A new tohu helps to find the path

Someone asked me the other day what surprised me most about New Zealand culture when I first moved here from the United States.

Immediately, my mind was flooded with the initial shock of landing at Dunedin Airport after being promised a city and wondering if I was going to be living on a farm for the coming years.

Or potentially, how a small island can take so long to drive compared to our seven-lane super-highways spanning America.

But then I fell upon the answer I relayed to them. I was, and continually am, so shocked about the immense colonial influence within the country.

From the first time I played the drinking game many years ago of "Save the Queen" at BYOs, to last year when studying environmental law learning the common term near waterways is "Queen’s Chain", or when speaking more generally it becomes "Crown Land".

Crown land? What?

There is such a strange juxtaposition between knowing I boarded a plane, flew 15 hours south from my home state of California, and landed on an island in the South Pacific, just to hear more about the Queen and British royalty throughout all aspects of life.

This, however, is not a discussion about etymology, as interesting as that may be.

Rather, I want to discuss my experience as a student and the new brand identity of the University of Otago.

For those not in the know, the university has changed its tohu (symbol) as well as its ikoa Māori (Māori name).

The new ikoa Māori is now Ōtākou Whakaihu Waka, a metaphor meaning a place of many firsts.

As a student who has been at the university for the past six years and who is now the student president, this change seems so obvious. Let me explain.

First and foremost, it is time for the university to acknowledge its geopositioning. It is at the bottom of a country, at the bottom of the world. The whole "almost Oxford" or "Oxford of the South" identity it has carried for the past decades is ridiculous.

It is not Oxford and we can all be so glad of that. I can’t even imagine how uncomfortable I would feel in an Oxford-like setting; how less approachable my professors would have been, or how poor of outdoorsmen my lecture mates would be.

The new brand shifts this perception and identity to one that can stand alone without connection to another place, rooted in the sense of self and tangata whenua.

Aotearoa New Zealand may have once been defined by the colonial structures and affiliations to the massive colonising force that was the British Empire, but that is no longer.

The new brand identity leads the charge in its field and acknowledges we are not just a wanna-be British university, tied down by colonial pasts. Rather, we are Ōtākou Whakaihu Waka. A Te Tiriti-led university in the South Pacific.

Secondly, the new ikoa Māori is so incredibly right for the experience of university. It is a place of many firsts. Anyone can recall the massive personal growth they experience at university, most of which are defined by firsts.

First time you did a keg stand? First time forgetting to take the bins out only to leap out of bed when you hear the truck? First time you realise everyone around you is smarter, except the people in your group project?

If we are to define university as an institution for pushing boundaries or a place of knowledge and learning, it is then defined by the many firsts people take.

Students choose to study at Otago for the experience. From living 400m from your best mates in North Dunedin, to the Hyde St Party, to some of the coolest field study programmes in remote mountains — Otago is about the student experience.

There is something uniquely different about Otago. This new brand identity shows it and is defined by it.

Not many, if any, universities have a tohu that is so deeply connected to the place it is. The symbol is representative of and based on the Ōtākou channel.

That resonates much more with me than a random coat of arms, and that is not just because I have a physical geography degree.

The Ōtākou channel breathes life into our town. It breathed life into the harbour long before the town, university, or anything else was even around. The new tohu speaks to how long lasting our university will be.

It feels so glaringly obvious this new brand identity is the correct one. One that should have been done years ago, if not from the beginning.

It is that feeling in tramping when you re-find the track and look back to the dense bush you came out of compared to the nicely formed track, shocked you veered off so much.

I am immensely proud to be a part of this transformed university and lucky to be in this corner of the world. Even if the airport is a mission and a-half away and the highways are one-lane.

 - Keegan Wells is president of the Otago University Students’ Association.