducationCommission went to University ofAuckland students. The scholarships areawarded to only the top 10 per cent ofdoctoral candidates in New Zealand.Otago University gained five of the awardsand Canterbury and Victoria four each.

The amounts allocated to the 22Auckland students over three years rangefrom $63,380 to $96,000. Of the total, 16 are working in the sciences – inbiological sciences, medical and healthsciences, electrical, computing andmechanical engineering, bioengineering,chemistry, physics and computer science.Their projects include a study of theimpacts of psychological stress on the

body’s antibody responses to vaccinations,modelling ischaemia (damage) in theheart, and investigation of a novel vascularagent for targeting cancer.

PhD projects in the arts cover aequally wide range of subjects, includingan exploration into the psychologicaleffects of cultural displacement or exile inchildhood on later forms of creativity, and a philosophical study of the concept ofreligious ambiguity and its role in apluralist and more tolerant world.

“We are immensely proud of theachievements of these students who areamong the country’s finest youngresearchers,” said the Vice-Chancellor,Professor Stuart McCutcheon. “Theyrepresent the best in academic scholarshipin all disciplines across the University.”

Auckland tops doctoral scholarships

11AUTUMN 2005

Theatre’s new name recalls much-loved teacher

The smaller of the two Maidment theatreshas been renamed after the late

Professor Sydney Musgrove who headed theEnglish Department for more than 30 years.The Musgrove Studio Theatre, with 104seats (the main theatre has 450), is usedmainly for student work and experimentalproductions. A plaque marking the renam-ing was unveiled in January by MarjorieMusgrove, widow of the man affectionatelyknown as “Mus”.

At the function, Emeritus Professor MacJackson described Musgrove as “a key figurein getting the Maidment Theatre complexbuilt” and “the main energising forcebehind the project”. He had revived the mori-bund Student Drama Society before he beganthe Outdoor Summer Shakespeare in 1963.

Professor Musgrove, who was on theUniversity staff from 1947 to 1979, had alsobeen a fine academic, said Mac Jackson. Hehad published on Shakespeare, Ben Jonson,Robert Herrick, Milton, Thomas de Quincy,Elizabeth Barrett Browning, T.S. Eliot, WaltWhitman and Robert Graves as well asmore broadly on poetry and drama.

Last year the small theatre was in usefor 251 days. This year it will hostproductions by the Department of Classicsand Ancient History and by the GermanDrama Company from European Languagesand Literatures. Other plays planned for thisvenue include Ibsen’s A Doll’s House andHedda Gabler produced by an Aucklandgroup called The Company of Angels.

For details of forthcoming events at both theatres please go towww.maidment.ac.nz

+ IN MEMORIAM: Marjorie Musgrove(front) with her daughter Professor JudithBinney and Judith’s partner Sebastian Black,formerly of the English Department.

12 INGENIO

Dr Peter Lee is the new chief executive officer of Auckland UniServices Limitedwhich commercialises the University’s expertise and research.

An Auckland graduate with a PhD in chemical and materials engineering, he hasspent most of his career in the United Statesinvolved in commercialising new technology.Between 1988 and 2003 he held executivepositions with the $US30 billion InternationalPaper Company. There he established a multi-million annual fund to sponsor external researchat leading universities and other institutes,formed a product development force managingexpenditures of over $100 million, and led globalresearch and development strategy. Morerecently he helped develop new lightweight,electromagnetically opaque sheeting to protectsensitive electronic equipment, and developedindustry-leading coated photographic papers fordesktop reproduction of images.

Dr Lee succeeds Dr John Kernohan,UniServices’ founding CEO, who retired inJanuary. UniServices, a company wholly ownedby the University, manages research partner-ships, develops new knowledge and technology,

protects and commercialises intellectual property, and creates new businesses.Founded 16 years ago it is now the largest organisation of its type in Australasia. Lastyear it generated total revenues of more than $70 million and was responsible for 12per cent of the University’s income.

New chief for UniServices

+ DEVELOPING KNOWLEDGE:UniServices’ Dr Peter Lee.

OBITUARY

Imposing professor advocated a broad education

Emeritus Professor Gordon Bogle,founding head of the Department of

Electrical (now Electrical and Computer)Engineering, died in Auckland in January,aged 90. Professor Bogle, renowned for hisimposing intellect and physical stature,completed his Bachelor of ElectricalEngineering at Auckland in 1935 and aBachelor of Mechanical Engineering thefollowing year. He won a RhodesScholarship and worked towards a DPhil atOxford until the outbreak of World WarTwo, when he joined the Admiralty teamengaged in developing radar systems.After the war, Professor Bogle returned toNew Zealand to a position as chiefelectrical engineer at the DominionPhysical Laboratories (pre-DSIR), shortlyafterwards becoming its director. In 1953,he became the first professor and head ofthe Department of Electrical Engineeringand later Dean at the School ofEngineering, then at Ardmore. He joined

Professors Alan Titchener and NeilMowbray to become one of the three“founders” of the School, now the largestin the country. When the School movedinto Auckland in 1969, Professor Bogle

moved his family to Brighton Road inParnell, and for many years he was afamiliar figure walking the so-called HoChi Minh Trail through the AucklandDomain to the University.

As well as being distinguished in hisfield, Gordon Bogle was an educated manin the fullest sense. With his wife Helen ashostess, the Bogle home became a livelyhub for parties, attracting a stimulatingmixture of people from academia, the artsand industry.

While his analytical mind provedintimidating to some of his students and henever accepted second best, formerstudents recall him as a fine teacher whowas patient with those struggling to mastera topic. He was a strong advocate of abroad education for engineering studentsand insistent on accurate expression.

Professor Bogle is survived by hisdaughter, his five sons and ninegrandchildren.

Engineering studentjoins illustrious list

University of Auckland engineeringgraduate Richard Beal (pictured), will

follow in the footsteps of great NewZealanders when he heads to Oxford tofurther his studies. Richard, former dux ofRosehill College and a Bachelor of Engin-eering in Chemical and Materials

Engineering, is one of only three studentsnationwide to be award-ed a 2005 RhodesScholarship. Fourteenof the 36 RhodesScholars selected overthe last 12 years have

been from The University of Auckland. Richard will undertake a DPhil in the

Department of Materials Science at Oxfordfocusing on third-generation solar cellswhich, being based on titanium dioxideinstead of silicon, are far cheaper thanexisting cells. His goal is to return to NewZealand well-versed in solar-celltechnology so he can implement sustain-able energy projects here.

N E W S

13AUTUMN 2005

The bookkeeper, working as a soletrader, had an idea: a serviceproviding bookkeeping and regular

financial information for self-employedpeople and small companies. “Accountingfor this sector involves common sense,” hereasoned, “it doesn’t need to be done by achartered accountant.”

He had discovered a niche market. Buthe knew there was more work than hecould deal with and he wanted to reap thebenefits of his own idea. The solution wasa franchise operation, SBA (for SmallBusiness Accounting), which he set up in2001. Four years later, he has sold 30franchises, two of which are in Australia.

The bookkeeper is one of hundredsaround New Zealand seeing the potentialin this form of business. There’s almost nolimit to what may be franchised: it worksfor any business where the model can bereplicated by operators who typically avoidcompeting with each other by servicingdifferent territories – lawnmowing and fast-food operations are common examples.

University of Auckland Senior Lecturerin Commercial Law, Gehan Gunasekara,describes a franchise as “a type ofbusiness cloning”.

“If someone has a good idea they allowsomeone else to use the concept to makemoney for the creator of the idea as well asfor themselves.”

Gunasekara explains that New Zealandis “a virgin market for franchising”.

“There are huge potential areas forexpansion. New markets are being createdevery day.”

But the growth of franchising hasbrought its own problems.

“The nature of the relationships meansthat although there are opportunities, there is also the potential for exploitation.Many other countries have enacted

comprehensive protection for franchiserelationships, but New Zealand has yet todo so. We are the wild west, the lastunregulated area as far as franchises areconcerned.”

Ideally, a franchisor’s responsibilitiesinclude providing franchisees with

adequate training, systems and support tohelp them to achieve their personal andfinancial goals. The arrangement ought tocreate an equal balance so that bothparties benefit, says Gunasekara. But thisis not always the case.

“Franchisors like to claim thatfranchisees will be treated as part of afamily, that they will be looked after. Butwhen the business relationship goes sour,the franchisor holds the franchisee at arm’slength and the franchisee stands to losetheir whole investment.”

Gunasekara has been teaching franchiselaw at The University of Auckland for thepast decade. The paper has proved apopular choice with postgraduate students– last semester a dozen students took upthis option.

“It’s important that we teach franchiselaw,” says Gunasekara. “We needpractitioners out in the field who are aware

of the problems and how they’re beingsolved overseas. There are a number ofmodels we can look at, such as the Australian one. The US-pioneeredfranchise regulation. In the mastersprogramme we look at overseas models forcomparison. Students debate the need forand the extent of protection. If practitionersare aware of the risks, they will be in a muchbetter position to advise their clients.”

David Munn, senior partner andfranchise law specialist at Auckland lawfirm Gaze Burt agrees. “Entrepreneurialtypes have an increasing awareness of thefranchising model. At first glance, itappears to be a way to make quick moneybecause using franchisee capital providesan opportunity to expand a business faster.But relationship management is vital if aventure is to succeed, and many newfranchisors fail to take this key factor intoaccount, sowing the seeds of futurediscontent. Franchisees can’t be treatedlike employees. The stakes are very high –they may very well have mortgaged theirhouse to the hilt to buy a franchise.”

Gaze Burt sponsors two prizes for post-graduate law students – one to the topstudent in franchise law. This year’swinners are announced in May.

The University ofAuckland Law School is addressing theburgeoning trend inbusiness franchises.SUE REIDY reports.

CLONING BUSINESS

+ NEW CHALLENGE: The growth of franchising has brought problems, says Gehan Gunasekara.PHOTO: GEOFF DALE

i

Knitting may seem a strange way toget a PhD, but that’s exactly whatMiro Duhovic had to do. More oddly

still, he spent quite a lot of time trying todestroy everything he made.

The result has been a significantadvance in our understanding of how tomake plastics which could be stronger andmore shockproof than steel.

Duhovic, 28, has just completed hisresearch for a PhD in mechanicalengineering in the highly regarded Centrefor Advanced Composite Materials(CACM). The Centre, a massive structureon the edge of Tamaki Campus, looks atground level like an aircraft hangar. Onthe immaculate concrete floor of theechoing work area, the centre’s scientistsconduct experimental tests of variouskinds of composite materials – pressing ormoulding them or subjecting them tovarious stresses to determine theirproperties.

But it is in the cool, quiet suites of computer laboratories along themezzanine level that the really seriouswork is done.

Duhovic explains that the research forhis thesis involved studying micro-scopically how the composite he wasworking with deformed under stress. Hethen copied that information onto acomputer where it was analysed using a modified version of software origin- ally developed to study car crashsimulations.

“The computer enables you to look ataspects of the behaviour that you can’tobserve experimentally,” he says. “Youcan’t put little strain gauges on the fibresbut when you run it on the computer, it canactually tell you how much bending versusstretching has occurred.”

A composite is the name given to thesingle material which is in some waybetter – stronger, for example, or moreflexible – than the two or more dissimilar

14 INGENIO

STRESSMANAGEMENTAn engineer on the Tamaki Campus is stretching the boundaries of knitted material.

+ FABRIC SCIENCE: MiroDuhovic is working oncomposites which could bestronger than the sum of theircomponent parts.

PHOTOS: GEOFF DALE

The Centre for Advanced Composite Materials (CACM) wasformed during the heady early days of New Zealand’saudacious campaign to win the America’s Cup. The

syndicate chasing yachting’s most coveted prize encouraged sixpostgraduate students – two each in materials, fluid mechanicsand sail design.

The centre director, Professor Debes Bhattacharyya, says that,as newcomers to a relatively new branch of engineering, the NewZealand institution had to learn to think outside the square. Asbefits a research institute in a research-led university, thescientists quickly realised they needed to break new ground.

“We used to teach the topic,” he says, “but unless you are doingthe research you don’t get into the newer sides of it. You teach whateverybody else is doing. Because we came to this field new, wetook a new approach and started using the techniques of

metal-forming to analyse the formation of composite materials.”The CACM has established excellent relations with similar

centres in Germany and at the University of Delaware inWilmington as well as with the industrial giants DuPont and ICI.It also works closely with the local composite design firm HighModulus, whose principals, Brian Jones and Richard Downs-Honey are graduates of the school. It has already sold three patentsand Bhattacharyya says that two or three more are in the wings. Itssuccess on the international stage has seen it expand to the pointthat it now has seven teaching academics (including two professorsof chemistry “because we need to know more about the chemistryof polymers”), six post-doctoral fellows, two research associatesand some 35 postgraduate students.

“We have been very lucky to attract some of the brighteststudents and it grew from there,” says Bhattacharyya.

15AUTUMN 2005

i

CENTRE ATTRACTS THE BEST AND BRIGHTEST

materials from which it was formed.Composite materials engineering is arelatively new field, although theprinciples underlying it are not new: theuse of straw to reinforce clay bricks, forexample, is an ancient technology, andscientists have known for years thatreinforcing plastic with fibres produces amaterial that is superior to either the fibreor the plastic alone. But, Duhovicexplains, the types of reinforcement arebecoming more and more complicated andsophisticated.

The particular kind of compositesDuhovic has studied are materials

knitted into fabric in exactly the same waya cotton shirt or woollen jumper is knitted.The knitted material may lack the solidityof moulded fibreglass – in a surfboard, forexample, in which the randomly choppedfibres are compressed into shape – or therigidity of a composite in which the fibresare all running in the same direction. Butit is infinitely more versatile, allowing thepossibility of moulding material whosestructural integrity is not compromised bycurves and corners.

On his computer screen, magnifiedmany times, his material looks eerilybeautiful, much more exotic than thepressed and moulded fibreglass-likeobjects on the workbench downstairs. Butwhen he holds up what looks like aprototype wing-mirror for a sports car, thepossibilities leap into focus.

Duhovic’s work has concentrated onadvancing understanding about compositematerials so that it will be possible to

predict their forming behaviour and avoidthe costly trial-and-error process duringmanufacturing.

Although Duhovic’s work is not beingdeveloped for a specific end-user, theimplications are endless: the newgeneration passenger jets from Boeing andAirbus both use advanced composites instructural and non-structural componentsand these developments in compositetechnology promise even lighter aircraft with all the fuel savings that mightbring.

“But what we are trying to do is movematerials into what I would call less exoticapplications,” he explains. “Ordinary,everyday consumer products such asautomotive components or watch casings.

“Having one continuous yarn knittedinto an entire piece of fabric means thatthe impact properties are very strong. Sothere are potential applications in thingsthat require a lot of impact resistance –crash helmets, for example, or shinpads ormotorway barriers or even structuralcomponents on cars which would absorbquite a bit more impact than metals.

“Because every single loop is connected toanother loop, the impact is absorbed more.We did one experiment where we fired a BBgun at a panel of the material. In a normalreinforced material you have a very localiseddamage area but on the knitted fabric, we gotthese rings radiating out like the rippleswhen you drop a pebble in a pool.”

– PETER CALDERi

+ KNOTTY PROBLEMS: Computerised models enable tests that would be impossibleexperimentally.

This cannot be an automotiveworkshop: there is not a singlecalendar of a bikini-clad blonde in

sight. But those are piles of tyres. And that is

a racing car in the corner. A real one, evenif it is a pocket-rocket – barely 3m longand weighing a mere 260kg.

It’s an automotive workshop all right,and a pretty special one. They won’t do anoil change for you or fix you up with awarrant. But here on the Tamaki campus, agroup of University of Aucklandengineering students designed and built aformula-style racing car.

What’s better is that they did it in ninemonths. From scratch. Then they took it toa competition in Australia and, ascomplete newcomers, took sixth place in afield of 23 entrants from some of the topengineering universities in the world. Theyalso – and this bit is perhaps lesssurprising – took out the Rookie of theYear award. The competition organisershailed the Auckland students’ effort as thebest first-year car they had ever seen.

It was, as Chief Engineer AshleyVandermeer puts it mildly, “a prettypleasing result.”

“But this year we’ve started earlier,early enough to do it justice.”

The competition, officially known asFormula SAE Australasia, is one of half adozen held worldwide each year which arewidely regarded as crucibles of futureengineering talent. Over four days ofcompetitions students match the cars theyhave designed and built. The vehiclesmust be able to be manufactured for nomore than $A50,000 – although there areno restrictions on development costs – butthis is much more than a road race. Thecontest requires them not simply to designand build a vehicle within 12 months, butalso to present design, manufacturing andmarketing analyses – and all aspects of thecompetition carry equal weight.

STUDENTS TAKE THEWHEELThe mechanical engineers building cars at Tamaki

are not just petrolheads, PETER CALDER finds.

+ POCKET ROCKET: The students’ first effort won plaudits. PHOTOS: GODFREY BOEHNKE

It may sound less like university workthan a bunch of petrolhead lads having funbut Vandermeer says it’s top-end tertiarystudy.

“What this project allows us to do iswork a design through from concept to fullimplementation,” he says. “It’s muchwider than anything else you might do atuniversity. You have to think about the costside, the manufacturability of every part.Everything has to be real-world related.”

Adds team leader Chris Paykel: “Itallows us a lot more scope and freedomthan you would ever get in a regular nine-to-five job. You use all the skills that youlearn in engineering – not to mention thestuff we have to learn about marketing andbusiness as well.”

The assignment, which the students tookon in addition to their studies, forced themto confront technical challenges and comeup with creative solutions which stretchedthe boundaries of technologies.

And the limits on their developmentbudget forced the team to think laterallyand work flexibly as they soughtinnovative solutions to problems. OneAmerican team was rumoured to have hada $US1.2 million budget from an oilcompany; the local effort had to make dowith a low six-figure New Zealand dollarbudget.

“You know can’t take the mostexpensive option and one of the reasons wehave been so successful is that weconstantly have to look at other ways ofdoing things. We’re not stuck in the rut ofthinking that the way it’s been done in thepast is the way it should be done.”

The race car project was a student-ledinitiative: though it was enthusiasticallyencouraged by the School of Engineering,the students ran it from start to finish.

“There’s nothing like the feeling ofhaving nobody looking over your shouldertelling you what to do,” says Vandermeer.“When the buck stops with you, it’s reallyexciting.”

The core team of 20 swelled to around40 at peak times and some were workingmore than 100 hours a week on theproject. Generous sponsorship from localcompanies kept the project afloat, thoughthe students are hoping to cultivaterelationships with even more firms who arekeen to back their winning effort.

Paykel and Vandermeer have extendedtheir studies by a year to build up a teamthey can hand over to. And also becausethat’s victory – and not just engine oil –they can smell.

“We're going back this year,” saysVandermeer, “only this time it will bedifferent. This time we’ll win it.” i

“IT ALLOWS US A

LOT MORE SCOPE

AND FREEDOM

THAN YOU

WOULD EVER GET

IN A REGULAR

NINE-TO-FIVE JOB.

YOU USE ALL THE

SKILLS THAT YOU

LEARN IN

ENGINEERING.”

17AUTUMN 2005

It would hardly be surprising if a self-made multi-millionaire who left schoolwith only School Certificate looked

askance at the idea of studying business atuniversity.

But Owen G Glenn plainly believes inthe importance of education. Even moreplainly, he believes in the mission of TheUniversity of Auckland Business School.And he backed up that belief with a $7.5million donation, announced in Februaryto an audience which included PrimeMinister Helen Clark. It is believed to bethe largest private-sector donation made toNew Zealand education.

“I believe in what the Business School isdoing,” says Glenn, 65, the chairman and

CEO of the NACA Logistics Group. “Ibelieve its plans to develop a world-classfacility and world-class research andteaching programmes are going to be ofhuge benefit to New Zealand business andsociety.”

The exceptional scale of Glenn’sgenerosity is being recognised in thenaming of the 27,000 square-metreBusiness School building, currently beingconstructed on the corner of Grafton Rdand Wynyard St on the eastern edge of theCity Campus. The distinctive new building– part of a $110 million-plus project todevelop a world-class business school – isto be named The Owen G Glenn Building.It should be finished in early 2008.

The prospect of having his name abovethe door is one that Glenn is not ashamedto admit he relishes.

“I’m no shrinking violet,” he says, “andI’ll get a kick out of seeing my nameattached to such a magnificent building.But more importantly, I hope that myexample of making it in business on theworld stage will act as an inspiration toothers. Top-quality business education isvital to the future success of New Zealandand I’m delighted to be able to help in thisway and to be part of the vision for theBusiness School and The University ofAuckland.”

To say that Owen G (for George) Glenn“made it in business” is something of

an understatement. Calcutta-born butAuckland-raised, he left Mt RoskillGrammar with the first piece of paper hegot and worked for the Bank of NewZealand for a few years before heading offand travelling in Europe. Returning to NewZealand, he worked in the freight divisionof the national airline – then called TEAL.The experience whetted his appetite for thebusiness and he worked his way from theground up – rather rapidly, it should besaid – before co-founding the DirectContainer Line in 1978.

DCL was initially established to servicethe ocean-transport needs of Australianimporters buying goods from USmanufacturers and it proved a greatsuccess, practically inventing the modelfor most international freight forwarders. Itbecame the biggest non-vessel-operatingcommon carrier in the United States andquickly grew from an entrepreneur-runcompany to a national company, then to amultinational corporation.

BUILDINGBUSINESS

18 INGENIO

An entrepreneur who never attended The University of Auckland has made what

is believed to be the largest-ever private donation to New Zealand education.

+ PROUD DAY: Glenn, with Prime Minister Helen Clark and Vice-Chancellor Stuart McCutcheon,inspects the model of the Business School building that will bear his name.

19AUTUMN 2005

NACA Logistics Inc, developed in 1998as a shippers’ association, is a group of separately operating transportationcompanies each of which works with theothers to complement and coordinateservices globally. It has more than 30,000customers and employs 1300 staff in 90offices.

Though he’s succeeded brilliantly on theinternational stage, Glenn still regardshimself as a New Zealander. He visitsregularly from his land base in Sydney –he has many friends and a brother inAuckland, not to mention businessinterests here.

Glenn credits his business success to“ethics, hard work, timing and luck”. But he also believes in the importance of education – he is himself a grad-uate of Harvard University’s OPM(Owner/President Management Program) –and his association with the BusinessSchool bespeaks his belief that the 21st-century entrepreneur needs more thanluck to succeed.

“The Business School is alreadycontributing greatly to New Zealandthrough the quality of its research and itsteaching, and through its innovativepartnerships with the business

community,” he says. “This world-classBusiness School project is going to delivereven more.”

Glenn hopes to be one of those to reapthe benefits of what his donation will sow.

“I hope to use the University to do somecritical research analysis,” he says. “I’vejust tapped into the China market and ifthey’ve got people who can come onto myresearch team to help me…”

His own daughter – aged 21, in collegein the US – wants to come to study

business in the building that will benamed for her father.

The Dean of the Business School,Professor Barry Spicer, says Glenn is aninspiration to young entrepreneurs, having“built a global business from nothingthrough imagination, vision and hardwork”. He says Glenn has operated in anuncertain, complex, globally connectedworld, contributing significantly to thedevelopment of logistics internationally.

“His success shows that anything ispossible with intelligence, imagination,innovation, perseverance and drive. It isfitting the name of a New Zealander whohas succeeded in business internationallyshould grace the new building.”

The University’s initial fundraisingtarget of $50 million for the BusinessSchool was reached in June last year: $25million from the private sector wasmatched by Government funding, butGlenn’s donation is by far the biggestsingle private contribution. The BusinessSchool has now raised $58 million towardsits final target of $75 million.

It is not the first example of hisgenerosity to The University of Auckland.In 2003, he donated $500,000 to supportthe establishment of a Chair in MarineScience at the University’s Leigh MarineLaboratory – “I made my living from theocean so it was nice to be able to supportthat particular initiative” – and he hasmade other substantial donations tocharitable and environmental causes.

But his association with the BusinessSchool whose main building will soon bearhis name is an exciting development, hesays.

“There are progressive minds there,people who think through things. It’srefreshing. In business you often just dealwith people that are in your business;you’re not often challenged mentally.

“I think people will be proud to saythey’ve been here.” i

+ VISION FOR BUSINESS:Owen Glenn’s generosity is a token of his faith in the world-classBusiness School.PICTURE: NEW ZEALAND HERALD/GREG BOWKER

MEMORIAL TO LEGAL PIONEERThe widower of one of The University of Auckland’s early

woman law students has given the Law School an impressivenew home for its antique law reports, statutes and texts.

Dr John Mayo, a retired Australian economist, met the cost ofcreating the Marylyn Mayo Rare Book Room, which was formallyopened in March. His generous donation, in memory of his wife, whodied in 2002, also covers the cost of restoring the fragile books in theDavis Law Library. The volumes, dating back as far as 1716, are therepository of fundamental legal principles and precedent-settingcases. Dr Mayo has also started an endowment fund to support workin the room and to fund teaching and research in law.

Professor Mike Taggart, whoholds the Alexander Turner Chairin Law, warmly welcomed DrMayo’s donation.

“The solution of every legalproblem requires a knowledge ofboth what the law was and what itis, in order to know what the lawmay become. This room creates forthe first time a comfortable workingspace where all the rare books arebrought together, many on openshelves and all readily accessible,so that they can be productivelyused by the neophyte as well as theexpert legal researcher.

“Much of the research that, a few years ago, could only beundertaken overseas can now be conducted here.”

The reading room and two smaller adjoining rooms are now hometo old reports, statutes and texts which had previously been heldunkempt and even disintegrating in a single small, dusty room wherethey were inaccessible to staff and students.

The University of Auckland had fewer than two dozen woman lawgraduates when Marylyn Mason, as she then was, graduated in 1960(gaining a BA degree in history as well). She continued herpioneering example as an office solicitor at the Ministry of Works inAuckland. In that role she was involved in litigation over the

country’s fledgling motorway systems and earned the admiration ofexperienced male opponents who found themselves on the losingside in important cases.

Appointed to teach first-year law courses at the University ofQueensland’s campus at Townsville in 1969, she met and marriedJohn Mayo. Eventually she became the foundation head of the LawSchool at what had turned into James Cook University. Johnfounded economics as a discipline at the same institution.

Marylyn specialised in jurisprudence, legal ethics and family law.She also took a strong practical interest in ethics, serving for manyyears on local and national ethics committees, including Australia’sNational Health and Medical Research Committee.

The Marylyn Mayo Medal is awarded annually to the best lawhonours student at James Cook University. The Law Students’Society there recognises her work in establishing law teachingthrough an annual Marylyn Mayo lecture.

The esteem in which Marylyn held her alma mater was evident inher establishment of a $50,000 scholarship fund not long before shedied in 2002. This provides $2500 a year to help an academicallyable student whom financial hardship would otherwise prevent fromcompleting the Auckland law degree.

After his wife’s death, Dr Mayo was seeking further ways ofpreserving her memory. He made contact again with the personMarylyn had dealt with over the establishment of her scholarship,Carol Painter, who takes responsibility for planned giving in theExternal Relations Office. Of the potential projects suggested tohim, a room for rare books appealed the most.

“There was no discrete funding to rectify this and it plainlyneeded an outside injection,” he said. “Moreover it does notdisplace government money that would otherwise be forthcoming.

“Above all, it linked into Marylyn’s past in the Law Faculty andher interest in law, and I wanted to see her honoured in that way.”

Dr Mayo said his decision to finance the Rare Books Roomreflected the sympathetic response and personal attention hereceived from Carol Painter, along with the enthusiasm and kindnessof the Law Librarian, Mary Rose Russell. The University ofAuckland’s stewardship of donors is simply outstanding, he says.

– BILL WILLIAMS

+ PRECIOUS MEMORY: Dr John Mayo’s generosity will mean precious texts are preserved.PHOTO: GODFREY BOEHNKE

i

+ EARLY GRADUATE:Marylyn Mayo

20 INGENIO

A L U M N I

The Alumni Relations Office is forming an internationalnetwork of volunteer alumni co-ordinators to enable

alumni to network and meet other alumni socially. If youlive in or near any of the areas below and would like to beinvolved, we encourage you to make contact with your localvolunteer coordinator. Alumni interested in being avolunteer co-ordinator in a region not listed are invited to contact the Alumni Relations Adviser, Jan Kerr(j.kerr@auckland.ac.nz)

BEIJING: Pei Xie: peixie003@yahoo.com

BRISBANE: Allanah Johnston: a.johnston@business.uq.edu.au

HONG KONG : Raymond Tam: tmkraymond@yahoo.com.hk

KUALA LUMPUR: Khim Goh: khimgoh@recruitexpress.com.my

SEOUL: Esther Song: ilsun.song@volvo.com

SHANGHAI: Ling Cai and Frank Qiu: lcai009@hotmail.com

SINGAPORE: Patricia Pereira: patricia.pereira@janes.com

TAIPEI: Mago Hsiao: magohsiao@hotmail.com

VANCOUVER: Nigel Toy: nrltoy@stgeorges.bc.ca

KEEPING IN TOUCH

MEET THE VICE-CHANCELLORAlumni and friends are invited to meet the new Vice-Chancellor,Professor Stuart McCutcheon, at these events: June 15 - MelbourneJune 17 - SydneyJune 29 - SingaporeJuly 4 - Kuala LumpurJuly 5 - KuchingJuly 28 - WellingtonJuly 29 - ChristchurchSeptember 16 - Hong KongSeptember 19 - SeoulSeptember 21 - BeijingSeptember 24 - Shanghai

Other alumni events include:September 9-11 - Auckland, Engineering alumni reunionSeptember 23 - Auckland, Maori Business Leaders AwardsNovember 10 - Auckland, Golden Graduates event

Additional events may be held. For more information on theseand an up-to-date alumni event listing, please visitwww.alumni.auckland.ac.nz/calendar

COMING EVENTS

A s a graduate of the University, you become one of our alumnicommunity that now numbers over 100,000. The Alumni

Relations Office provides you with a link back to the Universityeven when you’re no longer studying here. Through the Alumni Relations Office, the University now provides arange of services and benefits for all our alumni. To find out about thebenefits and services, plus upcoming events for alumni, visit theAlumni & Friends website at: www.alumni.auckland.ac.nz.

KEEP IN TOUCHTo ensure that you continue to receive Ingenio, and to subscribeto @auckland, the University’s email newsletter for alumni and friends, please make sure you update your details at:www.alumni.auckland.ac.nz/update.Contact us:Alumni Relations Office, The University of Auckland, 19APrinces Street, Auckland City, New ZealandPost: Private Bag 92019, Auckland, New ZealandPhone: +64 9 373 7599 ext 82246Email: alumni@auckland.ac.nzWebsite: www.alumni.auckland.ac.nz

ALUMNI AND FRIENDS

The newest of the three graduate representatives on theUniversity Council is Kate Sutton, elected last December. She

fills a casual vacancy and will serve until October 2005 when thethree-year term of Dr Jill Holt, whom she replaces, was due tofinish. At that point a further Court of Convocation election, as itis called, will be held. All graduates of The University of Aucklandas well as graduates of the University of New Zealand can vote. Asthe rules stand, anyone who does not vote in two successiveelections has to apply to become eligible to vote again.

Kate Sutton holds an MA in Political Studies and was presidentof the Auckland University Students’ Association last year. Shesays that as well as youth (she is 23) she will bring extensiverecent knowledge of how the University works to her task. She hasno illusions about the importance of Council’s governance role. It“holds the University together”, she says, setting strategy andvision, upholding standards of excellence, and consulting withGovernment on key issues. The other graduate representatives onthe 18-strong Council are John Morris (headmaster of AucklandGrammar School) and Lyn Stevens (an Auckland Queen’sCounsel), both elected until July 2007.

GRADUATES’ VOICE

NEW NAME FOR TRUST

The University’s Charitable Trust has changed its name tothe University of Auckland Foundation. The brochure

enclosed with this issue of Ingenio explains the Foundation’saims and purposes.

21AUTUMN 2005

A L U M N I

THEIR BRILLIANT CAREERS

22 INGENIO

GLENN COLQUHOUN BA 1988, BHB 1993, MBChB 1997 The achievements of Glenn Colquhoun – doctor, writer and poet –have already secured him a prominent place in New Zealand’sliterary landscape. His special talent has been recognised in theprizes he has won for particular works and for the award last yearof the Prize in Modern Letters, New Zealand’s highest literaryaccolade. He has published three collections of poetry: The Art of

Walking Upright won the JessieMackay Best First Book ofPoetry Award at the 2000Montana Book Awards; PlayingGod, his third collection, wonthe Poetry Category Award2003 and the coveted Readers’Choice Award in 2004, the firsttime a book of poetry has wonthis award.

Glenn has been likened tohistorian Michael King inexploring what it means to be aPakeha. His work, which iswidely read, reflects hisexperiences living and workingas a general practitioner in thesmall Northland community of

Te Tii, where he went to learn more about Maori values andlanguage. Through his work, he explores and challenges modernmedical practice and some accepted notions of it, as well as theissues of race and identity. Accepting his award he said it hadcome as “a bolt out of the blue. I am very honoured and veryhumbled to accept it.”

HILTON GLAVISHBSc 1961, MSc 1963, PhD 1969

Physicist Hilton Glavish is noted worldwide for his majorcontribution to the high-technology semiconductor industry. Hegraduated PhD after developing an atomic beam source of polarisedions for use in the study of spin angular momentum effects in

nuclear reactions. Hisentrepreneurial flair wasapparent even then, he havingformed in 1966 a company tomanufacture nuclear equip-ment, particularly the polarisedion sources which he and othershad designed. In 1970, Hiltonjoined the Physics Faculty atStanford University, California.He was a consultant on manymajor projects, includingassisting CERN Europe in the development of an in-tense polarised ion source, and working with PrincetonUniversity and Oak RidgeNational Laboratory on the USDepartment of Energy Fusion programme. Using his consultingexperience, Hilton capitalised on the semiconductor boom,designing systems used in the manufacture of large-scalesemiconductor integrated circuits such as computer, logic array,and memory chips. Today, the major chip manufacturers throughoutthe world use his patented technology and implanter designs. Muchof the high-technology manufacturing of magnets, designed byHilton, has been done in New Zealand – by ANAC until 1982, andthen by his associate Bill Buckley of Buckley Systems – making asignificant contribution to export earnings. Last year, he and BillBuckley endowed the Buckley-Glavish Chair in Physics atAuckland to enable expansion of geophysics research to a problemof global significance, with the first appointee to apply physics tothe understanding of global climate change. Hilton Glavish paidtribute to two mentors sitting at his table who had “changed thecourse of my life”: Cyril Hicks, his teacher at Seddon MemorialTechnical College, had convinced his parents that he shouldcontinue at school to do School Certificate and Professor TedCollins had encouraged him to attend a conference in Karlsruhe,Germany which led to him being invited to the United States byscientists interested in his polarised ion source.

Five New Zealanders who have made their name in science, the arts, education and law received DistinguishedAlumni Awards at a major dinner at the University in March. The awards, established in 1996, celebrate theachievements of alumni who have made significant contributions through excellence in their chosen professions.

Each of the awardees had “fashioned and constructed brilliant careers”, said the Alumni Orator, Adjunct ProfessorMichael Brown. He underlined his belief that free education, nurtured and reinforced in the home, and theinspiration of great teachers and committed mentors, while highly desirable, were not enough. “In the end each of ushas to realise the pursuit of knowledge traverses an individual pathway requiring, most importantly, self-discipline,which will inevitably be even more demanding when any or all of the earlier recited ingredients have been absent orless than adequate.” Universities and society needed such heroic examples and inspirational role models, saidProfessor Brown, “particularly where it is so manifestly exhibited by dedicated and hugely intelligent individuals suchas those whom we honour tonight”.

23AUTUMN 2005

THE HON JUSTICE SUSAN GLAZEBROOKBA 1975, MA 1978, LLB [HONS] 1980, DPhil [OXFORD] 1988,DipBus [Finance] 1995 Susan Glazebrook’s distinguished law career led to her appointment tothe High Court in 2000 and to the Court of Appeal just two years later.As a member of the Advisory Council of Jurists, established by the

Asia-Pacific Forum of NationalHuman Rights Institutions, shehas played a leading role in twomajor reviews – on humantrafficking and on the rule of lawin combating terrorism. Susanjoined Simpson Grierson as alaw clerk in 1986 and withinthree years was given apartnership where she rose tonational prominence in the fieldof taxation. Her mastery of theNew Zealand Accruals Regimewas recognised by herappointment to an InlandRevenue working party to draftlegislative amendments in whatwas then a fledgling area. She

has served as a Council member of the Auckland District Law Society,the Legal Research Foundation and the New Zealand Law SocietyTaxation Committee, and in 1998 was President of the Inter-Pacific BarAssociation, an organisation of business lawyers in the Asia-Pacificregion. She also served briefly as a member of The University ofAuckland Council. Before joining Simpson Grierson, Susan had avaried career, including junior lecturer in history at Auckland, workingin Rouen, France, with an organisation responsible for the resettlementof political refugees in France and research assistant to the historianSir Keith Sinclair. She is the co-author of the taxation text, The NewZealand Accrual Regime – A Practical Guide, and numerous papers onvarious legal topics. “The University of Auckland has played a largepart in my career,” she said at the dinner, “and I am proud to have beena student here.”

MARYA MARTINDipMus 1976, MM [YALE] 1979 Virtuoso flute player MaryaMartin has had a remarkablecareer both as a performer andteacher. After graduating in1976, she was awarded aQueen Elizabeth II ArtsCouncil grant to study at YaleUniversity in the UnitedStates. She then moved toParis to study with Jean-PierreRampal at the ConservatoireNationale Superieure de Parisand with Sir James Galway inLucerne, Switzerland, widelyconsidered to be the two

international icons of flute playing. The only flautist ever to be thetop prizewinner in the New York Naumburg InternationalCompetition, the Munich International Competition, the Jean-Pierre Rampal International Competition, the Young ConcertArtists’ International Competition and the Concert Artists’ Guild, all within two years, Marya made her New York debut in1980. Since then, she has enjoyed a distinguished career as asoloist, recitalist and chamber musician. She has performedthroughout the world including appearances in London, Tokyo,Paris, Australia and New Zealand in addition to the major halls inthe US. She has made many chamber music appearances and has recorded for different labels. She frequently appears on juries of international competitions, serves on the board ofYoung Concert Artists, and is on the faculty of the Manhattan School of Music, New York, teaching flute, chamberand woodwind ensembles. Marya said she was grateful and flattered by the award, and spoke of her “wonderfulmemories” of the University. “It is to the next generation that I owe all I have been given — that is the responsibility of theartist-citizen.”

IAN D MCKINNON QSOJP BCom [VICTORIA], DipEd 1978Pro-Chancellor of Victoria University and a Wellington CityCouncillor, Ian McKinnon has a fine record of educationalleadership and public service spanning 35 years. He began histeaching career at King’sCollege. He taught at EtonCollege two years from 1978,subsequently returning therein 1988 as Lower Master, theequivalent of deputy head-master. He was headmaster ofWanganui Collegiate Schoolfrom 1980 to 1988 and ofScots College from 1992 to2002. He was President of theAssociation of Heads ofIndependent Schools from1998 to 2000 and served onthe executive of the Indepen-dent Schools’ Council. Since2002, Ian has practised as aneducation consultant provi-ding services to state, integrated andindependent schools in a number of areas. Last year, he wasappointed Chairman of the Correspondence School and, until itsmerger with Victoria University of Wellington, was Chairman of theCouncil of the Wellington College of Education. In addition tobeing a Trustee of the New Zealand Educational Scholarship Trust[NZEST], Ian is a member of one of the scholarship selectionpanels administered by the New Zealand Vice-Chancellors’Committee. He was made a Freeman of the City of London in1992.

Mr McKinnon said he was pleased that the University hadacknowledged not just education “but an old-fashioned teacherlike me”.

W hen Professor MarstonConder was working in theupper levels of university

administration, he would sit inmanagement meetings covering pieces ofpaper with the arcane symbols ofcomplicated mathematical equations. Tothe uninitiated observer, he may have appeared to be inscribing the doodles produced by a mind that was miles away. But when he wascalled on to contribute to discussion, itwas always plain that he had beenlistening.

Conder smiles when reminded of the“doodling” and recalls with great amuse-ment colleagues who, unlike him, let theirattention wander and were caught off guard.

“I wasn’t doodling,” he says, mockdefensively. “I was doing research. It’scalled multi-tasking.”

Later he will admit that he has “a badhabit of doing that. It comes from doing myhomework and watching TV at the sametime when I was at school. But I waslistening.”

Conder’s multi-tasking mind will get aneven bigger workout over the next 12months when he uses a Hood Fellowshipto visit some of the world’s topmathematicians.

The director of the New ZealandInstitute of Mathematics and itsApplications (NZIMA), a Centre ofResearch Excellence at The University ofAuckland, he is one of four distinguishedacademics to receive the inauguralfellowships. They are awarded by the Hood Fund, a $5.27 millionendowment supported by the Lion

NUMBER CRUNCHEROne of the inaugural Hood Fellows tells PETER CALDER that he had a bad

habit of watching TV while he did his homework. Look where it got him.

24 INGENIO

+ MULTI-TASKER: ProfessorMarston Conder is one of fourinaugural Hood Fellows.

PICTURE: GODFREY BOEHNKE

A mong the many legacies of former Vice-Chancellor, Dr John Hood, who is now theVC at Oxford, is the fund that bears his name. The programme funds both visitingand travelling fellowships: visiting academics can challenge and inspire the

research and thinking of their peers at The University of Auckland while travelling fellows can undertake research projects at prestigious internationalinstitutions. The fund also supports annual public lectures byoutstanding academics and the University’s international studentexchange programme.

This year’s visiting fellows are world-renowned historianProfessor John Pocock, Professor Emeritus at The Johns HopkinsUniversity in Baltimore, Maryland and Dr Ngaire Woods, Fellow inPolitics and International Relations and Director of the GlobalEconomic Governance Programme at University College, Oxford.Both were educated in New Zealand.

Dr Pocock was Head of the Department of Political Science at theUniversity of Canterbury before going to the US in the mid-60s. InJuly he will deliver a keynote lecture at the fourth British WorldConference to be held at The University of Auckland and, at a publiclecture, will provide a fresh view on New Zealand’s past.

Dr Woods, a distinguished graduate of The University ofAuckland’s Faculty of Law, is one of the world’s leading experts andcommentators on global economic affairs. A lead consultant to theUnited Nations, she chaired a high-level working group oninstitutional reform in the international financial system.

During her visit in March and April she gave public lecturesanalysing the successes and failures of the International MonetaryFund and the World Bank.

The other travelling fellowship in this first round was awarded toDistinguished Professor Peter Gluckman, the Director of the Liggins Institute and theNational Research Centre for Growth and Development, which is another of the Centres ofResearch Excellence also at Auckland. Professor Gluckman will test the design of hisempirical experimental work with international leaders in his field and explore thepotential of new technologies.

HOOD FUND FELLOWSHIPS CONQUERTHE TYRANNY OF DISTANCE

Foundation, the Woolf Fisher Trust,Mr Douglas Myers and otherprominent business leaders both inAuckland and overseas.

Professor Conder has madefundamental contributions tomathematical research in severalrelated areas, but particularly in twobranches of pure mathematics calledgroup theory and combinatorics.

Mathematics – the subject which,for many, evokes chilling memories ofschooldays – can be daunting, Conderadmits, but he observes that it isbecoming increasingly important notonly as a helpful tool in manyacademic areas but as a discipline inits own right.

“You can use mathematics as alanguage to understand physics orbiology or psychology or economics,”he says. “But mathematicians inventnew ways to solve problems, andsometimes the machinery that getsinvented to answer the questions fromother disciplines takes on a life of itsown, and often has other unexpectedapplications.

“Prime number theory, for example,can be used to assist with encodingand decoding information – such asthat on the strips on smart cards – orsending information electronically insuch a way that even if somebodyintercepts it, they are not going to beable to decode it.”

The NZIMA was one of the first fiveCentres of Research Excellence

(CoREs) – elite, specially fundedresearch centres established in 2002 –and Conder says it seeks, as its fullname suggests, to achieve “a goodbalance between the fundamental stuffand the applications”.

The institute “provides a lot ofresources for mathematical activitythat would not otherwise be there”, heexplains, by initiatives such asinviting distinguished overseasscholars to visit. Their lectures attractwide interest and lift the profile of thesubject – and the institute.

He is aware that many scientistshave tended to see mathematics as ahandmaiden discipline to othersciences, while mathematicians have

25AUTUMN 2005

i

i

+ TRAVELLING:DistinguishedProfessor PeterGluckman.

+ VISITING:Dr Ngaire Woods

seen their discipline as the driving engineof real science, or as another branch ofthought in the same way as the humanitiesis.

“Both sides have a point,” he says. “Inthe 50s and 60s an awful lot ofmathematics was designed to answerquestions in other sciences. Those guyswere the backroom boys, answeringquestions in physics and engineering andso on. Now, suddenly, in biology, forexample, everyone’s interested in thegenome and medical and social research isnow much more evidence-based.Mathematics is much more integral to the research effort, and mathematicianshave become essential members of

multidisciplinary research teams.” The rise in the importance of statistics

in almost every discipline has alsochanged the landscape. “It pervadeseverything now,” says Conder. “Somethinglike one in every three students does acourse in statistics.”

Conder will use the Hood Fellowship totravel to three universities – Oxford, UCBerkeley and the University of Fribourg inSwitzerland – where he will advancerecent discoveries he has made anddiscuss future directions of his work in thearea of mathematical research, to do withmaximum symmetry of networks, surfacesand manifolds, where he is making majorcontributions.

26 INGENIO

RISK ASSESSMENT

+ REDUCING RISK: Professor Rod Jackson and Dr Sue Wells are taking the guesswork out of patient management.PHOTO: GEOFF DALE

JOANNA WANE talks to an epidemiologist who has designed a tool to help

GPs predict their patients’ futures so they can manage their health care better.

In the early 1990s, University ofAuckland epidemiologist Professor RodJackson developed a colour-coded chart

to help doctors assess a patient’s risk ofhaving a heart attack or stroke within thenext five years.

The chart enabled complex cross-checks of multiple risk factors, yet it wassimple to decipher. It was a huge successand adopted by medical practitionersaround the world but in busy practices,many GPs didn’t use it regularly because it

was inconvenient to refer to the chart inthe middle of a consultation.

Dr Sue Wells was one who did – and itspotential entranced her. Now a seniorlecturer in clinical epidemiology, theformer GP has joined forces with Jacksonto translate the concept into a web-baseddiagnostic tool as close as a doctor’sdesktop. The tool, named PREDICT, couldrevolutionise the management not only ofcardiovascular disease but also of otherchronic conditions such as cancer,

osteoporosis and mental health disorders.Developed, with funding from the

Health Research Council and theChisholm Whitney Family Trust, incollaboration with software partnerEnigma Publishing, PREDICT is accessedonline. It assesses a patient’s risk factorsfor heart disease and diabetes and thenrecommends a personalised action plan.

In two years of trials by members ofProCare (a primary care organisation), it’sbeen used by more than 130 GPs who have

27AUTUMN 2005

evaluated more than 12,000 patients,whose records were encrypted to ensureanonymity. A more streamlined secondversion is being prepared for clinicalimplementation. Another pilot, aimed atapplying PREDICT to decisions made at ahospital level about heart surgery waitinglists, is under way at Auckland Hospital.

Because some cardiac medications areexpensive and can have side-effects,PREDICT’s ability to tailor treatment to aspecific patient profile has broken newground internationally. Long-term, thepotential is even more exciting. A copy ofevery assessment is recorded to build anational database, which will eventuallybuild a detailed picture of the risk-factorprofile of New Zealanders and theeffectiveness of various treatment regimes.

“It’s a powerful tool,” says Jackson,“and the potential to expand it to themanagement of other chronic conditions isalready being investigated.”

For practitioners, the beauty of thesystem is that it will integrate

seamlessly with any existing computerisedpatient-management systems, automatic-ally downloading vital statistics such asage, gender, clinical history, tobacco useand readings of cholesterol and bloodpressure. As the name implies, it is alsosmart enough to think one step ahead. Ifthe patient has diabetes (a major riskfactor for cardiovascular disease), an extrabox is dropped in requesting more details.A female patient will be asked if she’spregnant (in which case some treatmentsare not advised). And if there’s anindication of metabolic syndrome, a pre-diabetes condition identified by aspecific cluster of symptoms, the risk

assessment is immediately increased byfive per cent.

“A patient has a mixture of all kinds ofrisk factors – this blood pressure level,that cholesterol reading,” says Jackson,who heads the Epidemiology andBiostatistics Department on theUniversity’s Tamaki Campus. “PREDICTtailors the key messages and guidelines toyour individual profile at the moment ofcare.”

Once the online form has beensubmitted, it takes barely five seconds fora result to pop up on the screen. A patientwhose risk of a heart attack or strokewithin the next five years is less than fiveper cent is off the hook – at least for now.Even so, a practitioner will give the patienta personal management plan, such as a“green” prescription for lifestyle changes.

If the risk is assessed at more than five percent, the strategies will be more intensiveand possibly include medication.

Wells, who distilled hundreds of pagesof medical guidelines into PREDICT’sdesign, says patients can print out theinformation and book in with the clinic’spractice nurse to make a plan of change.There are also links to relevant websiteswhere they can download, for example, apamphlet on a cardio-protective diet.

Because the tool works through theInternet, it can be used from anywhere inthe world and the results are receivedinstantly. Jackson was in Washingtonrecently and talked to a colleague who hadjust been put on a statin drug to lower hischolesterol.

“I didn’t think that was appropriate so Ipulled up PREDICT on his computer,” hesays. “From across the world we had theequivalent of a consultation and withinfive seconds we were able to discuss whathis risk was and what New Zealand expertswould say about his management.”

With patients typically forgetting 30 percent of what they’ve been told within daysof a consultation, the ability to print out amanagement plan is invaluable, says DrTom Marshall, chairman of ProCareHealth, who’s a big fan of the system.

“It’s right there on the desktop so youdon’t have to be scrambling aroundlooking for papers you know you’ve filedsomewhere,” he says. “You can get a riskassessment and show a patient that there’sa 20 per cent risk of a heart attack in thenext five years, but if they do this and this,they’ll reduce the risk. That’s prettypersuasive and it’s also pretty reassuringfor people to know they can do somethingabout it.”

‘IT’S A POWERFUL

TOOL AND THE

POTENTIAL TO

EXPAND IT TO THE

MANAGEMENT OF

OTHER CHRONIC

CONDITIONS IS

ALREADY BEING

INVESTIGATED.’

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28 INGENIO

LESSONS FROM THE PAST

The axiom that those who do not learn fromhistory are condemned to repeat it issufficiently well-worn to qualify as a cliché.

But for staff at The University of Auckland BusinessSchool, the students’ poor knowledge of commercialhistory was a call to action.

The school’s response is the Business HistoryProject, which takes a multi-pronged approach torecalling and recording the history of local andnational business and enterprise.

“Believe it or not, there are business students todaywho don’t know who Robert Muldoon was,” says theproject’s co-director, Paul Gilberd. “Many of our first-year students weren’t even born before the 1987 [stockmarket] crash.

“If students have grown up in a period ofunprecedented growth, that forms their paradigm andthey behave accordingly. If they don’t learn from themistakes of their predecessors, history will keeprepeating itself. This project will ensure that thememory of the past is kept alive for students.”

Most companies are too busy doing business in thepresent to be worried about preserving their past. But

A new project at the Business School

aims to teach students about the

country’s long commercial history.

internationally, it’s a different matter: interest amongtertiary institutions is growing rapidly. Businesshistory is a discipline in its own right and acompulsory subject for MBA students at institutionsas prestigious as Harvard.

“We’re essentially playing a game of catch-up withthe rest of the world, both in the teaching of businesshistory and in the dissemination of business historyresearch,” says the project’s other co-director Dr IanHunter. “We want to forge links with New Zealandcompanies and have our students learn from theirhistories. It will provide great exposure for thecompanies and also be extremely useful for studentsto learn material that’s relevant to them and to theircareers. At the same time we’ll gain the opportunity toreplenish the empty cupboard of New Zealandbusiness history.”

The project, the most extensive of its kind undertakenhere, employs four business historians and fourresearchers. Over the next three years it will create acomprehensive portrait of the history of local business inhalf a dozen different ways.

+ BACK TO THE FUTURE:Paul Gilberd, left, and IanHunter are preserving our linkswith business history.

PHOTO: GEOFF DALE

‘BELIEVE IT OR NOT,THERE ARE BUSINESS

STUDENTS TODAY WHO DON’T KNOW WHO

ROBERT MULDOON WAS.’

Artefacts, images, business profiles and interactive audio visual displaykiosks will be located throughout the seven teaching and learning floors ofthe new Business School building; leading business scholars from both NewZealand and overseas have worked together to produce a book, Auckland:City of Enterprise, which will be published at the end of the year; businesshistory conferences will become regular events, raising the University’sprofile as a centre of business history research and teaching. The project alsoincludes a heritage trail.

Meanwhile, an oral history archive will collect and present a series of in-depth interviews with leading Auckland business personalities to be housedin the new Business School. This archive will provided a window intoexperiences like those of Percy Bookman, who started a business in 1945.

To help support his family during the Depression, Bookman left school at13 to begin work as a message boy in a clothing factory. After moving to

Auckland at the end of World War II, he decided to start his own clothingbusiness. His initial capital stretched only to the material for a singlegarment, but he sewed it into a suit, at home in the evenings, and took it into town to sell it. He spent the profit on material for two garments.

At the end of six months he employed his first assistant. Within 12 months,he had his own premises. Eventually, he established a clothing factory of 30staff, supporting a wholesale operation and retail stores. In the oral historythat records his progress, Bookman proudly recounts how he achieved allthis without ever applying to the bank for an overdraft.

“You simply can’t get this sort of valuable information from a balance sheetor an annual report,” says Hunter. “It is opening our eyes to a vital part ofNew Zealand’s history and to ways of doing business that we had lost sightof.”

To date, two dozen histories have been recorded on audio or video andGilberd says that, with sponsorship, the project would like to do “hundredsof them”.

Sponsorships will give local companies the opportunity to raise theirpublic profile. Auckland businesses who participate in the history projectwill be presented with a copy of their own history on CD-ROM. But, Gilberdwarns, time is quickly catching up with the witnesses to our business history.

“We have to act quickly,” he says. “If we don’t, in some cases thisknowledge will be lost forever.”

– SUE REIDY

i

29AUTUMN 2005

30 INGENIO

A L U M N I

EMILY BARAGWANATH [BA 1999, MA 2001]has been appointed as a Junior ResearchFellow at Christ Church, University ofOxford for up to four years. She went toOxford as a Rhodes Scholar at the start ofthe Michaelmas (autumn) term of 2001.

For the first three yearsshe was at MagdalenCollege working towardsa DPhil on the narrativetechniques of the fifth-century Greek historianHerodotus. At ChristChurch, the largest of

Oxford’s colleges, she will finish herdoctoral research before embarking on abroader research project on mythology inthe Greek historians. She will continue toteach undergraduates at several colleges.“This fellowship has given me amarvellous opportunity to continue withmy research in the lively classicscommunity of Christ Church,” she says.“Further down the track I hope to keep onworking in the area of Greek language andliterature, in a position combiningteaching with research.” Emily studied atEpsom Girls’ Grammar School and SeniorCollege of New Zealand before enrolling atThe University of Auckland. Her father,Justice David Baragwanath (BA, LLB1964), was also a Rhodes Scholar.

VINCENT CHENG [MPhil 1979] recentlytook over as the first Chinese chairman ofthe Hong Kong and Shanghai BankingCorporation. He was previously vice-chairman and chief executive of theHSBC’s subsidiary, Hang Seng Bank. MrCheng came to Auckland to studyeconomics after graduating with aBachelor of Social Science degree from theChinese University ofHong Kong. He has hadan outstanding career inbanking and governmentservice in Hong Kongand China, holding awide range ofdirectorships and takingon many public and communityresponsibilities.

He joined HSBC in 1978, becomingchief economist in 1986. During the 1990she was a member of the Executive Council(Hong Kong’s highest policy-making body)and the Legislative Council, and a HongKong Affairs Adviser to the People’sRepublic of China.

In 2002 The University of Aucklandrecognised his outstanding achievements

by bestowing on Mr Cheng a DistinguishedAlumni Award. Addressing a graduationceremony at the University last year heexpressed pleasure, as a Chinese with astrong affection for New Zealand, at thegrowing relationship between the twonations. “For those of you who want to gointo business, China is a market that youcannot ignore.”

JOHN ENGLAND [BA 1954] was awardedan honorary Doctor of Humanities bySilliman University at Dumaguete in thePhilippines in September 2004. Thedegree, equivalent to a DLitt at Auckland,was conferred on behalf of the Associationof Christian Universities and Colleges inAsia. Silliman, one of the large generaluniversities in the region which wereoriginally Christian foundations, isacademically ranked third in the many scores of Philippine universities.

Calling John a “distinguished scholar ofAsian Christian theology” the citation saidthe award recognised “his singularcontribution to the nurturing anddissemination of Asian Christian thinking spanning over three decades of his professional career. As well as his Auckland BA, John holds aMaster of Theology gained at the Southeast Asian Graduate School ofTheology in 1987. He has held visiting fellowships at many universitiesincluding Edinburgh, Cambridge andOtago.

DR MICHAEL JACKSON [MA 1968], aprominent expatriate poet as well asanthropologist, was briefly back inAuckland late last year lecturing and drawing inspiration for his creative writing. After five years in theInstitute of Anthropologyat the University ofCopenhagen, he hasrecently taken up aprofessorship at HarvardDivinity School. InAuckland he delivered a public lecture on“Quandaries of belonging: Some homethoughts from abroad” along with a seminarfor staff and students in the AnthropologyDepartment. He has published extensivelyon the Aboriginals of Northern Territoryand Queensland, and the Kuranko people ofSierra Leone. His most recent books arebased on continuing fieldwork in post-warSierra Leone.

In his academic writing, Michael seeks to

make anthropology speak directly toacademic concerns and to reach a wideaudience. He has also produced two novelsand five books of poetry. His Latitudes ofExile was awarded the CommonwealthPoetry Prize in 1976, and Wall won the NewZealand Book Award for Poetry in 1981.

Michael says it is important forexpatriate writers like himself to returnregularly to this country if they want toremain in touch. “I still feel very stronglythat my creative writing belongs here.”

Even with email it is “hard to get a senseof things from abroad. You really do needto be here to talk to people and sense howcontroversies are playing out in everydaylife.”

PROFESSOR MIKE MORWOOD [BA 1973,MA 1974], an archaeologist and Prof-essorial Fellow at the University of NewEngland in Armidale, led the team whichdiscovered the skeleton of a tiny andhitherto unknown species of human —Homo floresiensis.

The tiny skeleton, now nicknamed“Hobbit”, and fragments from a minimumof seven other individuals, arerepresentative of a population which lived

from at least 95,000 to12,000 years ago at LangBoa, a large limestonecave on the island ofFlores in EastIndonesia. The speciesstood about a metre talland had a brain the size

of a grapefruit — about 400cc. It is thesmallest known species of hominid withthe smallest recorded brain — evensmaller than the famed “Lucy”, anAustralopithecine who lived in East Africaabout 3.5 million years ago. The discoveryhas been heralded as “the most importantpalaeoanthropological find for 50 years,”according to New Scientist, “and hasradically altered the accepted picture ofhuman evolution.”

Mike studied at Auckland under RogerGreen, now emeritus professor, and movedacross the Tasman to take his doctorate atthe Australian National University inCanberra. His special interests are in Aus-tralian and Southeast Asian archaeology,and he has recently completed a book,Visions from the Past, on the archaeology ofAustralian Aboriginal art. He hasundertaken regional projects in CentralQueensland, Cape York Peninsula, theKimberley and the Soa Basin of CentralFlores.

Alumni of The University of Auckland make waves at home and abroad.

31AUTUMN 2005

PHIL O’REILLY [BA 1984, MA 1986] is thenew chief executive of Business NewZealand. Based in Wellington he heads theorganisation that promotes competition,economic growth and higher livingstandards through business success.Business New Zealand represents 14,500employers as well as 56 national businessorganisations, and advocates for businesson a number of international bodies.

Phil, whose degrees were in English andhistory, started out as an industrialadvocate for the Auckland Employers’Association. For 10 years he was executive

director of theNewspaper PublishersAssociation, and alsoserved as Chairman ofthe NZ AdvertisingStandards Authority.From 2000 to 2004 hewas in charge of

employment policy and communications atWestpac Bank in Sydney.

He says the challenge of promotingeconomic growth in the interests of higherNew Zealand living standards attractedhim back from Australia.

“I’d like to see Kiwis’ pay-packetssurpassing those in Australia,” he says.“Working with outstanding New Zealandcompanies in the interests of sustainedand sustainable growth is a brilliantopportunity.”

PROFESSOR DEO PRASAD [BArch 1979]won the New South Wales Government’sGreen Globe Award for 2004 for “showingleadership and commitment in promotingrenewable energy supply”.

“A tireless champion of solar power as alegitimate alternative,combined with energy-efficient building” wasthe plaudit bestowed onhim by the NSWMinister for Energy andUtilities, Frank Sartor.

Deo has been directorof the Centre for a Sustainable BuiltEnvironment at the University of NewSouth Wales (SOLARCH) for the past 15years. The centre is the longest-serving ofits kind in Australia.

He has a long-standing internationalreputation for research, education, trainingand consulting in his field. Deo has beeninvolved in milestone sustainable buildingprojects including Australia’s first solarvillage in Bonnyrigg, the Sydney Olympicscomplex, and the Kogarah apartmentdevelopment which uses the photovoltaicprocess to convert sunlight into energy.

In the recent past he has received aFederal Government energy innovationaward for “outstanding achievement in

innovative research and developmentleading to the efficient use of energy”.

ROBYN RESTIEAUX [BA 1989, MA 1992],who teaches English at Macleans Collegein Auckland, received a NationalExcellence in Teaching Award for 2004.

She was one of two secondary teachersto be honoured in this way. Six finalistswere selected nationwide from 460 tea-chers in four categories (preschool,primary, intermediate and secondary)nominated by students or school parentbodies.

The awards are made by the AustralianScholarships Group, thelargest independentprovider of educationalassistance and supportservices in Australia andNew Zealand.

Robyn’s citation saidshe believes in giving

her students “every opportunity to ‘grow’in their particular skills areas. [She] seesherself as a guide rather than an authority,and has a good rapport with her studentsand fellow teachers.

“She tailors her teaching style to herstudents. The shy students receive gentlepatience, the angry ones receive as muchpraise and responsibility as possible, andthe confident ones receive quiet consistentpushing.”

Author Tessa Duder, in presenting theaward to her, said she was bursting toshare her passion for the English languageand literature. Robyn says she “lovesteaching, particularly teenagers, becausethey have so many ideas. It’s challengingbut rewarding.”

Her masters degree was in psychologyand English. She taught at Hillcrest HighSchool in Hamilton before moving toMacleans four years ago.

KATRINA TROUGHTON [BCom, BSc 1990]is the new managing director of IBM NewZealand, based in Auckland. She is theyoungest person and the first woman tohold that position.

Previously she was in Sydney as generalmanager for IBM’ssoftware business acrossAustralia and NZ and,before that, the businessunit executive for IBM’s data managementbusiness across theAsia-Pacific.

She is a long-time member of IBM’sdiversity council which grapples with issues such as how to foster work-life balance, and how to maintaincultural, gender and age diversity in the company. She enjoys spending time

with her young family, playing tennis andswimming.

“Encouraging and supporting diversityfor all our people is one of the mostimportant things I do,” she says. “Byvaluing diversity, we uncover newperspectives, tap different knowledge andexperience, and generate innovative ideas,suggestions and methods.”

Katrina grew up in Eastbourne andcame to university in Auckland from HuttValley High School. In her science degreeshe majored in physiology andpharmacology while economics was hercommerce major.

She has a postgraduate diploma inhealth economics (Tromso University) anda diploma in direct marketing (DirectMarketing Association NZ).

KENNETH WANG [MFA 1989], whoentered Parliament last November as a listmember for ACT when Donna AwatereHuata’s seat became vacant, is NewZealand’s first male Chinese MP. He is theparty’s spokesperson on commerce andsmall business, and its associatespokesperson on education.

He was born in China into a family withstrong Communist Party ties. His father,Minquing Wang, workedas private physician forMao Zedong’s wife whilehis grandfather, ShinyingWang, was a high-ranking governmentofficial and soldier in theRed Army.

Kenneth has lived in New Zealand sincethe mid-1980s and is a director ofBrandWorks, a successful marketing andadvertising business. He was a foundingmember of ACT’s Asian chapter.

After studying at the Elam School ofFine Arts, he designed the official poster for the Commonwealth Games inAuckland in 1990. “My study here in New Zealand equipped me with skills Inever knew I had,” he said in hisparliamentary maiden speech, “and forthat I am forever grateful.” He especiallyappreciated the expert and willingguidance of Bret de Thier, senior lecturerin design at Elam.

These pages feature graduates who

have chalked up significant

achievements in academia, their

careers or in the community.

Suggestions for inclusion are most

welcome. Please email them to

wrs.williams@auckland.ac.nz

32 INGENIO

A University of Auckland PhD will help UN agencies find ways to worktogether better, reports SUE REIDY

+ OUTSIDE LOOKING IN: Rebecca Miller’s research aims to improve the effectiveness of organisations.PHOTO: GEOFF DALE

Noi was just 17 years old when shewent from Laos to Thailand. Herboyfriend had told her he would

get her a job as a waitress in a friend’srestaurant in Bangkok and she was lookingforward to the prospect of earning enoughmoney to help her family at home. Butonce in the Thai capital, she was sold tothe owner of a sweatshop and forced towork 16 hours a day for next to no money.

The horror stories that make it into thepages of newspapers are about youngwomen – even girls – who are sold intoprostitution. But the problem is much morewidespread: men, women and children aretricked or forced into many other settingswhere they are exploited for the profit ofothers. They are made to beg, pressed intodomestic servitude or forced to work insweatshops or on fishing boats.

Aid agencies work hard to stop thishuman trafficking, but University ofAuckland student Rebecca Miller waskeen to assess the extent to which theorganisational culture of the aid agencieshindered their work.

Thus was born the idea for researchtowards a PhD in Development Studies.Canadian-born Miller says that combatinghuman trafficking is a complexundertaking because it draws on severalareas of expertise and requires liaisonbetween different organisations.

“Each partner aid agency brings with ita comparative advantage. For example, theUnited Nations International Children’sEmergency Fund (UNICEF) specialises inthe protection and rights of children; theInternational Organisation for Migration(IOM) deals with the safe return and re-integration of victims; and the UnitedNations Development Fund for Women(UNIFEM) promotes the relationshipbetween gender, human rights andtrafficking.”

Miller says that these and otherorganisations recognise the need for co-operation and her PhD thesis aims toimprove that co-operation. Based on aqualitative research study, it aims toprovide insights into the challenges facinga UN multi-agency project designed to

reduce the harm associated with humantrafficking in the greater Mekong sub-region – China, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos,Vietnam and Myanmar.

“As my interest in human traffickingand the UN developed, I grew increasinglyaware of the difficulties associated withco-operation among – and within –agencies,” she says. “Co-operativestrategies have enormous potential, butthey also present a number of challenges.One of the main reasons is that theorganisational cultures of the differentagencies frequently hinder inter-agencyco-operation.”

Miller spent 10 months last year inSoutheast Asia, conducting dozens ofinterviews with agency personnel. Shehopes her thesis results will improveunderstanding between agencies workingon the same or similar projects, makingthem more effective together than theymight be separately.

“In the end, I hope, this will lead to more effective strategies and practicesbeing designed to combat this problem.” i

WORKING SMARTER