Source: Massey University – Press Release/Statement:

Headline: Scholarship allows student to dive deeper into study

Massey MBA student Michael Weston in the pool area at Northern Arena.

Massey Master of Business Administration student Michael Weston has been awarded an inaugural NZ Institute of Management scholarship, worth $15,000. The swim school manager at Northern Arena, in Silverdale, says the scholarship will help with the cost of his MBA study tour to South America and further study materials.

“My goal is to move forward into a PhD,” Mr Weston says, “so I plan to keep some of the money back so I can audit further MBA papers, which are made available to alumni in the future.

“Continuing to learn is really important to me. Wherever I work I try to facilitate a learning environment because I think that’s crucial to the organisation, and New Zealand, moving forward.”

Gaining a PhD is only one of the audacious goals Mr Weston has set for himself. As a former competitive swimmer who has also been a swim teacher for 15 years, he has his eye on the top job at Swimming New Zealand. His long-term ambition is to be chief executive officer of High Performance Sport New Zealand. 

An MBA is just the first step

Undertaking his MBA is a key step on this journey and Mr Weston says he appreciates the “pracademic” nature of the programme. 

“For a traditional postgraduate degree you study a lot by yourself and it’s very academic. Through the MBA programme I’ve met 50 great people from all around the country. We have a lot of fun learning together. The collaboration, co-learning and reverse mentoring is so important. Everybody has different strengths and weaknesses and being able to leverage off each person’s strengths is really good.”

Mr Weston has a sports science degree, also from Massey University, and says he enrolled in the MBA programme because he realised there were skills he needed to develop.

“The sports science degree is obviously useful for my job, but the job is also about business. I figured out pretty quickly, once I was in a management role, that I had some gaps in my knowledge.The first year of the MBA has given me a broad knowledge base and has strengthened my focus on developing our brand, creating value for the organisation and developing our people.” 

Don’t fear failure

Northern Arena has certainly won its fair share of awards, receiving Westpac Business Awards for marketing, innovation and sustainability. Mr Weston says the company has always focused on being innovative with the management team creating an environment where failure is not feared. 

“We are seven years old now and we are still trying new things all the time. That’s because we are allowed to take a sandbox approach to ideas – there have been failures along the way, but that is okay.”

Mr Weston will soon begin work on his master’s thesis, an analysis of high performance organisations globally with the aim of developing a best practice framework for New Zealand. If all goes well, he will expand on the topic for his PhD.

In the meantime, he will complete his MBA this year, maintain full-time hours at Northern Arena and remain on the board of the New Zealand Swim Coaches and Teachers Association, all while raising a two-year-old toddler.

“Yes, I’m balancing a lot in life,” he says, “but I think that’s what the scholarship selection panel liked about my application. I would like to thank the NZ Insitute of Management for helping me continue to move forward and I am honoured to receive this scholarship.”

Find out more about Massey’s MBA programme

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Source: Massey University – Press Release/Statement:

Headline: Massey University Press publishes ‘Poetry New Zealand Yearbook’

Poetry New Zealand Yearbook is New Zealand’s longest-running poetry magazine; the esteemed home of exciting new writing from talented newcomers and established poets. Continually in print since 1951, when it was established by poet Louis Johnson, this annual collection of new writing, reviews and poetics discussion is mandatory reading for poetry fans.

Proudly published by Massey University Press, Issue #52 of Poetry New Zealand Yearbook features 130 new poems by 87 poets, including Alistair Paterson, Jennifer Compton, David Eggleton, Sue Fitchett, Ted Jenner, Bob Orr, Albert Wendt and Mark Young.

“More than 300 submissions were received for this issue, making the selection particularly difficult,” says editor Jack Ross. There are also six essays and reviews of 30 new poetry collections.

Issue #52 is notable for a skew towards younger writers, some still in their teens. This issue also publishes the three winning entries in the 2018 Poetry New Zealand Poetry Prize. Claiming first prize is University of Otago medical student Fardowsa Mohamed; Semira Davis from north of Wellington takes second prize; and Nelson-based poet Henry Ludbrook receives third prize.

About the editor

Dr Jack Ross is a senior lecturer in creative writing at Massey University’s Auckland campus. He is the author of five books of poems, including City of Strange Brunettes (1998), Chantal’s Book (2002), To Terezin (2007), Celanie (2012) and A Clearer View of the Hinterland (2014), as well as three novels, a novella, and two collections of short fiction. He has edited a number of books and literary magazines, including (from 2014) Poetry New Zealand.

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Source: Massey University – Press Release/Statement:

Headline: Massey University Press publishes ‘Dear Oliver’

Letters are time capsules, portals to other times and places. Rarely written in today’s world of instant communication, letters record domestic dramas and reflect great historical moments. They can be by turns gossipy and intimate, grandiose and business-like.

When acclaimed writer, film director and historian Peter Wells discovered a cache of family letters amongst his elderly mother’s effects, he found the means to retrace his family history. English born, the Northes were hard-working, entrepreneurial folk, swept out to New Zealand during the great nineteenth-century human diaspora from Britain. They settled in Napier, and their upwardly-mobile trajectory — from servant class to merchants and landowners — was not untypical. Individually, their stories are anything but.

Digging deep into their stories, examining letters from the past and writing a letter to the future, Wells recounts a rich and, at times, heart-breaking Pākehā family history. The Northes’ military origins caught them up in the New Zealand Wars, the Anglo-Boer war and World War One. They also lived through the Depression and the devastating Napier earthquake of 1931. There was army desertion, suicide, adultery, AIDS, secrets and lies. There was also success, prosperity and rising social status.

As well as sharing the stories of his ancestors, Wells records his own history, not least coming out to his parents via a letter from the UK when he was in his early twenties. Wells talks about his close relationship with his mother — a woman with her own secrets — the complexity of his feelings for his emotionally absent father and his hero worship of his adored older brother. Colourful and intriguing, Dear Oliver is tender, poignant, engaging and revealing, the work of one of this country’s finest writers.

Peter Wells recently came to national attention with the publication of “Hello Darkness”, a series of moving Facebook posts/diary entries about finding himself in the cancer ward. These were latterly published on popular news website, The Spinoff.

About the author

Peter Wells is a writer of fiction and non-fiction, and a writer/ director in film. His fiction looks at a world of secrets, identity, subterfuge and illusion, frequently using the lens of a gay narrator. His first book, Dangerous Desires, won the Reed Fiction Award, the NZ Book Award, and PEN Best New Book in Prose in 1992. His memoir Long Loop Home won the 2002 Montana New Zealand Book Award for Biography, and he has won many awards for his work as a film director. He is co-founder of the Auckland Writers Festival. In 2006, Wells was made a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to literature and film. His most recent histories examined William Colenso, a resident of Napier, and Kereopa Te Rau, the Pai Mārire follower who was hanged in Napier for murdering Reverend Carl Völkner. Dear Oliver brings to an end this Napier trilogy.

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Source: Massey University – Press Release/Statement:

Headline: Huntington leading School of Nursing

Professor Annette Huntington, acting head of the School of Nursing.

One of New Zealand’s most experienced nurse academics has been appointed as the acting head of Massey University’s School of Nursing.

Professor Annette Huntington, who led the nursing programmes from 2008 – 2016 first as director of nursing and then as head of school, has stepped into the interim role, while a search is conducted for a new head.

Recruitment of new School of Nursing staff is also proceeding well, including a professor of nursing, an associate professor of nursing, an associate professor of health sciences and two highly experienced clinical lecturers. Interviews have been conducted for new lecturer and senior lecturer positions.

Professor Huntington has conducted internationally recognised research into nursing, particularly into the nursing workforce. In 2012, she was made a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to nursing research.

She was the New Zealand director of both the Nurses and Midwives e-Cohort Study and the Graduate Nurses Study, in collaboration with institutions in Australia, Canada, Ireland and Britain. She has published and presented extensively nationally and internationally on aspects of the nursing workforce and also prepares comprehensive nursing workforce data reports for the Nursing Council of New Zealand.

She has been actively involved in the strategic development of nursing nationally and internationally, and has led policy development to implement change in nursing regulation, education and research. She is on the editorial boards of several international journals, is a fellow of the College of Nurses Aotearoa, and is a member of the Council of Deans of Nursing and Midwifery, Australia and New Zealand and was previously deputy chair.

“The School of Nursing has made a strong start this year, with an increase in undergraduate student enrolments, up from 202 last year to 210 this year. Postgraduate enrolment numbers are also projected to be up on last year following mid-year entry,” she says.

“The School will continue to revise its qualifications in order to ensure the best possible use of teaching staff resources and technologies that provide high-quality, accessible, contemporary programmes designed to provide an excellent student experience. Students, staff and external stakeholders will continue to be consulted about any proposed changes.”

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Source: Massey University – Press Release/Statement:

Headline: High voltage cabling works during Easter

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Source: Massey University – Press Release/Statement:

Headline: University recognises high-achieving alumni

Professor Patrick Hesp

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Source: Massey University – Press Release/Statement:

Headline: Sport scientist tests her mettle at Ironman

Sport scientist tests her mettle at Ironman

School of Sport, Exercise and Nutrition lecturer Dr Claire Badenhorst nailed her first Ironman – winning her age group and scoring a place at the World Championship Ironman race in Hawaii in October.

A year ago, Dr Claire Badenhorst set herself the goal of completing Ironman New Zealand. Earlier this month, she achieved her goal at a stunning pace, winning her age group (25-29) and crossing the finish line in 10 hours, 20 minutes.

Triathlons are not something completely new to her. Around 10 years ago she started competing with the modest “sprint distance” (750 metre swim, 20 kilometre bike and five kilometre run) and gradually worked her way up to longer races.

The Massey University lecturer in exercise and sport science says her involvement in triathlon and personal training is her full-time hobby. “My normal training load involves 18-23 hours a week split among the three disciplines. Broken down that is plenty of pre-five-am starts, then finishing the morning session before Auckland traffic gets too bad, the occasional office lunch time run, then home for an evening session before dinner and bed. Weekends are when I can increase the hours and tick off bigger training days, sometimes as much as  five to eight hours worth of training in a day. While this may sound like madness to many people this is my ‘normal’ – a side effect of doing this sport for such a long period of time,” Dr Badenhorst says.

The days leading into the race were ideal, she says. “I was relaxed, happy and confident that my taper was going well allowing me to absorb the training load and get ready for race day.”

On race morning athletes were treated to ideal weather conditions, which meant a flat lake for the swim, a modest temperature and when the winds did pick up, they would be pushing the athletes back from Reporoa towards Taupo on the second lap of the bike.

“I have been targeting this race for a year and I knew I was in good form going into it, but I was  aware that despite having a ‘plan A’ that I had worked out with my coach, I needed to acknowledge that for an event as long as Ironman you not only need a plan B but probably a plan C,D, E and F too. The best you can do in such events is focus on yourself and aim to control the controllables and hope for mechanical luck,” she says.

Ironman New Zealand is a mass wave start. This means all competitors (male and female of all ages), get in to the water and at the sound of the canon start swimming. Dr Badenhorst says the first 100 metres are like trying to swim in a washing machine. “Thankfully, coming from a swimming background I am usually able to escape the mayhem and find my own space. Being my first Ironman, my coach and I aimed to race as steady as possible throughout the day. I found my rhythm early in the swim and was able to complete the 3.8 kilometre swim in 55 minutes.”

After a quick transition out of the wetsuit, Dr Badenhorst began the gruelling  180 kilometre bike ride, which she says went smoothly 90 per cent of the time. “I did have a drink bottle cage come loose, so I lost a water bottle, but thankfully there are aid stations along the course. I wrapped up the cycling leg in five hours, 30 minutes and was feeling really good. It is amazing what an adrenaline rush you get riding back into Taupo where the streets are lined with spectators cheering you on.”

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Source: Massey University – Press Release/Statement:

Headline: Lighting the way to higher crop yields

BioLumic chief technical officer Associate Professor Jason Wargent. 

Massey University spinout company BioLumic has secured a US$5 million (NZ $6.9 million) investment for their work developing products to support food growers around the globe using ultraviolet (UV) light.

Founded by Massey’s Associate Professor Jason Wargent in 2012, building on Dr Wargent’s many years of research into UV/plant interactions, the company focuses on applying UV light treatments to seedlings and seeds that deliver long-term crop benefits, including improved crop consistency, increased yield and disease resistance. 

The technology is in commercial trials for high-value produce crops around the globe, working with growers and processors in Mexico, Spain and the United Kingdom with yield gains of up to 22 per cent. .

This significant round of financial backing will allow expansion into more crop treatments and markets around the globe, and comes from leading global AgTech investors Finistere Ventures and Radicle Growth acceleration fund, along with Rabobank’s recently-launched Food and Agri Innovation Fund and existing investors from across New Zealand.

BioLumic chief executive officer Warren Bebb says, “Light is an extremely powerful biological tool that can safely manipulate plants without the concerns associated with genetic modification or chemical usage. BioLumic is the only company using light as an ag treatment at the beginning of a plant’s life.

“Exposure to a short-duration treatment of UV-enriched light at a critical stage in a plant’s development turns on characteristics to help the seed or seedling more effectively defend itself against disease or pest attacks, and more efficiently use water and nutrients for the soil for its entire lifespan.”

The investment will be used to aggressively expand the BioLumic team in both New Zealand and further develop its American office in California, and to intensify the global deployment of its UV technologies. It will also be used to accelerate the development and commercialisation of its seed-focused technology, expanding into row crop and vegetable seeds, as well as the original focus on lettuce, broccoli, strawberry and tomato seedlings.

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