Fortnightly newsletter for University staff | Volume 40 | Issue 17 | 17 September 2010 Assessing damage, locating risk Key events Acquired tastes Oysters and opera, we are told, are “acquired tastes”. Sometimes we know on good evidence that something is good, and yet we don’t like it: we can’t properly appreciate what’s good about it. How do we get from not liking something which we know is good to liking it because it’s good? The strategy that Professor Peter Goldie from Manchester University recommends in the 2010 Robert C. Solomon Lecture is what is known as “bootstrapping”, where you in effect get to like something by pretending to like it. The lecture, entitled “Oysters and opera: How to acquire an ‘acquired taste’”, will take place in the Library Theatre B15 on Tuesday 21 September at 6pm. Spring graduation Left to right are Dr Swarna Gamage with Dr Genevieve Evans and Dr Shaun Lott, who are collaborating on the Four graduation ceremonies will take place on “Chemical validation of a drug target in M. Tuberculosis.” Photographed by Warren Jones 28 September at the Aotea Centre: at 10.30am Business and Economics; at 1.30pm Education, Engineering, Law; at 4.30pm, Science, Medical and Health Sciences; and at 7.30pm, Arts, Creative Arts and Industries. Photo by Professor Michael Pender The Graduation Procession for all faculties Faculty of Engineering staff were among the has been to in the last 12 months. He was in will leave from the Alumni Marquee, Old teams of specialists checking quake-ravaged Indonesia in late 2009 following their earthquake Government House grounds, at 9.15am and buildings and scouring Christchurch’s damaged in Sumatra, inspecting schools and medical will cross Princes Street to enter Bowen Avenue landscape in the days following the 7.1 facilities, and was in Chile in May this year at 9.30am. magnitude earthquake. presenting seminars to engineers and architects Professor Michael Pender, Associate Professor on how to seismically strengthen buildings. World Habitat Day Jason Ingham, Associate Professor Charles Clifton, Inspecting buildings on the Sunday was a The University of Auckland, as a partner of lecturer Quincy Ma and six postgraduate students different experience to the Monday because UN-HABITAT, will mark World Habitat Day (4 from the Department of Civil and Environmental people had returned to work, he says. October) with a range of events and activities Engineering arrived in the South Island city the “It is a very different experience placing a across the campuses and the wider community morning after the quake. placard on a closed building, versus having to tell from 29 September to 6 October. This year’s The engineering staff assessed damaged the people in the building that they must close up theme of “Better city, better life” highlights the buildings and conducted research while in the city. their business and not return until the building has vision of a sustainable urban world. It will For the assessments, they were divided into been made safe to occupy.” involve departments, disciplines, students and teams of five; each team had two engineers, two Jason says only one person was reluctant to staff across The University of Auckland as well council staff and a member from the Urban Search leave an unsafe building he inspected. “The man, as other interested stakeholders in various key And Rescue group. who ran a lawnmower business, asked me, ‘If I activities including seminars, workshops, an Each team was assigned a task of either ignore you will I be prosecuted?’” “urban survivor” installation and a photo evaluating a city block to locate at-risk buildings, Meanwhile a few doors down, when he had to competition. (See story, page 5) or doing a detailed inspection of a single building. tell workers at a post office their building was This is the third earthquake-affected area Jason unsafe, they calmly packed up their belongings story continues on page 2 UNIVERSitY NEWS IS puBliSHED BY Communications and Marketing, Fisher Building In this issue 18 Waterloo Quadrant, Private Bag 92019, Auckland 1142 email [email protected] www.auckland.ac.nz/universitynews 2 World Habitat Day EDITOR Judy Wilford 6 Future Research Leaders Programme PHOTOGRapHY Godfrey Boehnke, Kathryn Robinson 3 Three-minute thesis competition DeSIGN AND PRODUCTION The University of Auckland From the Vice-Chancellor Enthusiasm from visitors The Tertiary Education Commission (TEC) After attending recently unveiled a new website which purports Engineering, Law and to provide the public with comparative data on Medical and Heath the performance of students at tertiary Sciences lectures, a young institutions. In one sense, The University of woman from Central Auckland can be well pleased with this – we Otago decided to plump rank first or second among the universities in all for first-year Medicine four performance indicators. Unfortunately, the (Biomedical Sciences) with institutions also know – and have pointed out a general education repeatedly to the TEC and the Minister – that paper in Law and Society. the data are not statistically robust and are “It was amazing to see therefore likely to mislead rather than inform the campus,” she wrote in the public. an email, “as I now know The fundamental problem is that the TEC that I would be able to uses unadjusted institutional average immerse myself in the performance measures in its presentation. In student lifestyle, and to reality, the performance measures are know that I would feel influenced by a great many factors, including Feedback from visitors to the recent Courses safe in its environment — I've never lived in a the socio-economic backgrounds of the and Careers Day could hardly have been city before. institution’s students, student ethnicity, more positive. “Visiting the halls was exciting too. The guides part-time versus full-time status, subject area Twitter abounded with such superlatives as were welcoming and enthusiastic and made an and whether the students are internal or “wicked”, “amazing” and “awesome”. “So well effort to interact with everyone, so that no extramural. It is highly likely that the organised and executed!” declared a grateful questions were left unanswered.” comparison of institutions based on unadjusted attendee. An increase in musical, cultural and sporting averages simply reflects these underlying One Twitterer commented on the “unbelievable” performances, the opening of the Recreation differences, rather than true differences in the student life while another, referring to participating Centre for a popular Zumba class and various teaching and learning environment, which is staff and students, remarked that “everyone looked competitions, and the Arts Faculty’s shift to the what is implied by the inter-institutional ranking really motivated”. Fale Pasifika were “all very positive changes”, of “performance indicators”. While the TEC The hundred visitors from schools in the lower said Ken Rapson, Director of the Schools website includes pie charts showing some North Island and the South Island hosted at a Partnership Office. aspects of the make-up of each institution’s special “travellers’ breakfast” where they met the “The favourable responses from prospective student body, it is impossible for readers to use Vice-Chancellor were especially appreciative. students was a tribute to everyone involved, says this information to “adjust” for these underlying The careers adviser at Palmerston North Boys’ Ken “This is a whole university event with everyone parameters. High School who escorted a nine-strong party to coming together to show all aspects of university A second issue is that, even if they were Auckland called it “a fantastic day”, adding: “We life in the best possible way.” robust, the data would be difficult to interpret. will definitely do that again.” For example, is a high course completion rate a good thing because it reflects an institution that has excellent teaching and a high level of student support, or a bad thing because it story continued from page 1 reflects an institution that has low standards But given the level of devastation in some areas, and makes it easy for students to pass? and left. he had been impressed with the attitude of the Third, the website gives no indication of what “Generally speaking most of the time people Canterburians he had met. are statistically significant differences between understood. They would say, “’I was kind of worried “I spoke to quite a few people in one area, and institutions, many of which are within a few about that myself, or I could see the risk.’” they had no running water, no sewage and they percentage points of each other. Nor is there Michael, who grew up in Christchurch, is a were really quite calm about it all, they kept any international context for the data. three-earthquake veteran. He led the New Zealand saying, 'no-one died.'” International students are even less likely than Society for Earthquake Engineering Jason says what happened to the buildings domestic students to understand how the Reconnaissance during the 1987 Edgecombe when the quake struck was for the most part highly make-up of an institution’s student body is likely earthquake and was on sabbatical in California predictable. to affect its performance, yet they rely heavily when the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake struck. About 85 percent of the buildings were on league tables of this kind to make decisions A geotechnical specialist, Michael is very unaffected by the quake - the most damaged were about where to study. Thus, despite the familiar with liquefaction. the older unreinforced brick buildings. laudable aims of this exercise, it is likely to be Liquefaction is when sandy soil is shaken Jason and his team of postgraduate students misleading to both domestic and violently, causing water to rise through the sand.