Te Aro Campus Blues

VUW isn’t doing a good job looking after their Design and Architecture students. The very obvious lack of student health services, student support services, exclusion from O-week activities, absence of events, and the general absence of student associations, clubs, and advocacy groups from Te Aro Campus is damning. Yet the university has the audacity to keep charging us student levys fees for services they are barely providing? Ma’am? Sir? Please, make it make sense???

As a Māori student, the struggle is too real. In addition to the aforementioned general student issues, Māori students also face challenges of cultural incompetency amongst faculty and students and lack of education around Te Tiriti o Waitangi in course content. We are in a constant uphill battle to have mātauranga recognised and respected within course content. The journey to gaining a qualification is exhausting and lonely, and it's made worse when there isn’t a social and cultural community to bitch and wine with. The only dedicated space for māori on Te Aro campus is a small corner room shared with Pasifika students, which can only accommodate about six students at a time.

Māori students aren’t the only ones feeling the absence and exclusion of Te Ao Māori. Many tangata Tiriti have quietly begun to gather alongside tangata whenua sharing concerns around the faculty’s apparent lack of commitment to Te Tiriti. They too are ready to rally for better commitment and change. If you can’t read my intention in acknowledging these developments, hear me well: Accountability is coming for you FADI. I hope you’re ready to suck it…up and change.

I’ve participated in enough student rep/committee/ association meetings to know that the challenges at Te Aro are not a secret. Students and faculty members alike have acknowledged these issues, but there seems to be very little commitment in achieving resolution. My favourite responses when issues are brought to attention include “change takes a really long time”, “nobody shows up to anything anyway”, and “we don’t have the budget to fix this problem”. Excuses, excuses! Our tauira deserve better and we should be taking action to address these long-standing issues.

Much needs to change within Design and Archi to ensure the health and success of its students. Finding a solution to this problem requires collective investment and effort—from upper management, faculty, student services, student associations, and tauira. This will make  substantive and meaningful change towards creating a better learning environment for the innovators and designers of tomorrow.

Please, for the love of all that is holy in design and architecture—do better, be better!