To Victoria University of Wellington Faculty and Staff, 

Victoria University is a home for education for many different student groups, throughout New Zealand and further. Victoria University offers gateways to higher education to these students through scholarships and courses which are targeted to Pacific communities. 

With all the gateways that Victoria University advertises and provides, we call to attention the safety of Pasifika students in lectures and classrooms, and within high level conversations with Victoria University staff. Students who have to engage with statistically more inequities than students of other backgrounds, they also have to come into an educational environment and may have to combat micro-aggressions, and sometimes explicit racism while being expected to still learn. Situations which our students are positioned in range from explicit racist remarks, cultural incompetency, and the mispronounciation of our names repeatedly and frequently. Hearing the mispronunciation of names would hurt less, if there was humility shown in acknowledging that you will not get it right on the first go, but that you are open to try and learn.

The student body of Pacific students does not stand with the status-quo and it pushes for change within the professional development pathways which are offered within Victoria University. We ask that you organise, contract and dedicate time and resource to sessions, yearly, to learn about and embrace Pasifika thoughts, ways of life and people, to improve the quality of your university. Mandatory cultural competency that doesn’t try to teach Pasifika cultures, but teaches people how to position themselves within Pasifika cultures. 

We draw your mind back to your mission statement, Capital thinking. Global minded. Mai i te iho ki te pae. We implore you to, through your leadership, to entrench this mission statement into your professional development pathways by ensuring:

cultural competency for all key members of staff, achieved through Talanoa about Pasifika values and;
that these services are contracted to Pasifika businesses to support the Pasifika economy.
These Talanoa sessions, we believe will enable staff to understand, approach and engage with topics relating to our Pacific peoples with respect, understanding and safety. For too long our communities have not been enhanced, but rather silenced in educational settings, while still providing a role in service and marketing for the university under a diversity and inclusion tagline. We call on you to critically analyse VUW core ethical values and build on the work already done, to offer these talanoa sessions facilitated by competent Pasifika businesses and leaders. This opportunity is especially suited to Pacific Studies Alumni and Pasifika educators, as it demonstrates the university's confidence that the education you provide is of adequate quality to educate and service our communities. 

We call you to account for whether a lack of these practices could be contributing to the low population of Pasifika within the tertiary education community and if the simple inclusion of these workshops, could create an educational institute more in line with VUW core values (VUW website states the values to be respect, responsibility, fairness, integrity, and empathy, inclusivity, equity, diversity, collegiality, and openness. And as tangata whenua, rangatiratanga, manaakitanga, kitiaki, whai maatauranga, whanungatanga and akronga). 

We implore the leadership of VUW to continue to strive for a new solution to the long standing and complex issues that colonialism has brought to Pasifika communities and Māori through these workshops. 

Sincerely,

The often culturally misunderstood, misjudged, and misrepresented Pasifika students of Te Herenga Waka, Tanumia Matega & Wan Solwara Team 2022