International engineering education conference set to come to the Waikato

A partnership between the region’s two leading tertiary providers is bringing an international conference on engineering education to Hamilton next month. 

The 29th Australasian Association of Engineering Education (AAEE) annual international conference will be held in Hamilton from December 9-12.

AAEE is the premier engineering education conference for the southern hemisphere. It brings together 250-300 tertiary engineering educators and stakeholders to discuss recent research, issues and trends in educating the current generation of engineers.

Primarily held in Australia, the last time this conference was in New Zealand was 2014.

This year AAEE is co-hosted by the University of Waikato and Wintec, as Professor Janis Swan of the University and Dr Trudy Harris of Wintec have partnered to bring the event to the mighty Waikato.

“We’ve been working really hard to get New Zealand institutions involved and it’s not a bad idea to move things away from Australia every now and then,” Trudy said.

“We play in this market too, we do really well with our engineers and educate so it’s good to bring some of the focus over here.”

Janis said historically the conference came to New Zealand every six years.

“We’ve had two before, one in Auckland and one in Wellington. Waikato has quite a strong engineering force, even though we are small, so we thought it would be a good opportunity,” Janis said.

Trudy said there was a lot of change happening in the Waikato.

“It’s quite exciting. The University is developing its civil engineering program for the first time and we (Wintec) are looking at developing degrees or degree apprenticeship, so the teacher sector in particular is evolving to meet industry needs. 

“It’s trying to get those discussions in a broader basis. The themes of this conference are about diversity in the classroom, acknowledging the fact that our classrooms are changing and that they are going to change is something this conference will help with,” Trudy said.

Besides the degrees that are changing, Janis said the Waikato had a whole lot of people leaving high school who were looking for engineering courses and it’s important that we showcase that we can accommodate those people here.

“People often ask if we offer engineering at Waikato University because they don’t know we do. We have great programmes here, it’s about making them more accessible and relevant,” Janis said.

Trudy said that was where her and Janis’ partnership was important.

“It’s really good for us to be in partnership. It helps us reach more young people and we can work with other companies to develop different internship programmes for them.

“At the moment, the industry is buoyant and there is a shortage of skilled engineers. We need to be running events where industry professionals can come and meet the students. This is something we’ve been doing on a small scale, but through this conference we are hoping to open up those connections even more,” Trudy said.

Janis said it was about getting the engineering academic community, which has mainly been focused on ‘how do I do engineering research?’ to change focus to education research to understand that they have to take on some of the teaching aspects to grow.

The duo said they couldn’t have bought the conference here without the help of Tourism New Zealand’s (TNZ)Conference Assistance Programme (CAP).

CAP is a fund available to all associations and organisations that are wanting to bid and host an international conference in New Zealand. To be eligible, the bid must be for a minimum of 200 delegates.

With almost 200 people already registered for the conference in December, Trudy and Janis are looking forward to the event.

“TNZ have been really supportive; ours is quite a specialist conference and they’ve elevated it to be something special. They really helped with the bid, we couldn’t have done it without them,” Janis said.

Themes for this years’ conference:

• Beyond the qualification – future-proofing engineering education for a diverse workforce

• Beyond tolerance – educational practices that embrace diversity

• Beyond the classroom – tailoring engineering and STEM education to meet the needs of all stakeholders.

Keynote speakers:

• Professor Donna Riley is Kamyar Haghighi head and Professor in the School of Engineering Education at Purdue University.
  

• Professor Richard Coll is deputy vice chancellor – Learning, teaching and student services at the University of the South Pacific.

• Professor Angus Hikairo Macfarlane is Professor of Māori Research at the University of Canterbury, and director of Te Rū Rangahau, the Māori Research Laboratory.

• Associate Professor Sonja Herahine Macfarlaneis an Associate Professor (Senior Research Fellow) at University of Canterbury, and co-director of Te Rū Rangahau, the Māori Research Laboratory.

  The conference will provide the opportunity for engineers to meet with tertiary educators and contribute to the ongoing discussion in engineering education.

The conference will provide the opportunity for engineers to meet with tertiary educators and contribute to the ongoing discussion in engineering education.

Click here for pricing and to register before tickets run out.

TNZ’s Hamilton and Waikato representative Jessica Vandy said if anyone in the Waikato wanted to know more about bidding they could contact her directly
at jessica.vandy@tnz.govt.nz or 021 501 011. 

More information on CAP and the bid process can be found here.