New Maori Studies Course At Victoria College

Te Ao Hou, March 1965, Page 35

New Maori Studies Course At Victoria College the victoria university council has appointed Dr Joan Metge, of Auckland, as senior lecturer in the newly established Maori studies section of the department of anthropology. Dr Metge took an M.A. degree at the University of Auckland in 1952, and subsequently spent three and a half years engaged in fieldwork research among Maoris living in Auckland and in ‘Kotare’, a rural community in Northland. After studying at the London School of Economics for two years, she was awarded a doctorate of philosophy degree by the University of London. She returned to New Zealand for further research on Maori community life, and in 1961 she joined the lecturing staff of the Department of University Extension, University of Auckland. Dr Metge's recently published book, ‘A New Maori Migration: Rural and Urban Relations in Northern New Zealand’, is based on her field research in Auckland and at ‘Kotare’ in the North. The Maori language and culture section of the Maori I course at Victoria University is being taken by Mr Bill Parker, of Ruatoria, a member of the Ngati Porou tribe. Mr Parker, a senior lecturer with the Wellington Regional Council of Adult Education, is well known for his wide knowledge of Maori language and culture. For some years he has read the Sunday evening Maori News. The preliminary course in Maori language, designed for beginners who wish to take Maori I in the following year, is being taken by Mrs E. B. Ranapia, who is senior Maori teacher at the Correspondence School in Wellington, and a member of the Maori Language Advisory Committee. It has been decided that the ‘double vowel’ system of spelling the Maori language will not be employed in this new Victoria University Maori studies course.