From left, outgoing Associate Dean International Dr Stephen Young, PVC Te Kete Aronui Humanities Professor Jessica Palmer, and newly appointed Associate Dean International Dr Hunter Hatfield. They are at the signing ceremony for an articulation agreement with Wuhan University, China in November 2022.
Dr Hunter Hatfield is the newly appointed Associate Dean International (ADI) for Te Kete Aronui Division of Humanities.
He originally moved into this international space because he thought “our classrooms would be pedagogically richer with a greater international student cohort, and I've just been trying to help make that a reality since.”
Dr Hatfield takes up the ADI mantle from Dr Stephen Young and has recently been acting in the position while Dr Young took RSL, so understands that the role “keeps an eye on all things international”.
“It's very much a support role. I help academics form connections, students have a good experience, and build bridges between our Division, the International Office, and institutions around the world.”
It is a dynamic role, especially as the COVID-19 pandemic has changed the shape of our international cohort.
Dr Hatfield says that before the pandemic, almost two thirds of Te Kete Aronui international cohort were students on a study abroad programme; typically from North America, Europe, and Asia, coming to Otago for a semester or a year and taking the credits they earn home. The other third were students completing degrees of various sorts, such as the BA.
“Study abroad students come here for an Aotearoa New Zealand experience. Classes from Te Tumu are among the most popular, and as many international as domestic students have been in our New Zealand literature paper. They want an experience they can't have elsewhere.”
Dr Hatfield says the study abroad students were most affected by border closures; the plan over the next few years is to welcome these students back and make a shift to attracting more international students completing longer-term degrees.
A key part of the role of the Associate Deans across Te Kete Aronui is to support the Division to work towards achieving the goals in our Te Kete Aronui Division of Humanities Strategic Plan 2022-26. Dr Hatfield sees several goals in this that have direct international ties.
“The first goal in our strategic plan is to ‘Champion and Advance the Humanities’. One of the actions we are taking to do that is fostering collaboration with international partners. This is the ADI's purpose. We want to have research connections but also a diverse community of tauira.
“We also want to fulfil our responsibilities as a Pacific university and so I keep a constant eye out for Pacific connections. I guess I shouldn't announce agreements until they are signed, so please watch this space for exciting Pacific initiatives.
“Additionally, our Division wishes to ‘Inspire and Equip our Students’, which means increasing their skills in being ethical members of a global community.”
Dr Hatfield says he’s always been interested in learning from cultures beyond the one he grew up in, which was a rural community in Northern Louisiana in a home across the street from a cotton field. In his day job, he is primarily a psycholinguist, in the Linguistics and English programme
“I am fascinated with how the mind/brain handles language. Within this, I am something of a generalist, interested in sound, grammars, meanings, and conversations as a whole. That might sound narrow, but within the discipline, each of those is a subfield itself!”
Read more international information for staff.