THE BONE CARVER

The faint aroma of cooking meat could be discerned in the kitchen as I walked in there one lazy afternoon to wash my coffee mug. Judging from the dewiness of the scent, I gathered he was boiling something.

I turned off the tap and gently laid my mug upside down in the center of the dish drainer. I lifted the cover off the stainless steel pot and looked inside. An off-white, dirt-smudged, thigh bone – probably from a cow – lay in the shallow water, simmering from the heat of the gas range. Bubbles of air pushed their way to the surface. Resilient pieces of red meat still stubbornly clung to the bone.

“I have to draw out the remaining fat from the bone,” he explained from the kitchen doorway, answering a question I had not posed to him. He had emerged from room, where he liked to copy an assortment of music cds, borrowed from the library, to his cache of media files. The headphones were no longer clipped to his ears.

All the material things he possesses are second hand, retrieved from piles of garbage brought out to the sidewalk before collection day, or bought cheaply from opportunity shops, where he browses more frequently than on occasion. Even the bones he used for carving are second hand, carefully selected and then stored away after the dogs were done gnawing on them.

“After the remaining oils seep out, I have to dry it out for several days. It makes the carving easier.”

He had begun another project in tandem with this latest meat boil, had already drawn the outlines of a symbol on a previous one, the roughly sketched outlines of a figure indicating that the bone on this one was dry, but was also in the middle of a finishing the touches on an amulet, a tiki tiki, for me.

This work in progress was tucked securely in one palm, the fingers of the other, deftly filing and sawing at the figurine, as he spoke to me from the doorway.  

When he and I met in February of this year, it was at a bus stop across from the Mangere East public library, where he had asked me if he could have a taste of the banana sago soup that sat in a plastic container. On that day, deciding I would go to another poetry writing workshop the following afternoon, I had stopped at a Polynesian counter restaurant to sample the grayish liquid and stop the craving for something starchy and not too heavy.  

To me, he looked like an interloper, rough and a little on edge. The body art, which covered the length of his arms and the curly unkempt hair, contained by a single ponytail, made him look tougher.

Months later these outer layers, personality traits that characterized his reticence, peeled off to reveal a hidden, gentler nature. His voice had softened and he easily spoke about music – an obsession – and annoying things that crossed his path.

With obvious mdesty, he occasionally spoke about the carving tips he had acquired here and there, presumably from various, informed sources. One day he showed me an earlier wood carving, over which he had labored, to reveal a latent talent downplayed by low-toned revelations.

I went with him one day to Mitre 10 to buy a new set of filing tools. He thought it fit to treat himself to new ones so that his work could be more masterful. This purchase would replace the decaying set already in his possession.

Using these new tools, he smoothed out the edges of the amulet. He had left the kitchen doorway and now sat on the edge of the stone steps at the front of the house. He drilled and edged like a master carver, releasing bone fragments that blew onto and clung to his shirt. When he finally finished, the tiki tiki was an exact replica of the model that was his inspiration, right down to the firm upper lip that marked the face of a warrior.       

Preparing for carving

A work in progress

Still refining

Almost there . . . 

One more step . . . 

Finished tiki tiki

WEAK INSTITUTIONS AND THE CULPABILITY OF THE US DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION

In late September, after meeting with a senior advocate at Auckland University in late September and making a brief stop at the Human Rights Commission at the bottom of Queen Street, I decided to spend the rest of this sunny, spring afternoon trekking to Ponsonby, a well-to-do neighborhood in the Auckland hills overlooking the harbor. With independent cafes named Clear Water Peak and Bam Bing Ponsonby, and thrift shops selling affordable, expensive looking boutiquey clothing, Ponsonby is New Zealand’s answer to Tribeca in New York City. From my table at the AllPress Café, a fair trade business occupying a sliver of sitting space barely large enough for five customers, I have a clear view of the Sky Tower’s peak in the distance. Here, the main thoroughfare is Ponsonby Road, and despite the noise the busy traffic generates, it is nothing compared to the congestion and bustle of Queen Street and Newmarket.

            As I sip my fair trade coffee, allowing the bitter brew to linger on my palate, I take notice of the difference in my stress level. Compared to this morning, when I anxiously awaited my 11:30 am meeting with the senior advocate, I am now much calmer and happier. Simply by physically removing myself from the university environment and making the transition into another part of the city, my mood changed considerably. I realize that I live in two different worlds in New Zealand. In one world, I can enjoy a fairly normal life, where I go for the occasional run, sightsee landscapes and town settlements, where I learn a little bit about the history of neighborhood places, tick off errands on my various to-do lists, and have random conversations with people.  

The other world is the university, where I have become preoccupied with university politics and the uneasy sense of being confronted with the unknown, a feeling that should not even be there. In university life, there should be the certainty that efforts spent on academic work will reap positive rewards. I have always understood that this nexus between studying and academic success is a normal if not accepted part of university life, but the academic experience in New Zealand is surprisingly antithetical to this knowing. Unlike my previous graduate experiences in Australia and America, in which I could always count on making the grade if I put in the effort and could rely on an honest appraisal of my assignments, in New Zealand the diligence, discipline, and meticulous efforts invested in my academic work means little. Here, I sense that something else underlies the assessment that only the academic staff understand. I can connect this sense to quantitative and qualitative evidence that emerge in the labor demographics of the university and in the comments rendered about my research proposal.

The most recent decisions by the university leadership, with respect to my stringent efforts to retain my doctorate standing at the University of Auckland, merely stokes my suspicions that something else is at work here. Since meeting with the Senior Advocate, I have lodged and filed two appeals with the university leadership, including the Office of the Vice Chancellor. In both appeals, I highlighted the errors in the interpretation of policies (including the assertion that doctorate students could not appeal decisions by the Board of Graduate Studies) and the lack of merit in the comments from both my PhD Committee and that reviewing my final research proposal, all of which I argued amounted to a biased judgment of my academic work and of my doctorate candidacy. What I realized, after receiving the response from two leaders of the Graduate School and the Office of the Vice Chancellor was that not only is there a reluctance to follow rules and regulations, there is just as much a tendency to rubber stamp a student out of a doctorate program. These responses reinforced the understanding that the leadership does not exercise the checks and balances embedded in the university by virtue of its mission statement and the New Zealand federal laws that apply to the protection of individuals from unfair treatment. Also to my surprise, from these responses to my appeals from the university leadership, I discovered that they are not aware of the responsibilities and obligations of the University of Auckland to the partnership agreement signed with its education partners. Called the Program Partner Agreement (PPA), this document is a contract made between the US Department of Education and all of its education partners in regards to the administration of the US federal loans (the US federal loan is funded by the US Department of Education). Among other things, this agreement governs areas of academic administration.      

             This moment at the AllPress Café is representative of the intersection of the two worlds that now defines my life in New Zealand. At the same time, I am cognizant of the fact that all this drama riddled with unnecessary stress, time and mind energy spent on reviewing policies and laws, etc. can all be avoided if the US Department of Education bothered to review universities seeking partnership with the US Federal Loan Program beyond statements of academic quality and capabilities. I can only presume that the US DOE does not have the staff power to scrutinize every international university, but my experience with two universities in New Zealand should give them reason to start doing so now. In the two years I have studied in New Zealand, I have discovered that copyright rules and supervising guidelines are not observed and are likely not enforced. Massey University, for instance, has demonstrated a failure to exercise compliance with its policies when one of its doctorate students returned to India empty-handed following the plagiarism of his research. As I had explained in an earlier blog, when this student was about to graduate, someone had published his research exactly as he had written and designed it. Most universities, if not all, in OECD countries require that when hiring students to conduct research, students must not only be guided to pursue their own research topics, but also be given credit for their contribution to a publication. This policy generally complies with the labor laws of the OECD country.  

            In my case, my former supervisor at Massey implied that I did not have copyright ownership over the research I designed. When I answered in the affirmative to her question about whether or not I could take and continue my research with me to the University of Auckland (keep in mind that my studies have been funded entirely with US federal loans), she answered, “no!” What makes her response to this question even funnier is in the way she interpreted the university copyright policy. She was of the opinion that the university would be given copyright ownership through solely commercial interest; she failed to see that commercial interest is indicated by giving a scholarship to the student. The terms of the credit given to the student with respect to the scholarship are then negotiated and succinctly defined. This example is just one of many reoccurring errors in interpreting policies throughout the time I have spent in New Zealand as a doctorate student. The most recent was the assertion that I cannot take my fight to retain my doctorate standing at the University of Auckland any further than the Vice Chancellor. Others have corrected him, including an ombudsman at the Ministry of Education.

The failure to exercise the system of checks and balances normally associated with tertiary institutions implies that the university neither observes nor respects accountability. When this is the case, disciplinary action against academic staff is rarely taken and further implies that the university does not view its academic aspirations very seriously. Moreover, failing to follow the rules of due process or exercise checks and balances when the situation requires it, the university conveys the message that rules matter very little – except perhaps when the enforcement of which fits the university’s agenda.

The virtual absence of jurisprudence in the conduct of academic staff at the University of Auckland triggers feelings of doubt about my future in my program from not knowing what awaits me at the end of this road. This inability to rest comfortably in my academic capacities is an uneasy feeling for a doctorate student and the experience is unlike anything I have experienced in my previous graduate trainings. Rather, it feels more like a game of chicken: I make a move to defend myself after reviewing my rights as they are laid out in the university statutes, to which the university responds by circumventing the issue (i.e. not directly answering my questions) or outright lying about the policy.

And, so, I continue to appeal the decisions to terminate my doctoral candidacy in order to retain my doctorate standing. More than US$50,000, after all, is quite a lot of money to invest for half-baked guidance and supervising. 

At least I can still take photos of street scenes in this quest to enlighten myself about the more intimate parts of Auckland. After this day, I returned to this Ponsonby neighborhood to capture the buoyant, yet languid, pace of what I consider so far to be the hippest part of Auckland City. 

One of Ponsonby's architectural relics

Auckland City Centre on the horizon

Outdoor Cafe

Ponsonby intersection

Neighborhood Park

Further inside a plant store

Ponsonby neighborhood

More retail stores

Trendy sidewalk

PRIVILEGING PAKEHA AND THE SUBJUGATION OF RULES, REGULATIONS, AND STANDARDS

A strong research environment was what I thought defined Massey University. Besides the attractive, interdisciplinary culture of the School of People, Environment and Planning, the CV my primary supervisor there sent to me was top notch: three degrees and a long list of co-authored articles covering about two pages. Even though her background did not include urban planning, my core field, I believed she offered to be my supervisor because she had an interest in my research topic. I had submitted a tentative research proposal along with my doctorate studies application in late 2011. I was understandably impressed by her career achievements, having become the head of the Environment and Resource Conservation Planning Department. This accomplishment was truly impressive as urban planning, even today, has remained a man’s world. But, she – this former supervisor – rose in the ranks, complete with scars from trying to deflect (I assumed) daggers to stop her advancement.

            On the day of our first meeting, one I remember as having been October 2^nd 2012, I began to detect suspicious behavior, which I had first noticed in the initial e-mails we had exchanged prior to my departing the US for New Zealand, in which she kept badgering me about picking me up at the airport. Then, she had even offered to pay for my airplane ticket to Palmerston North from Auckland. I declined at the time because I knew it would be a long flight from the US, and I knew I would be irritable when I landed from lack of sleep. I have difficulty sleeping in airplanes. The stop-over in Los Angeles added to the length of the flight, and I knew that all I would want to do soon after disembarking was to process myself out of the airport, check in the Nomad youth hostel, run my brief business errand, and then sleep. The next morning, I had planned to leave for Palmerston North on the 6 a.m. Naked Bus run. Therefore, I did not want to make small talk with strangers, especially when I knew I would have only half my brain.

            In these quick-response e-mails, there was something controlling about this former supervisor’s insistence. She would not accept my answer of “no, but thank you,” and the only way I could end these frequent offers was to ignore the one’s thereafter. Her persistence made me somewhat uncomfortable, but dismissed it as Kiwi exuberance and generosity.

            My intuition has often signaled red flags about people and situations, but I have not learned to trust it even as I aged and grew more experienced. When the flags pop up, I dampen the warning signs with my commonsense to soothe what most people would categorize as paranoia. This time, those red flags turned out to be legitimate warnings.

            The problems with this former supervisor began almost immediately after I arrived on campus. Her controlling nature, which I later came to understand as reflected in the e-mails she had sent me, manifested in her behavior within the first week of my enrollment at Massey. The control ranged from minor details to the more extreme. The former was exemplified in not coordinating schedules that fit mine as well as hers and her co-supervisors, forcing me to gravitate around her time so that throughout my first year I had to cancel scheduled talks and workshops of interest. The more extreme controlling habits involved asking me to falsely name her as a co-author on my book manuscript, which I had sent off to the publisher in September 2012. When she offered to be the co-author, I declined as she played no part in writing it or supervising me on it. I could see no justifiable reason for crediting her as a co-author. As I had explicitly explained, the two Goddard College readers were duly acknowledged in the book.

            Controlling persons often couple their skillful manipulation of conversation with aggressive behavior. On this warm October day in 2012, five days after my arrival at Massey University, at the instance I refused to name her as co-author, she reached over and swatted me on the side of my temple. It was not a hard slap (that came later), but the message was clear: she did not like to be turned down. Inside, my anxiety was quickly rising. I had anticipated a very positive experience with my doctorate studies, but this terse exchange told me that something ominous might be looming for me. I felt my stomach drop, my enthusiasm wane, and I wondered, “What have I just walked into?”

            This woman’s peculiar behavior did not stop at the head swatting. On this same meeting day, she showed me a row of connected photos that opened up when she pressed a tab on her laptop of an older, white-haired woman wearing revealing teddies. I grimaced inwardly at the poor show of professionalism by this supervisor. “Who is that?” I asked, and she in that chirpy voice I have come to recognize as the tiresome months at Massey trudged on, announced to me that it was the Head of School. I wondered what this meant in the long-term for me. Was she sending me a silent message that she would take unsolicited photos of me, possibly in my sleep, and show it to strangers if I did not do as I was told? Then, I also wondered whether she had a secret about this Head of School, which she held out as a carrot to get what she wants.

            During the seven months I was at Massey, the true self of this former supervisor took different forms. On the surface, she appeared very knowledgeable, but throughout her tutelage I noticed a lack of understanding of the standards of the doctorate thesis. Her suggestion that I include other relevant theories in the literature review chapter did not make sense, as this chapter was supposed to demonstrate the doctorate student’s understanding of the central theory, which in this case is resilience, namely the driving concepts and its relevancy to the context of the research, which again in this case is food systems. This former supervisor wanted me to include food systems theory and planning theory in the literature review. The latter two served as the context and the perspective, respectively, and its comprising theories need not be elaborated in this study. The theory I was to explore as my contribution to resilience theory is resilient food systems, an easy enough correlation for the average academic to understand, but not this woman. This lack of understanding represented disaster for me, as it meant that I could fail my doctorate program if I was forced to comply with her suggestions. Other resources I consulted comforted me, as they also pointed out that the literature review chapter focus on a discussion of only the central theory. However, this woman could not move on until I included food systems and planning theories. In the end, I did as she asked, but only to later remove this inclusion from the literature review chapter. However, I felt drained by this woman’s stonewalling. After moving to Auckland, I confided in someone who declared this former supervisors’ conduct as abusive. This is exactly how it felt to me.  

            I wish I could say that her abusive behavior was limited to the supervising. It was not. Her swats on the head became more frequent and hard, and she would invade my personal space by tampering with my thesis chapters, steal my notes so that I would have to re-read articles and re-take notes on them, and take business documents that did not concern her from my work desk in the doctorate students’ office. This constant need to look over my shoulder, remind myself to log out of my computer, and place my notes in hiding places around my desk eventually began to wear on my mind. As a result, I did not have the mental space to focus as much as I wanted and it showed in my initial drafts. This caused me to re-write and re-draft numerous times, which likewise wore on my mind. I was mentally exhausted all the time.

            There were even hints that she was trying to steal my writing projects. In the first quarter of my enrollment at Massey, I received an e-mail from my acquisitions editor at the small publishing house that published my master’s thesis. This editor asked if I had a co-author to which I answered no and reiterated the names of the two readers at Goddard College who supervised me and were acknowledge in my book. Furthermore, I was solely responsible for not only writing and researching this thesis, but also for converting it into a book manuscript. She was satisfied with my response, but I was furious that this former supervisor had the ghastly audacity to falsely claim credit for a writing project with which she had played no part in producing. She did not entertain the possibility that my over-protectiveness and possessiveness over the ownership of my book might be driven by my low-income status. Because of this poverty, I had to save up for my plane ticket to New Zealand and the first USD $1,000 living allowance until my financial aid was processed. I was able to earn both expenses after working a full-time job and doing small on-line contracts through my small business during the months of March through September 2012. From this small income, I also paid interest on one school loan and made monthly payments on two others.

            In light of her cheating behavior, I began to doubt her credentials. So, I verified her doctorate qualification at the thesis repository in the Geography building and then again in the library. I was told that it was not accessible, a strange comment considering she claimed to have earned her PhD in 1997. Her doctorate thesis would not be in high demand. I, subsequently, verified her claimed publications on-line by typing in the title of one publication and then the full name of her co-author. The hard copy was found, but this former supervisor’s name was not on the article. I did the same for two more publications, only to discover that her name was not on those, either. 

            In January and February 2013, I voiced my concerns to the Head of School about this former supervisor’s lack of expertise and conduct. Obviously, if this former supervisor would not or could not exercise self-discipline and human decency, the Head of School would be the best person to help me. I felt the best way to resolve this problem would be to change supervisors. To my chagrin, the Head of School ignored my request by avoiding the problem, all together, but she offered the usual soothing comments by agreeing to speak with her. By ignoring this problem, she also failed to enforce university policies about academic standards, specifically those requiring the primary supervisor to have (1) earned a doctorate degree and (2) have knowledge of the student’s research field. This primary supervisor does not have academic training in urban planning.

            As the months passed, this former supervisor continued to harass me. She stalked me to Pak N’ Save, often slapping my head as she surreptitiously passed me in the food aisles. I recognized her slightly hunched-over, manly gait as she strode past and walked away from me. She has also pulled my debit card out of the slot at the self-checkout machines, preventing me from paying for my food, and causing stress because I did not know if she could make purchases with it.

She also began stalking me to my living quarters. I found her watching me from the window of the Resident Assistant’s room in Walter Dyer Hall one day at dusk as I walked towards my room in Tararua Hall. When she saw me notice her, she pulled the curtain shut. She was also allowed into my room one later afternoon. Because I did not want to deal with her on this day, exhausted, I walked into my bedroom and locked the door, but I could hear her trying to get through the password on my laptop. The fact that she was gaining access into the residential halls told me that someone was facilitating these intrusions.

In February 2013, just before the new term began, I became aware that other people knew about her abusive nature because of yet another run in with this former supervisor in their presence. It happened in the lounge of the Geography building, where many staff and students congregate. There were no words exchanged between us, but when the slap came hard on the right side of my head, emitting a sound loud enough for one observer to exclaim, “ooohh, I heard that,” I chose to ignore the attack. This former supervisor was unmanageable and uncontrollable, and reacting to her was emotionally draining. The snickering from her group of friends sitting on the far side of the lounge informed me that this predominantly white clique supported her actions.

This latest round of attacks was the deciding factor for me. I knew that if the Head of School still failed to assign me a new supervisor, I would need to transfer to another school so that I could finish my doctorate thesis. The discussion with a barrister in town (Palmerson North) solidified my decision. I popped into his office once day on a whim and asked him how I could file a restraining order against this woman. Upon learning that she had conducted herself in a criminal way (assault and stalking), he advised me to think about my priorities and my reason for being in New Zealand. Knowing I was a student, he said it could be costly, presumably because he would have to file the papers with the court system. I also considered the possibility that she might know people in the legal community, who could target me. Since I came to study, not to get caught up in peoples’ petty dramas, I felt the best course of action would be to begin enquiring from the University of Auckland about transfer procedures.

One thing was clear, though. Massey had no interest in holding this former supervisor accountable for her actions. How, after all, does one remain employed after fabricating her publications and claiming credit for doctorate work she had not in fact done? One would think that after my reports of and others’ witnessing her behavior, the university leadership would at the very least honor my request to be supervised by someone more normal and with the appropriate credentials.         

When she learned of my intention to transfer, her attacks escalated even more. She had also begun to make more frequent visits to the doctorate office, where I liked to work after everyone had gone home for the day. One evening, while engrossed in another re-write of my literature review chapter, I heard someone enter the office. Within seconds, in what seemed like swift motions, this person cut a lock of my hair and then, using something cold and metal against my head, the stubs of this lock were pulled out. I could hear the ripping sound from my scalp. I screamed as I felt the raw pain of hair separating from scalp. I turned around and there was this former supervisor standing there, silver pliers resting in her right hand, staring at me. The door across the hallway opened slowly and tentatively, and at that moment she pivoted around and walked briskly out the door and towards the staircase. My blond neighbor emerged. I do not remember what he said. I wanted to call campus security, but did not think it was worth the trouble anymore because there were no witnesses to this attack. My fellow student merely heard my scream, which was possibly muffled. I focused on preparing to transfer. 

When I eventually left Massey for the University of Auckland, I thought I was finally free of her and the problems she had created for me. I thought that once I was out of sight, her obsessive, dysfunctional interest in me would subside. I turned out to be wrong. Two days after moving into my new room in South Auckland, this former supervisor and a male companion, turned up at the front door. I knew it was her because I peered out through the blinds and saw her. When she sighted me, she briskly walked over to the window and called out, “Camille,” as if she was innocently visiting me. I stepped back and allowed the blinds to fold closed. I could not believe it; how could she know where I lived? On that day, Monday the 24^th of June 2013, even I did not know the house number or the street name. Only on June 26^th, when I got lost on the street and could not give the correct house number to the person who had offered to drive me home from Manukau City Centre did I make it a point to learn my new address. I knew then that this former supervisor was working in tandem with my then-landlord/housemate, but unbeknownst to her was this history of abuse.

I was also pretty certain that this former supervisor had recruited one of my current supervisors, perhaps both, to what I now deduced as her campaign to derail my doctorate program. Whatever her reasons were for abusing me in the beginning, I now believed she was out to prevent me from graduating. In May 2013, this former supervisor had disclosed to me that she knew who my other supervisor was, and then the following month (June), she disclosed his first name. At both times, when pressed if I knew, I informed her that I did not think I had yet been assigned a second one. If I was not told by the University of Auckland, how could she have possibly known? The fact that she did meant that universities here share notes and apparently plot together.

Naively, I believed that this move to the University of Auckland would put me in a more mature and research-oriented environment, where I would have peace of mind, the mental space to think, and would be working with two people who would support my academic goals. Naively, I believed this.      

           

           

INSTITUTIONALIZING DISCRIMINATION IN THE IVORY TOWER

July 1^st 2014 was the anniversary of my enrollment as a doctorate student at the University of Auckland. This day was the start of my second year and, if my doctorate committee had followed the rules of their job, this day should have represented a return from my fieldwork in the Philippines. When I transferred, I had laid out my timetable for my first year with the explicit intention of completing my doctorate thesis at the two year mark – July 1, 2015. This desire to complete in two years was not only allowable as described in the university statutes, but also understandable as I did not want to needlessly borrow money if I did not get a scholarship during my tenure as a doctorate student. Besides, I had already painstakingly written three draft chapters and had prepared my field questions, which meant that the only thing left to do was to write the full research proposal. Hence, I saw no need to add on a third year while at Auckland.

My committee saw it differently, not because their vision made more sense than mine, but because they truly had difficulty with comprehending my research. Specifically, they were challenged by the connections between the most pertinent elements of my research and how these elements were relevant to the central thesis of my topic. I cannot say I did not see this coming; as early as October 2013, I began to detect signs of skill level issues in my committee. These issues became evident when they failed to understand the objective of my research, but also when they failed to see the theoretical framework. Although one can see from reading even early drafts of my research proposal that I am doing a study on resilient food systems in the Philippines, they kept asking me throughout the year if I was doing a food security study. Moreover, they could not comprehend the utility of a tool I adopted to do the analysis – a matrix – which would allow me to map out the interactive dynamics of learning and adaptive capacities of food system actors. Such dynamics are the focus of my study and would give insight into how the learning capacities in two food system communities foster recovery and adaptability (resilience). As months passed, it became increasingly obvious that my doctorate committee failed to see how the layers and components of my research come together to answer the framing research questions, which had been carefully laid out for the reader in my research proposal. Moreover, despite having broken down the phases and research instruments of my study, and explained how and what data I would need to do to conduct my analysis, my committee still could not see how these key elements were connected to the research objective. I tried to resolve this impasse by asking two resilience specialists read my research proposal, only to be told what I already knew: that the goal and method of my study was both comprehensible and clear.

          

However, instead of moving forward, when I submitted another revision to my committee in late January 2014, my supervisors pointed out the same problems, claiming that the research objective was not clear (though, I should note, it was determined to be clear by the resilience theory specialists), but they did acknowledge the presence of the definitions, which clarify the terminology I use in my study. I highlight this acknowledgement as being important, as it leads into the revelation of the political game, which I was told by one of my supervisors to play on November 27^th, 2013. The revelation that I was indeed (unwillingly) entwined in a political game was made known in a subsequent e-mail containing feedback, which claimed I had to define key terms soon after being told that I had done so. The contradiction in these comments was repeated in a more recent discussion about my research proposal, whereby the focus of my study was criticized as being too broad, and then too narrow.

In May 2014, I resolved again to change the problems with my supervisors by requesting the Dean of the Faculty of Arts to allow me to shift into the PhD in Development Studies. Since one of my specializations in the planning discipline is international development planning, the transition would have been easy, and I supposed the planning and development academics would see the alignment in my research and these disciplines. The Dean of Arts suggested I speak with a food systems scholar, who has published fairly extensively in his field. After agreeing to a meeting date, the food systems scholar agreed to supervise me. Happily, I went to the Faculty of NICAI and obtained the necessary form, filled it out, signed and then sent it to the scholar. Then, to my dismay, when I followed up on the form the following Monday, the food systems scholar explained that after speaking with the disciplinary committee, he had decided against being my supervisor. This rejection was simply too convenient and implied that someone in power was pulling the strings.    

Since I began blogging about the problems I have had with supervising, I have disclosed the experiences of other international students, who were also not treated well by the University of Auckland and Massey University. Like me, these students were subjected to road blocks not of an academic nature to impede their academic progress, but a nature that indicated the possible practice of poaching the doctorate thesis of international students. As a friend said, it appears that international students are told their research is not good, and then when the student returns to their home country, their thesis is used by possibly an academic staff member, who has not yet earned a doctorate degree.    

On August 5^th 2014, I received the comments from the postgraduate review committee (PGRC). To my disappointment, the comments revealed that the problems of comprehension were institutional and further alluded to the possibility that the political game was also institutional rather than individual. The PGRC, like my supervisors, could not understand the relationship between my research questions and the objective. The comments merely exposed the failure of the PGRC to carefully read my research proposal, as the alleged absence of key information (i.e. does not explain how the data will be analyzed) were even then in fact present in my researchproposal.

When the Head of School called me to her office and informed me of my supervisors’ review of my academic progress, she supported my supervisors’ assessment, indicating an allegiance with her staff rather than displaying educational objectivity. When I asked her if she had read my research proposal to verify the validity of my supervisors’ criticisms, she admitted she had not. Then, she proceeded to tell me that my research was not a doctorate thesis, clearly implying that she believed she could make this decision based on her institutional standing, and therefore clout, rather than on internationally-recognized, objective criteria of originality and contributory. I countered her point of view, pointing out that what gives this thesis its doctorate quality was its knowledge and theoretical contribution, which is explained in the last paragraph of the method section in my research proposal. I also pointed out my having completed four draft chapters are further indications of academic progress. Any well-reasoned intellectual would see that. Not surprisingly, this meeting with the Head of School did not result in a progressive outcome.

The content of this discussion, however, paralleled that of the one I had with the Dean of the Faculty of NICAI sometime in July this year. After listening to my concerns about my committee’s cognitive skills, this Dean simply mirrored them. She said the research proposal really needed framing questions and the methodology had to be broken down for clarity. Turning to the draft version, which I had brought with me to this meeting, I flipped to the relevant pages and pointed to the location of the information she deemed to be important in my research proposal. "They're there," I said.

On top of the apathy exhibited by the academic staff towards resolving this impasse, my supervisors had lied to the financial aid coordinator about my academic progress on the US Federal Loan eligibility form. In the statements made by the PGRC, it was suggested that I resubmit, an outcome that I intend to contest as I saw it as an erroneous and inaccurate assessment of the academic work I had produced. This outcome is neither a failure nor probationary, but my supervisors had written “not satisfactory” on the federal loan eligibility form, contradicting the opinion of this supposedly “objective” body (the PGRC). Keep in mind that in New Zealand, the final review of the research proposal is left to an external committee. The supervisors guide then comply with the decision of this external body. To my supervisors, I pointed out the suggestion from the PGRC and informed them that this decision was not an unsatisfactory outcome. They subsequently retracted the “not satisfactory” notation rendered on the federal loan eligibility form, after which I sent this correction to the financial aid coordinator by e-mail. However, in her response, she claimed that the supervisors had informed her that my work was not satisfactory. I replied with a more extensive explanation, attaching the needed documents to prove that the outcome was a resubmission rather than a failure, but my response bounced back to me as undeliverable. The copies I sent to the Vice Chancellor of Academic Affairs and to the Associate Dean of Postgraduate Studies were also returned to me with the same notification. I knew that blocking a student from posing concerns about academic misconduct violates New Zealand federal law regarding the pastoral care of students, so last week I made a discrimination complaint to the Human Rights Commission on the grounds of ethnic origin.

Despite the retraction from my supervisors, their conduct was a revelation that need not be said in words: this committee wanted to see me fail. While I am protected from whatever the underground agenda are of some academic staff, as ulterior motives are considered violations of the US Federal Law 34 CFR 668.34 governing the educational conduct of all partner universities of the US Federal Loan program, including that of the University of Auckland, accountability takes time to enforce. Let it be known that the actions of the University of Auckland are certainly not without consequence to me. Because my PhD committee had pushed the review of my academic progress and my research proposal to the start of my second year, and then lied to the financial aid coordinator about the lack of truthfulness regarding the outcome of the review of my academic progress, my federal loans have not been processed. As a result of the mishandling of my federal loans by the financial aid coordinator, I have not been able to pay my tuition and concomitantly have not been able to access my living allowance. I am now living on the remaining NZ$1,100 of my living allowance until those responsible fix their mistakes. This amount continues to dwindle while I send e-mails, accompanied by evidentiary documents, to those in power who can help me.             

In my view, the undelivered e-mails to key persons at the University of Auckland along with the road blocks impeding my doctorate advancement stipulated that I was fighting a political game that protruded as far up the food chain as the Chancellor’s office and quite plausibly the University Business Council. I may even be embedded in an extensive professional network protecting the jobs of academics not fit to be so. In the next blog, I will discuss how I came to be so suspicious of these professional interests. The one, thereafter, will highlight the culpability of the US Department of Education.

CITY OF VOLCANOES

Since moving to Auckland last year, I have become fascinated with the number of volcanoes that inhabit the city. The count according to the Lonely Planet is fifty, all of which lie around the city’s boundary. At the end of May, I moved to Mangere East, a multicultural district of Auckland 40 minutes away across the industrial section named “Highbrook” from Burswood, my former neighborhood. Without intending to do so, I became almost obsessed with the job of climbing as many volcano peaks as I could. My new regiment, although not diligently so, is now to discover different sights of Auckland and the thousands of inlets that carve out its meandering coastline from these peaks. So far, I’ve climbed four.

Perhaps this new intention was driven by my first hike up Maungarei (Mt. Wellington) volcano in Pakuranga. This peak is easy to get to by rail, as the entry to the volcano is steps away from the Pakuranga transit site and Panmure Basin. Doubling as a conservation and recreational site, Maungarei gave me scenic views of the elevated coastal trail that leads further up into the Cockle Bay and Bucklands Beach areas. This walking trail is a good one to tackle if you have an entire afternoon to waste seeing the beautiful sights of South Auckland. It takes almost three to four hours to complete from the starting point of Maungarei volcano, and there are different towns along this trail, which boast cafes and other places to eat. However, if you don’t have the time, there is always Panmure Basin, a lagoon encompassed by residences and another walking trail that loops around the edge of the water. From the vantage point of the peak of Maungarei, the views of the bays are magnificent and overpower the hectic urban skyline with a vengeance.

A view of the edge of the volcanic crater

A slow descent into the mouth of the crater

Rob in the distance, a speck against the massive crater

Panmure, a strong contrast against the resplendent peace of Maungarei

Still at Maungarei, but above the carpark where visitors enter

Rob pointing out the urban scene, which looks a million miles away

Panmure Basin? It's not far from here

Urban wastewater catchment. Just beyond is an industrial centre.

This day couldn't make up its mind: rainy or sunny? A brief glimpse at the sky clearing up.

Looks windy - it was a bit!

The road, Mountain Road, which takes all there to the top of the world.

On another afternoon, following a visit with my friend’s relations, we suddenly got the urge to hike up Maungakiekie, better known by the English name, One Tree Hill. The popular rock band, U2, commemorated this volcano in one of their songs, and I could see why. Not just a mound of dormant lava, this volcano has evolved into both a recreational and reserve area. While this dual function is not unusual in New Zealand, Maungakiekie is unique in that it is also a farm. Peasants, chickens, sheep and other animals roam freely across the grounds of this historical site. Despite the numbers of people, who take advantage of its serenity, Maungakiekie volcano is slow paced. Climbing up its jagged hillside, one gets the feeling that one is not in the city at all, especially when rabbits are sighted emerging from their hiding place of a hole on the side of the mountain.          

And on yet another day, following an outing and an errand in the city, my friend and I decided to walk back to Mangere East. We followed Symonds Road as far as the fork in the highway, where just beyond, we sighted a plaque with the name Maungawhau. This was the Mt. Eden volcano; I remembered the name in my Lonely Planet travel book. Not realizing how close this volcano was to the university, although I probably should not have been, I was taken aback. Recognition soon gave way to a delightful squeal, happy to have found it as it was on my list of things to do. The entry to hiker’s trail was clearly not a path well trodden, but up we went, braving the cold, drizzle, and the too-quickly descending evening that gradually encloaked our hunched forms as we briskly approached the peak of the volcano. Runners beat us to the top, but they hurriedly descended almost as quickly as they ran up. I tried to enjoy this latest achievement of conquering yet another Auckland volcano. The wet weather, which had hardened to pelting raindrops by this time, dampened my enthusiasm a little bit. The cold in Auckland’s winters can snake its way into your lungs and soul, and days later we – especially my friend – paid for it with sniffles and a slight temperature, both a sign that the flu was just around the corner. Expressing concern for my well-being, my friend decided to make this visit to Maungawhau a short one, fearing my cold might get worse. Despite the emotional misery that only winter can induce, I could not take my eyes away from the views of the stars, the nightline, and the coast, which in the darkening sky, had deepened to the shade of a barely discernible deep purple and navy blue.

Several days later, undeterred by the bad weather, my friend happily took me out on another excursion: to Mangere mountain, a volcano in our neighborhood. This volcano gives a stronger sense of security, especially if you decide to embark on a hike on a whim without the normal accoutrements of trail mix and hastily concocted sandwiches. The contingency of fish and chip shops and outdoor cafes in the neighboring, historical Mangere Bridge village gives the intrepid walker some peace of mind.    

Although the sites from Mangere were very similar to those viewed from the peaks of the other volcanoes, I can’t say that I tire of them. The tightly curved bays, canoes skimming across the blue waters, the rugged coastlines, and the expansive sky as the backdrop all give me the sensation of being a tiny, inconsequential mosquito in the middle of all this tranquil, yet busy, activity. You realize just how small you really are and how small your contribution is to world history. Being so high up, the rest of the world looking like distant ants and Lego structures, the conflicts and frustrations melt like soft ice cream from my tense shoulders and are mentally packed tightly away in a hidden corner of my mind to be dealt with later.       

ADMINISTRATIVE BULLYING

       The day began with thick, grey clouds and a heavy drizzle, not unusual for winter in Auckland. I wrapped myself up in rain gear and boots not made for temperate, rainy climates. I felt upbeat in the morning because I looked forward to finalizing some administrative paperwork for which I had been sent reminders: one from the immigration office, telling me that I had to submit my paperwork to renew my visa, and the other from the financial aid officer telling me to submit my signed paperwork to process my US federal loans for the upcoming year.

I arrived at the University intent on completing the renewal application for my student visa and did not anticipate any problems. I arrived on campus with about an hour to spare – enough time for me to fill out the application, to make a copy for myself, and to print out another copy of my re-enrollment letter for the 2014 to 2015 school year. The graduate centre had sent me this letter to facilitate the processing of this required paperwork and thus I did not foresee problems. At the very least, I assumed that they clerks would receive my application and then complete the processing of the paperwork once all the needed information was received from another office. The re-enrollment letter sent by the graduate centre was essential, which I had in my possession.

Keep in mind that I went through this miasma of seeming confusion last year when I transferred from Massey to Auckland University. Then, I was told by an employee at the graduate centre that I would need to submit a registration confirmation along with my student visa renewal application in order to complete the process. In addition, I was to see the financial aid counselor to get a letter informing the immigration office of my approval for another year of US Federal loans. I was also instructed then to request that the financial aid counselor at Auckland contact the person at the international office who compiles the paperwork for international students in preparation for review by the immigration office.

The immigration office has a policy of processing the student visa application in partnership with education providers, presumably to reduce the cost of the renewal fee for students, who obviously cannot work full time. NZ$165 is the renewal fee, but varies slightly depending on when the application is submitted.

About 48 days ago, I received the e-mail from the immigration office regarding my student visa renewal. I was advised to submit my renewal application a minimum of 30 days before the expiration date (1 August 2014) of my student visa. Since I knew the workers at the international office and the financial aid counselor – I have made several trips to both offices to clarify and obtain information for and from them – I did not anticipate that they would create the same obstacles for me, consequently making it (a) hard to receive my loan funds in time with the balance that (due to rent and food payments) could be in danger of depreciating to zero (thus, leaving me with no living allowance), and (b) put me in danger of deportation if the immigration office decides that submitting my student visa renewal application 7 days before the expiration date is not allowable. (Someone at the international office assured me that the 7 day deadline was okay, which contrasts with the advice given to me in the email from the immigration office).

Last year, in the course of getting immigration advice for changing my education provider and how to go about doing it, I was bounced from one office to another. The Palmerston North immigration branch told me to get the information from Massey, which only resulted in that office telling me to go back to the Palmerston North office. To help facilitate the process, I was eventually informed by Auckland Uni graduate centre that I should submit my registration form, but surprisingly this failed to do any good. It began to dawn on me that someone might have been intentionally obstructing this transfer (the next blog clues you into who this person might be), especially after making contact with the contact person at Auckland, who advises international students on such matters. In spite of the presence of the provisional registration form, this person told me that I still needed to be enrolled before they can process the student visa and change the education advisor. My enrollment date then was set for July 1, 2013, but I could not officially enroll until the education provider was changed on my student visa. This gap in my situation was difficult for the administrative staff to reconcile. To me, the reconciliation was the provisional registration form, as the graduate centre had advised me to submit with my student visa renewal application. However, the international office refused to help make the connection.

This year, the same problems emerged. I was bounced from one office to another. And, when I showed them the re-enrollment letter sent to me via e-mail from the postgraduate office, they denied its legitimacy and denied its existence. “Can you read what that says?” I asked one of the clerks in the international office? Silence. In one sentence, the notice unmistakably states in black and white print “you have been re-enrolled for the 2014-2015 school year. This year is 2014 is it not? Since I enrolled at Auckland on July 1 2013, it is understandable to interpret this re-enrollment notice as one that would allow me to study for another year until 1 July 2015. After fighting with me about the letter she must write and sign for the immigration office in support of my student visa renewal application, she acknowledged that it was indeed a re-enrollment letter. (Is it not true that the reason the postgraduate office sent the re-enrollment letter was to facilitate rather than obstruct the application?)/

In the end, I paid another transportation fee to speak with an international program officer, and she advised me to get the letter from the postgraduate office. I pointed out again the presence of the letter sent to me by email, but she insisted that I physically (unnecessarily) obtain another letter from the graduate centre. So, in the end, I had to repeat the process, get a second enrollment letter, and experience another spate of frustration at the operational disconnect between administrative departments at Auckland, one that leads to failure to communicate and to lack of synchronization of actions, which only harms the international student. Ironically, the content of the 2nd letter was essentially the same as the 1st - a declaration that I was re-enrolled until 2017 this time rather than 2015. (This 2017 extension of my graduation date is connected to another curious development in my program, of which I have not been consulted or informed prior to changes being made. So much for treating individuals with dignity and transparency. Another reason to do battle with Auckland).     

When I stepped back out onto Symonds Street to catch a bus home, the rain held at bay for a few hours, began to fall in large droplets. The grey skies and cold winds equaled my mood. Several days later, the student visa application still has not been filed, I was told to sign my promissory note by phone, the first notification of which was sent in an e-mail that I did not receive, and I am apprehensive because I do not know if it is true that submitting my application 7 days before the expiration date is in fact true.