Welcome back from the mid-semester break! I hope that the semester break called for both a break from study and a break from lectures so that you could catch up on study. Over the Easter break, I attended University Games which was held in the Taranaki. New Plymouth- being my home town- was an excellent host for the games. We enjoyed splendid weather when we were there and the week was filled with social festivities of all kinds. Massey Albany once again won the Small Campus Trophy at Uni Games which should bring a great deal of pride to all of us as part of this high-spirited community.

As we are now over more than half way for Semester One, we should be in the third gear, accelerating to the fourth towards the inevitable final exams at the end of the semester. I encourage you to continue staying on top of their workloads so that you can have the capacity to squeeze more “juice” and go that extra mile for the final exams to achieve academic excellence at the end of the semester.

I recently attended the Massey University Albany Graduation Ceremony for 2009 and College of Business Dean’s List Award ceremony. It was inspiring to see so many graduates and Dean’s List recipients celebrating their academic achievements with their family, friends and Massey academic staff. Once again, I would like to congratulate all of the Massey graduands. It is a remarkable achievement and one of the many positive milestones in life.

Over the next few months, I am planning to meet with the Heads of Departments to oversee the strategic direction that each College will be taking in terms of their Education Policy. This is an unexplored opportunity that will lead to further clarity to the future growth on education initiatives and matters that exist at the Albany campus.

The ASA executive committee has been considering introducing a number of scholarships which will be offered to ASA members (that’s you). If it all goes as planned, we should be able to offer these in 2010, so watch this space.

Finally, congratulations to our Massey University Engineering students who won at the VEX international World Robotics championships in Dallas last week. Four engineering students competed in the world champs in the university league. The competition involves the design, construction and programming of a remote-controlled robot to take part in a game where cubes have to be placed in “goals”. The VEX robotics competition has been gathering momentum is New Zealand since being launched at Massey University’s School of Engineering and Advanced Technology in Albany last year. The competition drew 2000 students, comprising of 200 teams and 13 countries. Once again, your work and effort continues to makes us proud.