A new tohu helps to find the path
SOMEONE asked me the other day what surprised me most about New Zealand culture when I first moved here from the United States.
Immediately, my mind was flooded with the initial shock of landing at Dunedin Airport after being promised a city and wondering if I was going to be living on a farm for the coming years.
Or potentially, how a small island can take so long to drive compared to our sevenlane superhighways spanning America.
But then I fell upon the answer I relayed to them. I was, and continually am, so shocked about the immense colonial influence within the country. From the first time I played the drinking game many years ago of ‘‘Save the Queen’’ at BYOs, to last year when studying environmental law learning the common term near waterways is ‘‘Queen’s Chain’’, or when speaking more generally it becomes ‘‘Crown Land’’.
Crown land? What?
There is such a strange juxtaposition between knowing I boarded a plane, flew 15 hours south from my home state of California, and landed on an island in the South Pacific, just to hear more about the Queen and British royalty throughout all aspects of life.
This, however, is not a discussion about etymology, as interesting as that may be. Rather, I want to discuss my experience as a student and the new brand identity of the University of Otago.
For those not in the know, the university has changed its tohu (symbol) as well as its ikoa Maori ¯ (Maori ¯ name).
The new ikoa Maori ¯ is now takou ¯ Whakaihu Waka, a metaphor meaning a place of many firsts.
As a student who has been at the university for the past six years and who is now the student president, this change seems so obvious. Let me explain.
First and foremost, it is time for the university to acknowledge its geopositioning. It is at the bottom of a country, at the bottom of the world. The whole ‘‘almost Oxford’’ or ‘‘Oxford of the South’’ identity it has carried for the past decades is ridiculous.
It is not Oxford and we can all be so glad of that. I can’t even imagine how uncomfortable I would feel in an Oxfordlike setting; how less approachable my professors would have been, or how poor of outdoorsmen my lecture mates would be.
The new brand shifts this perception and identity to one that can stand alone without connection to another place, rooted in the sense of self and tangata whenua.
Aotearoa New Zealand may have once been defined by the colonial structures and affiliations to the massive colonising force that was the British Empire, but that is no longer.
The new brand identity leads the charge in its field and acknowledges we are not just a wannabe British university, people take. tied down by colonial pasts. Students choose to study at Rather, we are takou ¯ Otago for the experience.O ¯ From Whakaihu Waka. A Te Tiritiled living 400m from your best university in the South Pacific. mates in North Dunedin, to the Secondly, the new ikoa Maori ¯ Hyde St Party, to some of the is so incredibly right for the coolest field study programmes experience of university. It is a in remote mountains — Otago is place of many firsts. Anyone can about the student experience. recall the massive personal There is something uniquely growth they experience at different about Otago. This new university, most of which are brand identity shows it and is defined by firsts. defined by it.
First time you did a keg Not many, if any, universities stand? First time forgetting to have a tohu that is so deeply take the bins out only to leap out connected to the place it is. The of bed when you hear the truck? symbol is representative of and First time you realise ¯ everyonetheObasedon takou ¯ channel. around you is smarter, except That resonates much more the people in your group with me than a random coat of project? arms, and that is not just
If we are to define university because I have a physical as an institution for pushing geography degree. boundariesTheOoraplaceof ¯ takou ¯ channel breathes knowledge and learning, it is life into our town. It breathed then defined by the many firsts life into the harbour long before the town, university, or anything else was even around. The new tohu speaks to how long lasting our university will be.
It feels so glaringly obvious this new brand identity is the correct one. One that should have been done years ago, if not from the beginning.
It is that feeling in tramping when you refind the track and look back to the dense bush you came out of compared to the nicely formed track, shocked you veered off so much.
I am immensely proud to be a part of this transformed university and lucky to be in this corner of the world. Even if the airport is a mission and ahalf away and the highways are onelane.