Students come for lectures and learning, but they also come for the possibility of staying in Aotearoa (Photo: Getty Images)

OPINIONSocietyOctober 7, 2020

We know there is structural racism in our universities. So how should they change?

Giselle Byrnes

Guest writer

Students come for lectures and learning, but they also come for the possibility of staying in Aotearoa (Photo: Getty Images)

The current conversation should prompt all universities to closely examine both how and what they teach, writes Massey University provost Giselle Byrnes.

Much has been said lately about structural racism in the New Zealand university system. While these allegations have been specifically raised at the University of Waikato, all eight of the country’s universities have been positioned as guilty by association. What does this mean and how might our universities thoughtfully respond?

The recent Gardiner Parata Report, commissioned to examine claims of racism at the University of Waikato, exonerated the vice chancellor and university management of the specific charges, but concluded that “public institutions in our country are founded in our settlement history, including our universities and education system, which also embody and adhere to western university tradition and culture” and that “these institutions therefore, are structurally, systemically, and casually discriminatory”.

For those of us who work in the New Zealand university system, accusations of systemic, structural and casual racism and the explanation offered for this do not come as a huge surprise. This is not to say that we ought to condone racist thought and behaviour or accept discrimination, or that we should continue to ignore the invisible dominance of structural whiteness, but it is to admit this is our reality – and that we need to do something about it.

While this country’s universities have evolved and adapted over time to suit our local conditions, they are nonetheless part and parcel of the wider colonial enterprise, and they are enduring products of our colonial history. In the British invasion and resettlement of Aotearoa New Zealand in the 19th century, education was given a place in the vanguard of settlement and universities, as public institutions and places of higher learning and scholarship, were quickly prioritised. The first New Zealand university was established in the South Island as early as 1869, while the rest of the colony was still in the grip of a brutal war of sovereignty. Our forebears recognised that power and authority were buttressed by institutionalised and codified knowledge, and universities were a key part of this plan.

Universities also have a longer history that pre-dates British ambitions of imperial expansion into the south Pacific. Tracing their intellectual lineage back to the very first academies in ancient Greece and north Africa, universities have historically been seen as places of importance in carving out a new social order and in defining what mattered. While the very first European universities had strong religious affiliations and focused on theology, law, medicine and the arts, the variety of academic disciplines we recognise today is a much later development, a gift of German 19th century rationalism.

Fast forward to the present and universities are now also public institutions with a mandate to exercise civic leadership; to deliver wider social benefits that go well beyond their narrowly funded activities of teaching and research. According to the 1989 Education Act, universities in New Zealand are expected to be concerned with advanced learning and to develop intellectual independence. They are defined as repositories of knowledge and expertise, places where research and teaching are closely interdependent, and they are expected to meet international standards of research and teaching. And significantly, universities in New Zealand accept a role as “critic and conscience” of society.

If universities, as social and cultural institutions, are products of their day, then this does not mean they are inherently racist and impervious to change. Just as society itself has shifted, universities can and do change over time – and often at a faster pace than they are usually given credit for. Think, for instance, of the ways in which New Zealand’s universities and their staff rapidly pivoted to respond to the Covid-19 pandemic, most moving teaching online within a matter of days to ensure continuity of learning and support for students, or the contribution made by our universities’ scientists, epidemiologists and data modellers.

So, if they are capable of change, what should our universities do? I think we must begin to examine both how and what we teach – including the content of our curriculum – alongside re-examining the frames of reference we use to conduct research. Decolonising the curriculum, one of the catch-cries of the Black Lives Matter movement, is seen as being fundamental to effecting any real change. After all, universities create new knowledge, shape the next generation of leaders and signal, by virtue of what appears in the curriculum and which knowledge systems have value. Acknowledging that universities have a history steeped in colonisation, we ought to also be debating just what a decolonised curriculum can and should look like

As Savo Heleta has observed in the context of South Africa, the dismantling of the “pedagogy of big lies” rooted in colonialism demands a complete reconstruction of everything that universities do and stand for, “from institutional cultures to epistemology and curriculum”. Haleta and others have called for ambitious change, for new ways of teaching, for a revision of curriculum content and embracing research methods that “engage in critical epistemic questioning” of knowledge.

What I am advocating for is a sceptical and conscious interrogation of our dominant knowledge systems, and an exposé of the privilege and power that these knowledge systems preserve. My own university has already committed to being a Te Tiriti o Waitangi led university, the first of its kind, which means tackling the sort of challenges I have outlined above. For some this is an audacious (even naive) aspiration, while others express surprise that we are not yet there. Our journey has just started and we have some way to go. If indeed the past is unjust – and in the context of the history of our country, this is irrefutable – then it does not mean this must be the case for the future. Universities have a responsibility to ensure this is so.

Keep going!

(Image: The Spinoff)

SocietyOctober 7, 2020

Welcome to Mouldy-wood, Aotearoa

Peter McKenzie

Guest writer

(Image: The Spinoff)

New analysis confirms what residents have long suspected: Wellington is substantially mouldier and damper than other New Zealand cities.

“My flat had holes in the walls, letting slugs in to roam freely over my shoes and into the shower,” says Zoë Vaunois, a student at Victoria University of Wellington. “Similar holes also let spiders in which bit me and got infected. But hey, apparently we should be grateful to have a flat at all right?”

The common focus in discussions about Wellington City’s housing is quantity. But new analysis of census data has illustrated that the capital’s housing crisis is equally a matter of quality. Work by Infometrics senior economist Brad Olsen demonstrates that Wellington’s housing is significantly mouldier and damper than the average metropolitan centre in New Zealand, risking the health of residents.

Yet as Wellington City Council finalises its Draft Spatial Plan – a housing and infrastructure blueprint for the next 30 years which recommends prioritising greener, more compact and more affordable housing – it has been criticised by some residents for insufficiently protecting Wellington’s existing “architectural heritage”.

According to Olsen, when compared to the average across metropolitan centres like Auckland, Dunedin and Christchurch, Wellington City has a higher proportion of mouldy housing. Nearly 12,700 Wellington houses are sometimes or always mouldy – 18.4% of the capital’s housing. That’s higher than the metropolitan average of 18.1% and the New Zealand average of 16.9%. Wellington’s mouldy housing is also disproportionately damp: 24.2% of its housing is damp some or all of the time, higher than the metropolitan average of 22.6% and the national average of 21.5%.

Isabella Lenihan-Ikin, President of the New Zealand Union of Students Association, has experienced the challenges of Wellington housing firsthand. “In my second year of study, I lived in a flat in Kelburn. The flat had been so neglected by the landlord that mould covered the walls and the house leaked. My asthma became so bad that I developed a severe respiratory infection and had to take six weeks off university and study. I ended up in isolation with suspected whooping cough just because the house I lived in was substandard.”

Wellington also leads in the proportion of houses with no heating. Nearly 3,400 houses in the city – 4.8% – had no heating, higher than the national average of 4%. Olson is emphatic about the need for reform. “Wellington City’s housing is in need of a serious revamp to get our dwellings up to scratch. We need a step change to address the critical issues of quality [to provide] places for people to live and thrive,” he says.

Wellington’s mouldy, damp and cold housing is concentrated in student-heavy areas. Over 40% of houses in Aro Valley – a favourite among students for its proximity to Victoria University – are damp some or all of the time. Other areas with large populations of students also struggled with warmth. Between 15.5% and 24.5% of houses in Wellington Central, Dixon Street, Vivian, Courtenay and Mount Cook had no heating.

“Literally every flat I’ve lived in has had damp and mouldy windows … My clothes have to be aired out constantly so they don’t get mouldy too,” says Lauren Taylor, a young professional who lives in Wellington. “I had to throw out heaps [of clothes] last year because everything in our apartment got so mouldy.”

“The combination of poor protections for renters, the city-wide housing shortage and students’ economic vulnerability is responsible for the poor housing that students are forced to live in,” says Lenihan-Ikin. “Students have no choice but to live in unhealthy and outrageously expensive housing. It puts the health of students at risk.”

Wellington has the third lowest home-ownership rate in New Zealand, meaning the majority of Wellingtonians rent. They pay some of the country’s highest rents – an average of $604 per week (over $40 ahead of Auckland).

To fight this housing quality crisis, Wellington City Council has put forward the Draft Spatial Plan, which seeks to encourage more compact and greener housing – likely at the expense of some currently heritage-protected buildings. Keep Wellington’s Character, a lobby group which opposes the Plan, argues it would unfairly strip ‘character suburbs’ of protection. It noted that, “Just like you wouldn’t expect a towering glass multi-storey to pop up along the Champs-Élysées in Paris or canal-side next to an 18th century Dutch Renaissance style house in Amsterdam, [Wellington City’s existing] protections help define what development is appropriate where.”

But Olsen argued that, “The Draft Spacial Plan has a more surgical approach to identifying and protecting heritage and character, instead of a blanket protection for things simply being old… Simply noting that something is 90-plus years old shouldn’t be enough to protect something and dismiss all other considerations.” The data makes clear, according to Olsen, that without reform Wellington’s heritage housing will remain “damp and mouldy [and] shivering cold.”