Spring Week lectures for adult learners

The annual Spring Week on Campus series is a rare opportunity to listen to, debate and engage with the University’s world-class academics.

Morning and afternoon lectures will be held every day between November 19 to 23 celebrating Spring and the birth of new knowledge and ideas.

Each of the 15 lectures is presented by a distinguished faculty member, chosen for both their subject expertise and their passion for teaching adult students.
A range of attendance options are available and a small fee is required to secure a place.

This year’s lectures include:

Delivering childhood immunisation programmes internationally: The better you do the harder it is to sell

Childhood immunisation programmes are one of the greatest achievements of modern medical science. Associate Professor Nikki Turner will explain why, despite this, progress has stalled, and international goals have not been met.

Where did language come from?

Emeritus Professor Michael Corballis of the Faculty of Science will explain how language evolved primarily to allow our species, and its forebears, to communicate about the non-present and share mental travels in space and time.

The unrealised potential of sand

Dr Erin Leitao from the School of Chemical Sciences will share her research group’s interest in converting silicon from sand into different materials, replacing a reliance on oil as a raw material, with the potential to open up a new field of chemistry with applications we have yet to imagine.

A New Look at Old Ideas: Testing Our Assumptions about Sex Differences

Dr Kristal Cain’s talk grounded in the biological sciences (Faculty of Science) may change how you view the difference between the sexes, and how males and females have evolved over time.

Circular Economy: Sustainable Business Models for the Future?

PhD candidate Miriam Seifert from the Business School will explain the concept of circular economy as a sustainable business model of the future.

Other sessions include Associate Professor Linda Tyler on ‘Women and Performance Art in Aotearoa’; Professor Anthony Spalinger and Elizabeth Eltze on ‘The Kingdoms of Ancient Kush and Egypt’; and Dr Peter Freestone ‘Shedding light on how the brain works’.

In a session titled ‘Should We Have Freedom To Discriminate?’, Dr Jane Norton from the Faculty of Law will explore contemporary challenges for liberalism such as hate speech and discrimination by religious organisations. And Associate Professor Jennifer Frost from History will ask ‘Who really won the US-Soviet space race?’ by bringing a historical perspective to this topic.

Head of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Professor Jason Ingham, will share his team’s research into seismic assessment of earthquake-prone buildings following the Christchurch and Nepalese earthquakes, and how this has helped to inform public policy and community recovery.

In a second lecture on earthquakes, Dr Mila Adam from the Faculty of Science will share how she and her colleagues have been ‘listening’ to the Alpine Fault, one of the longest and potentially most powerful faults in New Zealand.

Professor of Education John Morgan will explore the ‘curriculum question’ – what should people learn – at all levels of the New Zealand education system?

Finally, Associate Professor Andrew Taberner, one of the inventors of a new class of medical device, will explain how close we are to receiving injections not with a needle or lancet, but with a high-speed jet of liquid that is as narrow as a human hair.