Some time ago, on the 19th of April to be precise, I wrote about the twin successes of Drs Jacinta Hawkins and Simon Martin and I lavishly praised the manner in which Massey University ran their graduation ceremony (click here to see that blog).  Being present when those two people had their doctorates conferred was very special, especially because we had worked closely and fixedly for some period of time with each of those candidates.  And of course, that's what the Woodhill Park Retreat was established for.
   
At that time, I was also very critical of the other Auckland based universities.   Above all, I was critical of the way in which academic grand-standing and bureaucratic pedantries had meant that a successful doctoral degree (unjustifiably in my opinion) was not conferred at the Autumn graduation when it should have been.  The submission of the completed thesis by a man in his late seventies became variously thwarted by academics and administrators being, in my opinion, indifferent, bloody minded, obstructive and demonstrably prone to complete about-turns.  What the University espoused on the one hand was not practiced on the other by its representatives.  As a public relations exercise, the whole performance was a disaster.  

Consideration of age, of course, should not really have been a key point that fueled my agitation but it was, in truth, a consideration.  Age concern aside, my ire at the time was primarily prompted by the lack of consistency and the absence of courtesy shown by representatives of the university.  My annoyance was also sparked by the fact that as a consequence of the combined behaviours of university staff, a truly gentle man, and an elder gentleman to boot, had to wait for almost half a year longer to become capped.  When you are nearer eighty than seventy years old, that's not right. 

To its considerable credit, one small segment of the University has gone out of its way to acknowledge this graduand and has thus (intentionally or unintentionally) atoned for the blunder of half a year ago.  As I understand things, the Alumni Unit of the university, having learned about how things had gone awry, took it upon themselves to host a small function for doctoral graduand Philip Harkness and his family.  They also invited fellow political studies graduand, Dennis Paglinawan and his relatives (who had flown all the way from Canada to attend graduation).  Members of the Alumni Unit should, therefore, take a well deserved bow for this gesture.
 
At the same time, Drs Philip Harkness and  Dennis Paglinawan should also take a bow and an encore bow as well.  Their work, as with all successful PhD completions involved enormous dollops of sustained effort and these were unstintingly supported by family and friends.   Thus their families and loved ones applaud them as do we who spent some little time working with them at the Woodhill Park Research Retreat when they encountered difficulties. 


The Department of Political Studies should also be well pleased that these two candidates succeeded. Their success adds to the academic Performance Based Research Funds (PBRF) list of outputs from which the University as a whole benefits.  Through PBRF, the university receives ranking credibility and large amounts of research money.  And in turn, the Faculty of Arts and the Department of Political Studies gains prestige and trickle-down funding.  It's in their interests, therefore, to ensure that supervision is robust. 

But enough of that.  Let's celebrate the successful doctoral candidates and their work.  Dennis Paglinawan examined the impact of the removal of racial criteria from immigration policies in Canada and Aotearoa New Zealand.  He specifically tested a policy regime model (Carter A. Wilson) and demonstrated its veracity. 

What a  bland paragraph such as the above cannot reveal is the huge effort that went into the work.  Dennis literally spent weeks searching through archival documents within the bowels of the Canadian federal parliament and he also trawled through decades of newspaper articles. Whilst he had a university scholarship, the cost of living was nevertheless problematic and life as a postgraduate candidate was in many respects associated with the daily grind of earning enough to simply survive.  But in the end, the work was done and all credit to Dennis and to those who supported him - Steve Hoadley, Dallas, Tim.

Philip Harkness is a journalist by training and his skill with words stood him in good stead when he assembled data about the lay magistracy in Aotearoa New Zealand.  Philip wanted to critique the movement and to determine if it remained viable and useful in contemporary society.  He concluded that it very clearly is a valid system and that it merits further development.

What that previous paragraph cannot reveal was that in order to deal with proposed emendations, Philip travelled daily to the Woodhill Park Research Retreat and literally spent eight to nine hours per day ensuring that those emendations which had surfaced from his oral examination and from the examiners reports became addressed.  Leonie, his wife, was very patient and very supportive throughout as were members of his family. 

Only at the very end, after they had been completed by Philip, were those emendations reviewed by the supervisor.  Prior to that, no post-oral examination communication had occurred. 

So as I wrote above, take a bow Philip and Dennis and take another encore bow as well.  Your families and friends applaud and salute you both.