P-cubed Newsletters

Contents HeadsUp Kia ora koutou ‘Tis the season of in-betweenness: marking exams, finalising grades, and attending examiners’ meetings for Semester 1, while making plans for Semester 2. Thanks to all the teaching and administrative staff involved in...

Contents HeadsUp Last week, I had the pleasure of Chairing postgraduate student presentations. I was immensely impressed with the standard of presentations, the fulsome attendance, the energy in the room and excellent questions. Our numbers at PG level may be down but...

Contents HeadsUp Last week, with the encouragement of Dean, I got away to write and think about research. My best writing time is when I’m alone, and my best thinking time while walking. How about you? We’re all a bit different. I have a Dutch colleague who writes...

Contents HeadsUp I write from home base, caught in the claws of a head cold. Possibly exacerbated by extended periods sitting out in the clear cold night of Saturday past. Wasn’t seeing the aurora amazing? I hope at least some of you saw it. Some environmental...

Contents HeadsUp This week we welcome Professor Karin Bryan, who comes to us from Waikato University via our university’s Strategic Recruitment Programme. This programme enables the employment of staff who have been identified as “having the capacity to elevate the...

Contents HeadsUp I hope the teaching break has been good to you all! I’ve been thinking about gratitude of late. I am grateful to be in a School where people do things above and beyond what their job descriptions require of them.  Last Thursday’s Sustainability...

Contents HeadsUp I trust everyone had a good break over Easter. I did. It came early this year so in a way it felt indulgent to be enjoying an extended run of days to soon into the year. Post-Easter, it does feel like we are seriously into autumn and a change in...

Contents HeadsUp A couple of days ago, the School took the big step of submitting paperwork to put our four new first-year courses (ENV 100, 101, 102, 103) ‘on the books’ for 2025. This is the ‘four course model’: the topic of much conversation, collaboration and...

Contents HeadsUp I recently lectured to an undergrad class for the first time in quite some months. The topic was geographical aspects of Covid-19. I encouraged students to reflect on their own Covid story from the times of lockdown. Such times seem both so recent and...

Contents HeadsUp There was a quintessentially kiwi song that was popular in the 1970s by John Clake under his performing name of Fred Dagg.  In a shamelessly local accent, he sang ‘we don’t know how lucky we are’. As we savour the last weeks of the best Auckland...