Talk:University of Auckland

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copied from Auckland University page bfore it was made into a redirect:

New Zealand's largest university, The University of Auckland was established in 1883, and serves New Zealand's primate city - Auckland. The University is situated in the heart of the cosmopolitan city of Auckland and provides for 33,500 students.

The University's comprehensive range of research-based study programmes is internationally recognised, and attracts postgraduate and undergraduate students from all over the world. Graduates of the University of Auckland occupy leading positions in business, law, medicine, politics and the professions within New Zealand and overseas. Currently 4,800 international students from more than 100 different countries have chosen to study at Auckland. Their different perspectives and cultures enrich the entire University community.

Teaching and research is conducted in seven Faculties on three campuses. These include Architecture, Property, Planning and Fine Arts, Arts, Business and Economics, Engineering, Law, Medical and Health Sciences, and Science. In addition there are more than 30 interdisciplinary research clusters in the University ranging from small units to large institutes which conduct research in emerging fields that cross knowledge boundaries.

The University enjoys international status as the only New Zealand university invited to join Universitas 21 and the Association of Pacific Rim Universities. Membership of both groups is by invitation and limited to research-led institutions of international reputation across a broad spectrum of disciplines.

Contents

[edit] Categories

This article is already in Category:Universities and colleges in New Zealand, which has as a parent Category:New Zealand education, which has as a parent Category:New Zealand and which I've just given as a parent Category:Education by nationality. It seems unnecessary to me to have this article in Category:New Zealand and Category:Education directly. If no one objects, I'll remove these two categories from the article.-gadfium 20:22, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Is Auckland NZ's primate city?

Header says it all. Is Auckland really the country's primate city. ):-. Moriori 20:34, Oct 12, 2004 (UTC)

Yup - more primates live there than in any other NZ city :)

[edit] Doctoral students

Someone put question marks after the statement in the introduction that UoA has 1200 doctoral students. See this pdf file, which at the top of page 3 says The overall response rate to the survey was 42.4% (552 respondents). The survey was taken in 2004.-gadfium 03:27, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Table 1.1 on page 4 of the Doctoral Student Survey report says that there were 1204 PhD students (and roughly 100 students in other doctoral programmes) as at 30 August 2004. -- Avenue 03:39, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
I only read as far through the report as I needed to!
I'll update the article with the 1300 number.
It's a little bit disturbing that in table 1.1 they got a single respondent to the survey from the Doctor of Medicine programme, but the total population of that programme is 0.-gadfium 05:08, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
For some reason, I was reading "doctoral candidates" as "PhD candidates". Thanks for updating the number. Apart from the obvious explanation for the MD candidate (i.e. that someone ticked the wrong box), it's possible that someone started on the degree between August and October (when the survey took place). -- Avenue 08:24, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Unofficial LATEX thesis class available for PhD and Masters students

See Uathesis for the LaTeX class

Zven 10:16, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Proposed merger / Proposed restoration of Dept of Political Studies page

Hi, I am proposing to merge Department of Political Studies (Auckland, New Zealand) into this article. Why? Because the department itself is not notable, and much of the text is copied from the department's website. Very few university departments have their own wikipage, including many far more notable ones. (I was considering WP:AfD, but some of the info could be used here).

  • The University of Auckland page and the Department of Political Studies page do not deal with exactly the same subject.
  • Although the two pages are related (one is subordinate to the other on an institutional basis), they have only a limited subject relationship (being academic). In any event, there is no large overlap.
  • The Department of Political Studies page is not a "very short" page unsuitable for or incapable of expansion. It is quite comprehensive. The merger of the material into the University of Auckland page would necessitate the removal of a large amount of the material.
  • Notability or otherwise is not a stated requirement for a Wikipedia page. The Department, on the basis of its size and standing, is certainly the most notable in New Zealand in any event, and is one of the largest in Australasia. I would suggest that the nominator might have proposed this merger in part due to their association with Victoria University of Wellington. My suggestion would be for the nominator to create an equivalent page if they think another department is more notable or is otherwise worthy of a Wikipedia page.
  • The page is significant, in part, because the Department is the alma mater of several significant New Zealanders, and is known to be such.
  • Regarding the source and nature of the material on the page: Some of the material seems to be a distillation of existing sources, with additional material not otherwise accessible.
  • The Department of Political Studies page contains interesting historical information that cannot be easily accessed at an alternative source. The page also contains photographs from a collection (with authorisation from the Department) that cannot be accessed elsewhere. Neither the historical information, nor the photographs could be easily merged with the University of Auckland page.
  • Department/faculty pages exist for a number of New Zealand universities.
  • Pages re New Zealand universities are underdeveloped compared to pages re universities elsewhere. Merging or removing the Department of Political Studies page would be a backwards step in this regard. 202.180.115.127 22:07, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
I don't see why Department of Political Studies (Auckland, New Zealand) shouldn't remain as a stand-alone article. It's certainly got enough content. That there are more notable departments within the university which don't have their own pages is not a good argument: perhaps they will have their own pages later. Any text copied from the University web-site should be removed as a copyvio. If that brings the content down to a stub, I'll reconsider.- gadfium 22:33, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
Oppose merger - Substantial department of major university? Why should that not be notable? Article looks quite good as well (and much too large for a merger anyway), though I don't have any familiarity with the subject matter itself. Also note that even copy-vio is not copy-vio anymore if somebody simply takes the time to present the INFORMATION (which in this case certainly cannot have a copyright) in other words. MadMaxDog 09:25, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

supporting the merger: I don't know why the POLS department at Auckland can't get a paragraph under the university's entry, but I would really doubt the veracity of any claim that says it's worth a whole page of its own. And I think that the VUW pols department is more notable than Auckland's at any rate, so maybe we should give them a page. Oh, and then the other 25 schools at Vic, and then all the schools at all the universities in New Zealand. Or, Oceania. Or the world. After all, maybe buried somewhere deep down in Wikipedia's raison d'etre is the idea that Wikipedia should make corporate websites (like A. Uni's) redundant. Kripto 22:47, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Well, it's gone! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 125.237.72.98 (talk) 07:46, 23 January 2007 (UTC).

Who removed this page and why? The balance of comment seemed to be in favour of retaining the page. Nicknz 09:05, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] What studies?

The people who are listed as having studied there - should be a table instead, listing when and what. But I do not know enough to make a good start... MadMaxDog 09:03, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] PBRF Report

One editor has been removing the information that the University came second in the 2006 PBRF rankings, after having come first in the 2003 ranking. They added instead that the University came first in three key measures. I think it is reasonable to include both pieces of information. The Performance Based Research Fund article gives only the overall quality scores, but other University articles mention particular areas of strength for that University in the results. Any comments?-gadfium 06:12, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

It seems a little bit of a case of shifting goalposts. Up until Friday, it said that Auckland topped the PBRF[1], but now that it's quality score is lower than Otago's it keeps getting deleted. As an interesting historical note, after the 2003 round, Otago's press releases focussed on it getting the greatest increase in funding.
I do think there are a number of ways of considering success in PBRF, but TEC themselves singled out highest overall score (Otago) and the number of A quality researchers (Auckland) [2]. I think you can argue there are a number of key measures, and Auckland perhaps topped some of them. The "key" funding measures mentioned are not normed against institution size. It's not surprising that Auckland has higher external grant funding, research degree completions, or the largest slice of the funding pie. It is, afterall, almost 50% bigger than either Otago or Massey (the next biggest TEOs). This is pretty disingenious as well "With only 18 percent of PBRF-eligible staff in New Zealand's 33 tertiary institutions it gained 30 percent of PBRF funding". The universities get 99% of the funding (and the top 4 70%ish), so they all have similarly good stats (e.g., Otago 14% of PBRF eligble staff and 21% of the funding). Perhaps, rather than too much extra spin, it would be simply worth noting that the top 3 universities were very close. --Limegreen 07:09, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

I have updated the page with a purely factual entry which I hope compromises sufficiently. I have removed references to Otago from the Auckland pages as there are no references to Auckland on Otago I feel this is only fair. In reply to your point about Auckland's size, please note that the results for the insitution were disproprtionate to its size.Bluekiwi 20:54, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Actually, I'd encourage you to do some math on that. The big surprise is that Lincoln pulled in more money per staff member in External Grant funding. Not surprising is that per staff member, Otago pulled in more money on Quality Evaluation (which is obvious given that it is based on the headline Quality Evaluation figure). Auckland topped research degree completions (just ahead of Canterbury).
As to why Auckland topped the "key measures of funding" are a) its size b) it's rating second on quality (which is where most of the money went) and c) the high rate of research degree completion (especially relative to Otago). I don't object to the new text (or the removal of the mention of Otago). It does slightly amuse me that when Auckland is number one it was phrased as "topped", whereas when its number 2 it's "one of the highest", although there was not a great deal in it. --Limegreen 06:09, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

I've noticed that people have started changing the PBRF wording again - I thought it was agreed to leave as 16 May edition? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Bluekiwi (talk • contribs).

I think we agreed that the 16th of May edition was better than the previous versions, but nothing here is static. However, several other editors have made various tweaks on the wording, including students at the University of Auckland [3]. It would appear that the general consensus is to be more specific, ie, use the word "second", rather than one of the top. --Limegreen 02:22, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Note: University of Auckland is no longer considered the number one university as of 2007, this needs to be changed.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 124.197.39.92 (talk • contribs).

[edit] International Students

as of Dec 2007 English requirements and fees for international students are:

fees for 120 point load (1 year) range from NZ$19000 to $27863 except Medicine $53000 Optometry $36306

TOEFL paper 513 computer 213 TWE 4.5 FCertEAP C IELTS 6.0--Billymac00 (talk) 19:31, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] 125th Jubilee History & references

I see there is a history being published for the 125th Jubilee. There is some possibly useful retrospectives on the website at the moment which might also give useful references for this article. See http://www.auckland.ac.nz/uoa/about/uoa/history/125jubilee/retrospectives/retrospectives.cfm for a list. Karora 23:52, 12 May 2008 (UTC)