Star reporter David Beck notes feral practices and bully-tactics.
### ODT Online Sun, 1 Nov 2015
Students undergo hazing rituals for flats
By David Beck – The Star
Dunedin tertiary students who have secured flats in popular areas such as Castle St and Hyde St are being put through hazing rituals by tenants leaving the flats. Flat initiations are particularly common for students securing a flat for their second year of study and generally involve excessive amounts of alcohol.
Read more
█ Students needing support and advice in this area can contact Student Health, Campus Watch and staff at the university colleges.
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### ODT Online Sun, 1 Nov 2015
Red cards a booze-fuelled tradition
By David Beck – The Star
The scarfie tradition of red cards is all about doing something new and having a good time, a university graduate says. Each person in a flat is allowed to pull one red card during the year. On the day they decide to use it, the rest of the flat has to participate in whatever alcohol-fuelled activity the holder has decided on.
Read more
****
### ODT Online Sun, 1 Nov 2015
Police out in numbers in student area
Police have turned out in numbers in the student area of Dunedin this morning after a disruptive night combining Halloween and Rugby World Cup final celebrations.
Read more
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![The Best Doll wallpaper for Samsung smartphone [samsunghdwallpaper.com]](https://dunedinstadium.files.wordpress.com/2015/11/the-best-doll-wallpaper-for-samsung-smartphone-samsunghdwallpaper-com.jpg)
One practice David Beck has missed (see various
student-authored social media reports) is sexual predation visited on young women by feral young men, read Students —recently brought to the attention of What if? Dunedin.
(Frankly, practically) None of this is helped by ultra short skirts and visible G-strings worn by ‘accessible’ young women, to Dunedin night venues and popup parties. YES that is a non-PC statement but hey.
It’s hard to report sexual assault if you’ve been surrounded (while you’re drunk or drugged, or not) on the dance floor by young men exercising pack instinct and intent. The case of whose finger was it anyway. YES, this in Your Swill Town.
The University, Police and Council authorities wouldn’t have a clue about what/who/how to manage the manifold risks posed to vulnerable young people studying at Dunedin —outstanding ignorance, blindness and naïveté pertain within the Establishment, whose business (MARKETING) it has been to play down the more unsavoury aspects of Student party life here.
The University of Otago and NZ Police FAIL to monitor, DO NOT investigate, and DO NOT offer strong guidance on Student use of social media at Dunedin. These ‘encounters’ make the recent Roast Busters case at Auckland seem trivial if not ephemeral. The ‘Stewards of Dunedin’ reside in the Dark Ages, a place not enlightened by smartphone use for good or bad. There is BAD. Despite the law change based on the outcome of the Roast Busters investigation, sadistic criminal behaviours at Dunedin go unpoliced. And unreported to Police.
Keep partying why not. Sell more drinks, more party drugs?
No-one wants to talk about it. Jolly the young sweet things along.
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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr
*Image: samsunghdwallpaper.com – The Best Doll wallpaper for Samsung smartphone
What if? Dunedin... 
Old UoO habits die hard……………
### ODT Online Sun, 1 Nov 2015
Gender balance queried
By John Gibb
Tertiary Education Minister Steven Joyce has been accused of not complying with a new gender balance law in making recent appointments to the University of Otago Council. The claim comes from Tertiary Education Union (TEU) national president Sandra Grey.
Read more
### ODT Online Mon, 2 Nov 2015
Students celebrate with couch burnings
By Craig Borley
As Dunedin’s Ben Smith was lighting up Twickenham by setting up the All Blacks’ final breakout try, Dunedin students and others were lighting up Castle St with a blaze of broken couches. The Fire Service was called to 13 fires – most of them couch fires – in the city’s student district between about 1am and 8pm yesterday.
Read more
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### Stuff.co.nz Last updated 12:56, November 1 2015
Dunedin students celebrate Rugby World Cup win by torching couches
By Blair Ensor
Drunk students torched couches in Dunedin as they celebrated the All Blacks winning the Rugby World Cup. Firefighters attended at least six fires near the University of Otago on Sunday morning. A Fire Service spokesman said several couches had been set alight on Leith, Dundas and Castle streets.
Read more + Video
### dunedintv.co.nz Mon, 2 Nov 2015
Couches set ablaze as celebrations get out of hand
Police are disappointed in the behaviour of young residents within the student quarter, after Rugby World Cup celebrations got out of hand.
Ch39 Link
39 Dunedin Television Published on Nov 1, 2015
Couches set ablaze as celebrations get out of hand
Unabridged comment. See if you can spot what the ODT wouldn’t print in my on-line comment featured at the bottom of this article and ask yourself WHY?
‘Celebratory’ and ‘Fun’ don’t make this ok, so why is it being down-played yet again? What is the annual cost to Dunedin ratepayers of this booze-fuelled anarchy? It’s time for cameras in the student quarter Mr Cull – There are no more excuses left to delay it.
National news media are so sick of the same story coming out of Dunedin whenever there’s an excuse to start up a couch burning, that even they are now normalising our situation by ignoring it.
Where was this so-called ‘zero-tolerance’ police presence before the masses committed these offences? Afterall it wasn’t exactly rocket science to predict this would likely happen!
There’s an absolute reluctance on behalf of the authorities to make consequences happen for these lawbreakers in this City- because they bring in such a hefty spend. $829M gives them licence to do whatever they want.
How much of that sum actually stays in Dunedin and what proportion of it is spent on alcohol is anyone’s guess. Obviously the cost in related harm is considered worth it by our City leaders who are too scared to publish these figures.
Dunedin should be leading the way in a nation-wide movement calling for the legal drinking age to be raised to 21 and for public drunkenness to be made illegal in this country.
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{Link: http://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/361592/students-celebrate-couch-burnings#comment-77412 -Eds}
### ODT Online Mon, 2 Nov 2015
Concern at students’ sexual risk taking
By Damian George
A University of Otago study has confirmed what researchers expected: alcohol and sexual risk taking is contributing to unsafe sex among young people. Speaking at the 2015 University of Otago Science Teller festival at the university’s College of Education auditorium on Saturday, Prof Jennie Connor said something needed to be done to improve rates of unsafe sex among university students.
Read more
Oh dear.
ODT 6.11.15 (page 12)
Received.
Fri, 6 Nov 2015 at 4:54 p.m.
Oh WOW – Talk about getting it soooo wrong! Damn the reporter to hell and back – This is just another way of playing down the seriousness of what’s happening in this town! What a disgusting report from the ODDITY and how humiliating for Prof Connor.
That pathetic apology doesn’t suffice!! The seriousness of those statistics deserve a more thorough and greater coverage – checked and double-checked by the Uni before publishing correctly next time!
Do we know who the reporter was?
Okay, Damian George. BAD WORK! Take a D. I really wonder about the omission of the drinking factor. But this looks far more like incompetence to the point of being totally unfit for the job rather than any plots to slant the news. Has Damian George written any good stories? (Maybe he was having a really bad day). The name is unfamiliar to me. Has he been around for long?
I think this is maybe partly an expression of ‘youth suicide culture ‘, in Dunedin compounded by the fact that Otago University has historically been the playground of the spoiled offspring of the rich – at least a significant and noticeable number of them were/are spoiled with a huge sense of entitlement that their wants and needs should take priority over everyone else’s. I recently read that South Korea has a program for young, depressed people which involves having a lie down in a coffin, to get a sense that being alive might be preferable to being a corpse after all, when you really think about the whole deal in practical, realistic terms.
MORE ON SEXUAL ASSAULT AT DUNEDIN
Previously referenced by What if? Dunedin (link), a shameful article from the beginning of this year:
### thewireless.co.nz Fri, 13 Mar 2015
‘He was grinding me’: A Castle Street experience
By Mava Moayyed
What goes on in North Dunedin?
Last week I went to Dunedin for the very first time. While I was there, I found myself being told rape jokes and grinded on by a kid who been drinking for nine hours.
On the street I’d felt at ease, but the drunken kid at the flat left me nervous about what could be brewing under the surface.
I was in the city to investigate whether the student quarter was as bad as I’d heard. Reports in local media had described it as looking “like the Third World”, with couches burned in the street, glass smashed and party-goers who would drink to oblivion.
Read more
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Lady Gaga tackles the problem very graphically, recently
LadyGagaVEVO Published on Sep 17, 2015
Lady Gaga – Til It Happens To You
A portion of proceeds from the sale of the song will be donated to organizations helping survivors of sexual assault.
“Til It Happens To You” written by Diane Warren and Lady Gaga; performed by Lady Gaga, from the film THE HUNTING GROUND.
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From the mouths of our future leaders – proudly educated right here in Dunners…
Already a problem at Dunedin, we can name names if it helps clean up social media use by students…….
### Stuff.co.nz Last updated 12:17, November 12 2015
Explained: Yik Yak app
By Caitlin Dewey
Source: Washington Post
This week, students at the embattled University of Missouri noticed several disturbing messages on the anonymous messaging app Yik Yak. University of Missouri police have said they apprehended the person suspected of posting both threats and have reassured students that there’s no cause for further concern.
Yik Yak is essentially a public, anonymous, location-based message board: After downloading the app, you can post anything you want to nearby readers – who can then comment, up-vote or down-vote your “yak,” also anonymously. Since it was founded by two recent college grads in 2013, the app has proven particularly popular among students, who often use it to trade the sorts of jokes and gossip that – in this ultra-Googleable age – they wouldn’t want to post under their real names. But it’s also posed major, repeat problems, at universities especially, when students abuse the app’s promise of anonymity.
What is Yik Yak?
Yik Yak is an anonymous, location-based bulletin board that – per the analytics firm App Annie – has ranked among the top 30 social media apps in the United States almost constantly since 2014. While the app is popular among college students, it’s gotten lacklustre reviews elsewhere.
Read more
Otago Critic on Yik Yak
Posted 12:32pm Sun, 12 July 2015 by Anthony Gordon
Yaktivism
Much has been made in the news about how school kids have used Yik Yak to cyber-bully their peers, causing some commentators to call for its outright banning. I have to disagree; my experience with Yik Yak over the past few months is not only proof of social media’s potential to bring people together rather than isolate us from one another, it has renewed my faith in the good will and altruism of my peers.
Read more at http://www.critic.co.nz/features/article/5071/yaktivism
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30.6.15 ODT: Cyberbully law ‘too vague’ (via NZ Herald)
• New cyberbullying law will create a criminal offence of intentionally causing harm by posting a digital communication, punishable by up to two years’ imprisonment or a maximum fine of $50,000.
• Complaints can be made to an approved agency, which will attempt to resolve the issue and may contact companies like Google to get material taken down.
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I’ve got to this place – if you don’t have a sense of humour Yik Yak is not for you. If you don’t know what the hell is up or down and you’re miserable or dogball ignorant, Yik Yak’s for you.
Stay off it for a real life. Don’t take yourself so seriously, no-one else does. Oh, and if you’re over 50 and you’re haunting Yik Yak for a thrill – REALLY, get a life.
I ran the app on the weekend, nothing to see here. Deleted it off my phone. One of the local Twitter bullies was present but apart from that illumination why bother with inanity from young people with pimples and STDs.
Twitter is the best kind of social media, short-sharp, internationally clever and informed.
Couldn’t agree more Elizabeth, however now that most of the students who frequent Yik Yak have left, this isn’t the time to be making any judgement call on the quality of the posts. What’s on show now are high school kid wannabe’s trying to act all grown up, but failing miserably.
Admittedly some of the stuff that features is pretty disturbing, but the clever humour the majority of our scarifies are capable of is on holiday until mid Feb at least.
Sorry didn’t you notice a lil’ concert at Fubar tonight and who’s staying in town for that…. what you see at Yik Yak depends on your location, I was in the campus area for most sampling. BTW that wasn’t a judgement call it was my opinion, Ralphy sweet.
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Loving this: Yik Yak had a valuation over US$350 million, less than one year after launch.
Yik Yak works by combining the technologies of GPS and instant messaging, allowing users to anonymously microblog to other nearby users. Before loading messages, the Yik Yak app determines the user’s location and groups them into pockets of 1.5 mile (2.4 kilometre) radius zones. Within these zones, anyone inside the radius can post and read other people’s “yaks”. Yik Yak is effectively an anonymous bulletin board. The developers use a technology called geofencing to avoid as much cyber-bullying as possible. Geofencing allows certain areas, such as middle schools and high schools to be ‘fenced’ off using GPS technology. The app will then be no longer accessible in the fenced off area. Yik Yak allows small communities to provide commentary on events in real time.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yik_Yak
13.11.15 NZ Herald: Professor torn apart on social media for telling students to stand up to bullies
[…] a harsh new reality for American university professors: a combination of politics and technology has made it easier than ever for professors to become targets. In the age of Facebook and Twitter, trigger warnings and microaggressions, college professors can go from being educators to the accused in the blink of an eye. The phenomenon can be seen across the country and traced to the rise of smart phones.
Half of the problem is that immature women have been told they can do anything and so – Baby’s on Fire!: http://lyricstranslate.com/en/die-antwoord-babys-fire-lyrics.html-0
The other half of the problem is immature male brains and present culture giving these young men too much power and then no bad consequences when they imagine they are super-alpha-males and act in an arrogant, self-centred, STUPID, CHILDISH way: http://genius.com/Kendrick-lamar-backseat-freestyle-lyrics
Conceptual art reflecting (young) people’s reality and their take on it. But Puccini (for example) wouldn’t recognize it as ‘music’ and neither do I!
(Beware:These two videos are full of swearing, sexual references and a little violence.)
Dunedin really does need to sort out this problem here because, left to itself, it will get worse. And it seriously negatively impacts the law-abiding locals. But the problem is worldwide.
(I am trying to do my spring cleaning, Elizabeth, and keep getting distracted by your INTERESTING postings!)
There’s a number of individual women interested in bringing everything out into the open – watch this space and other media in the build to 2016 student orientation.
The University and the bluestocking’s ignore of adverse destructive use of social media, and related behaviours: intimidation, harassment and sexual assaults…. since this time last year has been superlative.
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### radionz.co.nz Updated at 5:55 am on 10 October 2014
RNZ News
Otago Facebook page ‘concerning’
The vice-chancellor of Otago University says the sexual exploitation of people in social media is a world-wide epidemic, and not confined to her university.
A Facebook page supported by Otago students that hosted explicit photos of women without their consent has been taken down, but it continues to cause outrage. Vice-chancellor Harlene Hayne said such behaviour would not be tolerated. She said the case was a clear example of the objectification of women, and it was concerning it was done with a cavalier attitude by men attending her university. Such abuse in social media is a world-wide occurrence that cannot be tolerated and those responsible could face a suspension, fee or permanent expulsion, she said.
One student is facing disciplinary action and the police said they would take action if any laws were broken.
RNZ Link
****
The University of Otago bs whitewash continues via its hallowed leader [bobblehead], who actively refuses to meet with concerned members of the public who seek her assistance to curb gross ‘Student’ behaviours occurring on campus and around the City Rise. Shame on Harls for being SO OUT OF TOUCH.
### radionz.co.nz Updated at 10:56 am on 29 September 2015
Prof Harlene Hayne – Celebrating Academic Success
Does the tall poppy syndrome really exist? Professor Harlene Hayne, Vice Chancellor of Otago University, believes it does. She tells Wallace Chapman that it’s time New Zealand started celebrating academic success in the same way we celebrate sporting achievement.
Audio | Download: Ogg MP3 ( 16′ 34″ )
The answer to the problems are so overwhelmingly obvious, yet for whatever reasons the University management simply can’t or won’t accept it and act. Enrolment would involve a contract to be signed by all applicants with rules clearly stated. Details of behaviour requirements to be met on or adjacent to campus by any and all students laid out in detail. Breaching of any of the rules entails instant dismissal, no ifs no buts.That would finish sofa burning, drunkeness and sexual predation by the end of the first term initiation period. Thereafter it would be consigned to the history books. Too hard? Probably in this namby pamby PC world. VC Haynes would not have the bottle to realise how the University short changes the majority of law abiding students and the reputation of the institution.
Weekend break-in. It took a wee while to come, see today’s admission that University of Otago storage of unmarked examination papers was not SECURE enough to prevent theft of nearly 100 papers.
Oh boy, Harls, what to do, what to do !?!?
ODT: Break-in at uni exam office
ODT: Stolen Otago uni exams unmarked
█ Dunedin Central Police Station can be reached on 03 471 4800. Alternatively, information can be provided anonymously via Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.
The University has to GROW UP about a lot of things.
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According to local sources (social media), here is something more sinister, more criminal re university student conduct:
Like in med school dissection classes this year, where quite apart from legitimate handling of corpses in the learning environment students also witnessed their male co-student(s) interfering with and defiling dead bodies by putting fingers up body orifices, or more correctly, sexual orifices.
Was this behaviour reported ?
Where was the mandated course supervision – taking coffee in the staff room ?
How much time is devoted within each professional medical year to ‘Ethics of Practising Medical Procedures on Dead Patients’, we wonder.
Why didn’t someone call the Police ?
Needless to say:
Crimes Act 1961
http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1961/0043/latest/DLM329287.html
150 Misconduct in respect of human remains
Every one is liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 2 years who—
(a) neglects to perform any duty imposed on him or her by law or undertaken by him or her with reference to the burial or cremation of any dead human body or human remains; or
(b) improperly or indecently interferes with or offers any indignity to any dead human body or human remains, whether buried or not.
Compare: 1908 No 32 s 165
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Harlene’s party-goers are reaching new lows. The VC needs to get her head out of the ivy.
No responsibility, morals, ethics, compassion or humanity. Just very serious criminal behaviour.
Elizabeth, if this appalling lack of respect for the human remains of people who generously left their bodies to the medical school so that medical students can learn their craft is actually happening, I am extremely shocked. Not only that some students would do it but that there is insufficient supervision from the university authorities that students can do it.
Yeah awful. Raised it briefly with an authority on Friday – absolutely no proof at this stage if it actually happened but I has my methods. Following up.
EXAM PAPERS —Arrest of a dumbchook who (not stated by police, but as I hear from Registry staff) took an axe to the doors for entry.
No-one seems to be saying if the unmarked exam papers have been recovered.
### ODT Online Wed, 11 Nov 2015
Arrest after exam papers stolen
By John Gibb
Dunedin Police have now arrested and charged a 23 year-old woman with burglary in relation to the University of Otago incident where exam scripts were taken on Saturday night. As the matter is now before the courts, the police will be making no further comment.
Read more
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### ODT Online Wed, 11 Nov 2015
Resits after exam papers stolen
By Rhys Chamberlain
University of Otago dentistry students were forced to resit their last exam without being told why, after 98 unmarked scripts were stolen from the Clocktower Building. They were also asked not to tell their classmates about the resit, a final-year dentistry student said.
Read more
39 Dunedin Television Published on Nov 9, 2015
Examination papers stolen from the University of Otago
Almost 100 unmarked examination papers have been stolen from the University of Otago.
█ ODT: Help sought over theft of exam papers
Completely UNSURPRISING that Hamish McNeilly for Fairfax supplies more fact than ODT….
He says:
“The University of Otago issued a statement confirming the exam scripts had been recovered, “Unfortunately, they are in an unusable state”.”
Read Hamish’s full report at:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/73862258/arrest-after-uni-exam-papers-theft-at-otago-uni
Stuff: Otago University exam paper thief hid in cupboard ’til dark then smashed into office with axe
A woman hid in an Otago University cleaner’s cupboard until the building closed, emerged after dark wearing rubber gloves, a balaclava and an axe and stole almost 100 exam papers. The 23-year-old woman, who has name suppression, pleaded guilty when she appeared in the Auckland District Court on Tuesday, after her case was transferred from Dunedin. She will be sentenced on February 10.
ODT: Elaborate ploy to steal exam papers
A woman hid in a cleaners’ cupboard and under a bed until staff had gone home so she could steal nearly 100 exam papers from Otago University. The 23-year-old appeared in Auckland District Court this morning where she pleaded guilty to a charge of burglary. Judge David Harvey granted her interim name suppression because of her “fragile mental health”.
Now. More on the “hookup culture” that University of Otago enjoys as part of its popup party marketing strategy within NZ and overseas through cruisy inaction and failure to turn the tide of low quality entrants (boggleheads, be they bright or relatively stoopid) to courses, along with institutionalised tacit support of Hyde Street Party and other campus area events including slaponwrist couch fires and civil disorder; support through inaction for fast erosion and loss of City Rise heritage values and ‘good neighbour’ values – the VC has refused to meet some residents with genuine concerns, FACT; handsoff tolerance for unbearable student noise and atrocious student harassment and threatening behaviours…. while sleepless night after nights occurs for other residents, their households and their families.
The following article appeared at ODT today on the Opinion page, entitled ‘More women equals men behaving badly’. ODT also supplied this information: The 2014 gender radio at the University of Otago was 57% female and 43% male.
The article was written by Cynthia M Allen, a columnist for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, where it was first published.
November 5, 2015
Sex, violence and gender parity
● New research suggests gender imbalances on colleges feed hookup culture
● When gender balance is close, monogamy is more prevalent
● Surpluses of women also correlate to increased sexual violence
Here’s a question for your next cocktail party: Do women civilise men? To your average feminist, that’s an arcane and sexist notion – maybe even a ploy to bridle women into unfulfilling monogamous relationships. But it’s a question worth asking, especially when considering the findings of Jon Birger, a Fortune magazine writer, who dug into the data about gender imbalance on college campuses and emerged with some interesting findings about their impact on social and sexual behaviour.
Read more: http://www.star-telegram.com/opinion/opn-columns-blogs/cynthia-m-allen/article43284621.html#storylink=cpy
### Stuff.co.nz Last updated 05:00, November 17 2015
Uni of Otago exam paper theft accused due in court
By Hamish McNeilly
The 23-year-old woman accused of stealing exam papers from the University of Otago is due to appear in court on Tuesday morning. The woman was arrested and charged with burglary on Wednesday. She is scheduled to appear in the Dunedin District Court.
University of Otago’s Campus Watch staff found multiple windows and doors smashed and broken at the historic Clocktower Building on Saturday November 7, about 9pm. Entry to the area required a swipe-card, but there was a suggestion an axe may have been used.
Read more
Tweets
█ 17.11.15 NZ Herald: Exam paper theft has appearance adjourned
Oh dear. That’s rather too long. Too much salary.
More rugby more party. Mayhem. FALLING ROLLS ~!!!
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### ODT Online Tue, 2 Feb 2016
Vice-chancellor until 2021
University of Otago vice-chancellor Prof Harlene Hayne will be in the role until 2021, it was announced yesterday. University chancellor John Ward said in a press release Prof Hayne’s contract had been extended to August 2021.
Read more
█ University of Otago – Media Release (2 Feb 2016)