Massey Celebrates Its 2014 Jubilee
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Massey celebrates its 2014 Jubilee + CHAFF remembered + Precision agriculture + Inside Oracle Team USA THE ENGINE www.definingnz.com OF THE NEW NEW ZEALAND | Massey University | January 2013 | MASSEY | 1 STARTERS CHRONICLES Timelines and images from Massey’s history. 10 Blessed are the cheesemakers Meet Michael Matsis, the man behind gourmet 19 Origins: 1913 to 1927 cheese company Zany Zeus. The idea of a North Island-based agricultural 12 To be a pilgrim college. A social anthropologist investigates the enduring appeal of the Himalayas for seekers 20 Laying the foundations: 1927 to 1964 of all descriptions. Foundation, depression, war and rejuvenation. Contents 13 Eruptions to order 24 The rise of the multidisciplinary How to create a pyroclastic flow without a university: 1964 to 1990 volcano. Growth, social turbulence and consolidation. 14 The question of quicksilver Why is mercury a liquid? It’s all to do with 32 Becoming multicampus: 1990 to 1999 New Zealand’s national university. Einstein’s theory of general relativity. 38 A university for a new millennium: 2000 to 2014 FEATURES The engine of the new New Zealand. 15 The way we were A new book charts the eventful life of CHAFF, 1934-2011, Massey’s student newspaper. 40 Precisely right Professor of Precision Agriculture Ian Yule and engineer-entrepreneurs Stu Bradbury and George Ricketts. 52 Catching some wind Joe Spooner was one of the crew on the victorious America’s Cup contender in 2013. Website: definingnz.com Editor: Malcolm Wood [email protected] Writers: Kelly Burns, Bonnie Etherington, Michele Hollis, Jennifer Little, Paul Mulrooney, Bevan Rapson, Sidah Russell, Massey is Sarah Wilcox, Malcolm Wood, Sonia Yoshioka Braid published Photography: Mark Coote, David Wiltshire annually by Massey University, Cover: Wellington campus graduation parade, 2013 Private Bag Thanks to: Louis Changuion, Mason Durie, James Gardiner, 11-222, Palmerston Lucy Marsden, Jeannette McKinnon, Kerry Taylor, Ian Watson North 4442, Design: Grant Bunyan New Zealand. Proofreading: Foolproof Subscription enquiries: [email protected] Copyright: You are generally welcome to reproduce material provided you first gain permission from the editor. 2 | MASSEY | April 2014 | Massey University BRIEF HISTORIES DEPARTMENTS 22 Beyond the walls 5 Campus wide Massey pioneers distance learning. A round-up of news from Massey’s three campuses and from further afield. 28 Green fields A new kind of campus appears on Auckland’s 44 Mixed media North Shore. A bumper crop of books: Destiny: The life and times of a self-made 30 Creating the creative campus apostle | The Battles of Monte Cassino: The Wellington joins the Massey fold. campaign and its controversies | A Man Runs into a Woman | Rivers: New Zealand’s shared Ma–ori at Massey 33 legacy | Images of War: New Zealand and the A history of partnership. First World War in photographs | Chocolate 34 The good stewards Cake for Breakfast | The Story of Nelson Massey has been led by one principal and five Aviation | The Lie that Settles | Two White vice-chancellors during its 87-year history. Feet | Flatter’s Survival Guide | Operation Each has left an imprint. Goodtime and the Battle of the Treasury Islands, 1943. 36 Women at Massey Once rare, but not for a while. 51 Alumni notes and news All about the Massey alumni community. 37 International ties Massey has been an internationally connected university since the 1940s. 39 Leaning into it Vice-Chancellor Steve Maharey talks about his history with Massey and how he sees the university’s future. You’ve picked up the magazine, now visit the website or download the app. definingnz.com Stay in touch with Massey on LinkedIn. | Massey University | April 2014 | MASSEY | 1 First word Vice-Chancellor Steve Maharey writes. Many of us were the first in our families to attend university; we knew we were lucky. Education let the sons and daughters of labourers and factory workers become engineers, veterinarians, accountants and, as it turned out, politicians. t is 1964. The Catholic Church the first in our families to attend university; as well. In 2008 it began offering its condemns the oral contraceptive we knew we were lucky. Education let Bachelor in Food Technology (Hons) pill; Goldfinger debuts in cinemas; the sons and daughters of labourers and programme through Singapore Polytech- Bob Dylan releases his perfectly factory workers become engineers, nic; and in 2010 it was engaged to deliver timed album, The Times They Are veterinarians, accountants and, as it turned a Postgraduate Diploma in Arts (Defence a-Changin’; the first of the baby out, politicians. My time at Massey as and Strategic Studies) at the Royal Brunei boomers hit university age; and, student and later lecturer was formative. Armed Forces Defence Academy, and by not uncoincidentally, out in It gave me my passport to the world. the World Bank to deliver two public provincial New Zealand Massey University That is why, in the end, I chose to come health-related Master degrees, one for comes into being. This makes 2014 the back to Massey as its Vice-Chancellor: medical doctors, the other for veterinarians, university’s 50th Jubilee and its second because I believe in the power of universities to students throughout much of Asia. foundation – the first foundation being to be change-makers, and because I believe This is the recipe for staying young: the establishment of Massey Agricultural that Massey, as the most engaged, energetic never stand still. Massey may be turning College in 1927 as a degree-granting and outward-looking of New Zealand’s 50 this year, but it is a very sprightly 50. institution within the University of New universities, is uniquely well qualified to Massey has developed into an Zealand. make a difference. extraordinary national asset. The question The 1960s was a good decade for Its history attests to its qualities. When now is, how do we use it to New Zealand’s universities. In Britain the number doubled, the baby boom came to an end in the best advantage? with new arrivals picking up the nickname 1980s, it would have been easy for the The idea of setting national goals and ‘plate glass universities’ after their university to settle for diminished then harnessing the educational and architecture. In New Zealand we went expectations. It didn’t. Instead, in 1993 research skills harboured by universities from four to six. Massey opened a new campus amidst to achieve them is not new. In the United These were universities imbued with the paddocks and market gardens of States, such drives led to the atom bomb the spirit of the age: young, ambitious and Albany. And when, in the late 1990s, and the Apollo moon landing. charged with a belief in the transformational the opportunity arose to merge with In South Korea, a commitment to value of what they were doing. Wellington Polytechnic, Massey responded export-led manufacturing took the per And what they were doing was with alacrity and energy, establishing a capita annual income from around US$80 transformational. The baby boomers were Wellington campus in 1999. in the early 1960s to nearly that of New the first generation to think of access to These three physical campuses com- Zealand today. Will South Korea – the tertiary education as a right. When, as a bined with the fourth ‘virtual’ campus of land of Hyundai, Samsung and LG – leading-edge baby boomer, I came to 15,000-strong extramural students, gave overtake us? If the growth rate it has Massey in the 1970s, I remember the Massey the greatest national geographical managed in the past decade is maintained, absolute passion for learning among my reach of any New Zealand university – and it certainly will. And here is a statistic classmates and teachers. Many of us were it has become increasingly multinational that tells you the secret of its success: at 2 | MASSEY | April 2014 | Massey University 53 percent, South Korea has the highest US$105 billion – a 6.2 percent increase around 4 percent, are a fraction of Nestlé’s. proportion of graduates among 25- to on 2009 – of which US$32 billion was We need to do better. A lot better. 34-year-olds of any nation in the Organ- profit. More than likely you contributed. We just might. The Government’s isation for Economic Co-operation and Maybe it was the chocolate bar you bought Business Growth Agenda calls for a Development. when paying for petrol, the instant noodles trebling in the real value of food exports Here in New Zealand, in May of 2013 you had for lunch, or the icecream you in the next 12 years. In July, Science and the Government set 10 national science had for dessert. Nestlé’s brands – think Innovation Minister Steven Joyce launched challenges, among them: Maggi, Nescafé, Milo, Nestea, Mövenpick the second stage of an enterprise called • ageing well – harnessing science to and Minties, to name a few – are deeply FoodHQ, Food Innovation New Zealand. sustain health and wellbeing into the embedded in people’s daily lives and they As part of the enterprise, six partners later years of life are enduringly profitable. – AgResearch, Fonterra, Nestlé meets the Warren Massey University, Plant • a better start – improving the potential Buffett rule of investing: & Food Research, the of young New Zealanders to have a a stock you can reliably Riddet Institute and the healthy and successful life hold on to forever. Bio Commerce Centre • healthier lives – research to reduce New Zealand is a major – are to work together the burden of major New Zealand food exporting nation. to create New Zealand’s health problems Blessed with fertile soils, first food super-campus, a temperate climate and eventually bringing • high-value nutrition – developing a community of forward- together more than high-value foods with validated health thinking, well educated 4000 researchers and benefits farmers and horticultur- educators.