Mission - Wellington Institute of Technology

Research Highlights
These are some highlights of WelTec’s research output for 2005. A full Research Report is available from the
Academic Director.
Celebration
Senior WelTec Interior Design staff, Andrew Leach and Gill Matthewson, assisted with the organisation of Celebration:
the 22nd Annual Conference of the Society of Architectural Historians, a major international conference. Gill and
Andrew were responsible for academic standards and conference proceedings.
International Expectations
Senior Business Lecturer, Trish Baker worked on an investigation of what international students expect and what they
actually get from their education experience in New Zealand. The research has resulted in widely-used guidelines for
teaching international students.
Model Challenge
Information Technology Lecturer Steve McKinlay’s paper on Model-Theoretic Conception and Modelling Knowledge,
which appeared in the New Zealand Journal of Applied Computing and Information Technology, challenges the
validity of a popular approach to representing knowledge.
Working Doctors
Mike Smith contributed to a greater understanding of the problems faced by resident medical officers with an annotated
biobliography that reviewed their education and hours work and what had been done internationally to try to remedy the
problems faced by these professionals. This work was used as part of the ongoing discussions between the resident
medical doctors and their employers about conditions.
Do You Feel Lucky Punk
Senior Visual Arts Lecturer Grant Corbishley and Interior Design Lecturer Tony De Goldi worked collaboratively on
an installation for the JOC Jewellery Exhibition in Sydney. The installation, Do You Feel Lucky Punk, responded to the
concept of jewellery in a radical way and has attracted attention from around the world.
Organising Principles
Senior Visual Arts LecturerTutor Lorraine Rastorfer won the prestigious CoCA/Anthony Harper Contemporary Art
Award. The judges said they were impressed and enamoured by her work Organising Principles.
Beating Depression
Senior Counselling Lecturer Barbara Woods was invited to present a paper to an international conference in Oxford,
England on a school-based preventive depression programme trial. The trial has delivered very positive outcomes for
some vulnerable young people.
Integrated Treatment
Alcohol and Drug Studies Team Leader Raine Berry highlights some of the steps being taken to provide a more
cohesive and co-ordinated level of treatment for clients with coexisting addiction and mental health problems. Her
presentation on integrated treatment to the Cutting Edge Addictions Treatment Conference in Dunedin was well
received and has resulted in invitations to give advice to agencies around New Zealand.
International Recognition
Senior Interior Design Lecturer Andrew Leach received a significant research grant from the Institut Historique de
Belge a Rome to progress international architectural history research on Manfredo Tafuri’s œuvre for his doctorate at
the University of Ghent.
Healthy Eating
Cookery Lecturer Ben Shadbolt worked with diet and nutrition professionals on menu development for Kai for Kids
– a business providing meals to Early Years learning centres.
Quality Education
Visiting Research Fellow Jenny Thornton worked with WelTec to prepare two discussion papers for the Ministry of
Education on quality assuring the delivery process of qualifications to achieve learner satisfaction and value for money
in the tertiary education sector. The work considered the impact of Transactional Six Sigma philosophy as applied to
the delivery of government funded training.
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