Maori, Homophily, and Tolkien (Yes, again)

Hello everyone, and my apologies for the lag between posts!  I am now in the final two weeks of the internship here in Auckland and it has been difficult to keep up with the blog while doing a great deal of writing for the report we are turning in next week.

My fellow CSP students at BGSU in particular know that I am also serving as an occasional blogger on the Bowling Green Student Development Association's (BGSDA) blog along with four other members of my cohort.  I recently wrote a lengthy post for BGSDA on Maori culture and how it creates challenges for higher education in NZ (which surprised me once I looked at how detailed it was).  Since I haven't delved into this area as much as I would like to yet on this blog, I wanted to provide a variation of that post here for two reasons:  1) I really liked how this post came together; and 2) I've been doing a TON of writing at work, which hasn't left much time for personal writing.  So, without further ado, here's a look at Maori culture in higher education. 

But first, a history lesson.
(Bonus points and bragging rights offered
if you guess who this historical figure is)

The Maori
Before we get into higher education, here's a quick background on the Maori, an important part of New Zealand culture that everyone looking at this country should know about.  The Maori are the original settlers of New Zealand, hailing from eastern Polynesia and settling here roughly around 1300 CE (by the way, did I mention I've visited five museums since being here?).  Over the course of time, the original settlers formed an extremely rich culture, set of beliefs, traditions, and way of life.  Their buildings, crafts, clothing, and more all serve as a reflection of their rich background.

Then, European settlers arrived in New Zealand in the 1700s, and the Maori slowly began to take on characteristics of Western life.  Perhaps the most important document in NZ's history is the Treaty of Waitangi.  It was an agreement made between the Maori and then-Queen Victoria that broadly recognized the rights of Maori to their land and property while allowing Great Britain to establish governance over NZ.  In return, the Maori became recognized as British subjects, with all the rights and privileges thereto and pertaining (I've always wanted to say that).  It should be noted that since two copies of the treaty exist (one in English, one in Maori), there is debate on the exact meaning of some parts of the treaty since the two do not exactly translate to each other perfectly.  Regardless, this treaty would go on to essentially serve as a backbone to the New Zealand constitution, and permanently affect the country's stance on issues of equality and access for both Maori and other marginalized groups.  In higher education in NZ (known here as tertiary education), policy recommendations are expected to have sections pertaining to "Treaty Implications," meaning it must cover how this policy will help further the original purposes of the treaty.  This weekend, I'll actually be heading up north to see the grounds where the Treaty of Waitangi was signed!

Here's an artifact (The Treaty of Waitangi) for all the anthropologists reading this blog...

Fast-forward to today.  The Maori consist of roughly 15% of NZ's population.  However, they are still a marginalized group in regards to income, education, health issues, and so on.  Just as first-generation college students are a group we must provide ample support for in the U.S., Maori (and Pacific) students are considered an "equity" group on campus and in need of additional support to ease their transition into the university (and at last, we've connected back to the reason I have a job this summer!).

Elves and Homophily
Now that we've got history of the way, time to turn our attention to a little term we like to call homophily, or the inclination of people to be drawn to others that are like them (Strange, 2001).  For those who haven't taken a year of CSP courses, a really good example of homophily comes from the elves of Lord of the Rings.  If you haven't read/seen Lord of the Rings, stop reading this post and take care of that first.  Don't worry, this post will still be here when you get back.

Be warned:  One does not simply "breeze through" Lord of the Rings.

All set to go now?  You watched/read all three parts of the Lord of the Rings? Fantastic!  Let us continue.

The elves are a group within Middle Earth whose preference is to be with their own kind and rather than interact with humans (and thereby creating a "homogenous" group according to race).  It should be noted, however, that humanity did kinda drop the ball on the whole "destroy the ring" thing.  Anyway, we see this on a meta-level with the elvish villages often being in secluded and hidden areas, and we see it on a personal level as Elrond (a noted leader of the elves) consistently opposes his daughter Arwen's wishes to marry a human.  Although Arwen is the exception to the Elvish trend to stick together, Elrond serves as the quintessential elf who tries to convince her that a relationship with Aragorn will only end in death.  But then again, I suppose everything ends in death if you wait long enough, right?  But I digress.  The elves' continual desire is to keep to themselves.  And even after eventually working with humans to fight Sauron's forces, they choose to leave Middle Earth forever at the end of the conflict, continually preferring the company of those similar to them and weary from their interactions with the other races of Middle Earth.  (Wars for magical rings are bound to make anyone cranky.)

Maori Students in Tertiary Education
The concept of homophily lies at the heart of many discussions around the university of how best to support these students in the first year.  If one looks at the University of Auckland's aggregate environment (the characteristics of an environment that are derived from the collective characteristics of its inhabitants), the student body at Auckland is predominantly Caucasian (Strange, 2001).  This feeds into the socially-constructed environment (the collective perceptions that reveal a certain press on the environment) that UoA is a "white" campus (Strange, 2001).  Therefore, when Maori students arrive on campus, they experience instability by not having the immediate presence of similar students.  Because many Maori students are sometimes one of two or three students to come from their high school to Auckland, they arrive at the university alone and have difficulty searching for groups of students with whom they can relate.

University programs such as Maori orientation and the government-funded Tuakana mentoring program are designed to enable homophily to occur and build up the Maori students as their own type of community within the greater university environment.  Because these students are already a minority and many are coming from backgrounds of lower income, education, etc., it is a university priority to connect these students as early as possible to resources and support staff that can help them both ease their transition and give them the feeling that this is their university too.  This also occurs within the different faculties, with each one utilizing different strategies to build systems of support around their Maori students so they can succeed in their studies.

This is the University's Marae, a sacred meeting place used for many special occasions in Maori culture.  At Maori orientation (which takes place before the main orientation, the Maori students go through a powhiri (a Maori welcome ceremony) that officially welcomes them as part of the University of Auckland community and connects these students to the institution on a personal, cultural level.

I got to speak with several staff members at the university's Equity Office, and they are passionate advocates of these students groups which are in need of additional support.  The office described their approach to their work in this manner:  their first priority is to ensure that these groups are recognized through special events and resources on campus, and then their next priority is to celebrate the presence of these groups on campus.  A challenge that Vivienne (my fellow intern) and I are exploring is how do we ensure that we can also help Maori students better interact and make relationships with non-Maori students.  Although having a special orientation and tutor programs are proving effective in helping to better retain these students, other constituencies on campus are hoping to find new ways to help them integrate better with the rest of the student body.  Such an exposure to different peoples and cultures can be a great source of potential for developing these students, and so we are trying to find a balance between how to support Maori students exclusively as well as in a broader university context.

It's not an easy task to solve, but I'm enjoying searching for the answers!!  And these aren't even all of the challenges.  Although orientation and the Tuakana mentoring program help promote homophily and academic success respectively, other issues to be addressed include adjusting to the largest urban environment in NZ and cultivating the best familial support possible.

Like I said earlier this post, I'll be heading up to Northland this weekend to see where the Treaty of Waitangi was signed, so I'm pretty excited, considering the treaty has such a historical significance to NZ and a strong presence in today's society.  If all goes well, I also plan to head up to the northern most tip of NZ look out at the ocean!  Should be fun!

There and Back Again

Today is a post for multiple audiences!  First, the very different world of residence life in New Zealand, followed by visiting the real and awesome Shire from the Lord of the Rings trilogy out in the NZ countryside!

Accommodation Services in NZ
The residence hall experience (known as a hall of residence here) here is pretty different here than in the United States (and I'm not referring to New Zealand's seemingly indifferent attitude when it comes to heating).  First and foremost, over 80% of the student body is from Auckland and as a result are commuter students.  Many live at home since it doesn't make financial sense to live in a hall of residence when they can continue to live with their families.  A majority of the students who do live in halls of residence are generally from the rest of New Zealand or from out of the country itself.

Originally, residence life (known here as accommodation services) wasn't a university priority.  Kind of like how the '80s didn't hit Canada until the '90s (see video below), the university eventually chose to make the development of accommodation services a priority after seeing the benefits of such experiences for their students, with much of their data showing that a majority of the most satisfied first-year students were ones that were in halls of residence and viewed their experience favorably.  Now they want to keep expanding, but run into problems of funding and where to put them in a downtown metropolitan area (it doesn't exactly scream "room for campus expansion").

Just like in Canada, trends take awhile to travel the world.

 
Last week, I got to go on a tour of several of the campus residence halls (known here as halls of residence) that are geared primarily towards first-year students.  Unlike U.S. universities of Auckland's size and location, there is no 24-hour manned desk in the residence halls (although staff are available during business hours).  There are still RAs on duty, but each hall staff has a different system upon which they operate.

This leads to another aspect of campus that's significant to talk about: autonomy.  Many entities in within the university structure here are highly autonomous and develop their own ways of accomplishing required tasks or goals.  Going back to residence life/accommodation, each residence hall staff (director and RAs) work off of their own models of student support and programming rather than there being a university-wide system for accommodation programming.  This means that different halls of residence can have very different forms of satisfaction as well as different outcomes.

A unique hall of residence on campus is the recently-built University Hall.  The building and operation of the hall is outsourced to Campus Living Villages (CLV), a company that works in cooperation with colleges and universities around the world to provide new housing for college campuses without the campus needing to divert large amounts of funds, time, and resources to such a project.  Essentially, you contract out an entire residence hall. 

Sidebar:  A policy in this hall of residence is that consumption of alcohol is only allowed to take place within common areas, meaning residents are not allowed to drink in their rooms.  Since this policy is essentially the reverse of traditional policies I've seen in the U.S., so I figured it was worth mentioning.  (You may engage in a heated debate in the comment section below).

Basically, the hall director and the RA staff for the building are employed by CLV and report to them, while also reporting to those who work in Accommodation Services.  Accommodation still controls filling the hall, while CLV staff take care of all day-to-day and programming responsibilities for the hall.  It's definitely an interesting model, and one that Auckland was interested in because of their desire to improve the quality of service to all of their halls across campus.

There's more I could discuss on this, but I'll leave it for another time.  And now for an adventure in Hobbiton!


There and Back Again
Last weekend, I took a day trip out to the small town of Matamata , where just outside of it lies the actual place where the Shire was built for the Lord of the Rings (LoTR) trilogy.

Matamata's definitely embraced Hobbiton as a tourism
draw, as indicated by the creepy Gollum statue.

When the Shire was first built on the farm outside of Matamata, it was built with a lot of fake plastic and materials designed to be temporary, since it was only going to exist for the duration of LoTR's filming.  When there was a delay in tearing down the Shire set on the farm, people started visiting the location to see all of the Hobbit Holes still built into hills, and thus the idea for Hobbiton as a place to visit was born!  Once filming for "The Hobbit" was given the green light, the entire Shire was fully rebuilt with much more permanent materials with the idea that it will exist for as long as it can following the conclusion of filming for both Hobbit movies.

Everything you see is real.  That's just how incredible this place is.

The film crew actually took the time to build this Hobbit Holes into the hill.  Now, the actual filming that takes place inside houses like Bilbo's still takes place in studio sets in Wellington.  However, there's enough space beyond the door for a couple of people to walk into the houses and close the door behind them for when they are filming outside.  We were toured around the entire village, and as we arrived at a given place, we found out which scenes were filmed there and were shown exactly how the scene was filmed on the spot we were standing (such as Gandalf arriving in the Shire and Bilbo's birthday party.  To say this was cool would be like saying "One does not simply walk into Mordor." 

It was amazing how real the village and Shire looked, as it was all completely revamped within the last year and a half to do filming for The Hobbit.  Getting to walk up to Bag End and see the big (and surprisingly fake) oak tree above it was awesome.  The gardens in the village, however, are very real, and are actually tended to by four full-time garders, in addition to helping maintain various parts of the Shire and protecting it from any harmful weather.

You knew a picture like this was going to happen.  I can't help myself.

With a little under four weeks before my return to the states, I'm quickly thinking of what things I will do during the remainder of my stay here in NZ.  A trip to the South Island (Queenstown and Milford Sound, in particular) has already been booked, and I'm excited to find a couple more things to do before having to leave.  And so, that's all I've got, except for a nice up-close picture of Bag End.  Ciao for now!

I know I'll be ready to take "An Unexpected Journey" in December...