EDITORIAL | I Like The Richardson Building

Posted 1:58pm Saturday 6th March 2021

Some of you will hate me for what I’m about to write. But it has to be said. The best building on the Otago campus is not the clocktower. It’s the Richardson Building. This looming, brutalist beast is the image that should show up as the Air New Zealand icon for Dunedin. The Read more...

Local Produce: Hazel from Copper Coffee

Posted 11:31pm Tuesday 2nd March 2021

Food trucks are a terrifying concept. You take a whole cafe and squeeze it into a small box on wheels, then drive that box around to different places. Hazel Combs is a student who is out there doing that. She is in the final year of a Politics degree, and decided after the lockdown last year that Read more...

Who would win if the Rakaia Salmon and the Gore Giant Trout fought to the death?

Posted 9:56pm Tuesday 2nd March 2021

In the centre of Gore stands a giant trout. On the outskirts of Rakaia stands a giant salmon. The fish are perched in the same pose — frozen in mid-air with cavernous maws agape. Separated by 452km of State Highway one, these twin titans of the South Island road trip are too far away to see Read more...

Med Entry Grades Rise Again

Posted 9:38pm Tuesday 2nd March 2021

The average mark required to enter medicine from the Health Sciences First Year (HSFY) programme has increased for the sixth year in a row.  In response to an OIA, the University confirmed that the lowest average mark required for a first-round offer into 2021 med was 96.57%, up from 93.43% Read more...

Three Students Disciplined For Sexual Misconduct In 2020

Posted 8:42pm Tuesday 2nd March 2021

A first-year student in 2020 was permanently excluded from the University of Otago after multiple sexual assaults against two students. This case, and three other allegations of sexual misconduct or assault, are detailed in the University’s Discipline Reports for 2020. Otago University Read more...

Nine Students Suspended For 2020 Flat Initiations

Posted 8:34pm Tuesday 2nd March 2021

Two flats of students are unable to attend Otago in semester one because of flat initiations they organised at the end of 2020. The Proctor’s 2020 Discipline Report sets out the details of these initiations and the punishments students received. One flat initiation involved four second year Read more...

Dangerous MDMA Substitutes in Dunedin

Posted 5:51pm Tuesday 2nd March 2021

Up to 70% of drug samples tested in Dunedin have been found to contain eutolyne. Most of those samples were presumed by their users to be MDMA. Eutylone is a synthetic cathinone, part of a group of drugs also known as ‘bath salts.’ KnowYourStuffNZ’s testing during Christchurch O Read more...

77 Incidents of Flatmate Violence Last Year

Posted 5:02pm Tuesday 2nd March 2021

The team at OUSA Student Support dealt with 77 incidents of flatmate violence during 2020.  According to Sage Burke, the manager of OUSA Student Support, this number was “about the same” as 2019. That number was “bad to start with,” and given that a lot of Read more...

EDITORIAL | Students Were Exploited In Orchard Work

Posted 4:11pm Tuesday 2nd March 2021

Orchards called on uni students to make money picking and packing. Students were not prepared for the exploitative working environment they walked into.   When students set off for the orchards of Central Otago and beyond, it had been a rough year already. A lot of businesses limited the Read more...

Three Students Disciplined For Sexual Misconduct In 2020

Posted 4:26pm Wednesday 17th February 2021

A first-year student in 2020 was permanently excluded from the University of Otago after multiple sexual assaults against two students. This case, and three other allegations of sexual misconduct or assault, are detailed in the University’s Discipline Reports for 2020. Otago University Read more...