Doctor of Professional Practice laudatiae

We would like to congratulate the five Doctor of Professional Practice graduates and take this opportunity to share their laudatiae.

Laudatiae are celebratory texts aimed at making public the contributions of learners who complete the highest qualification an institution offers. Otago Polytechnic is proud to align with this ancient academic custom in celebrating the work of our recent DPP graduates.  

Vicki Rangitautehanga Murray
Thesis: Ko Ngāti Awa te Toki - Unravelling the Adze

Vicki Rangitautehanga Murray has earned her Doctor of Professional Practice with a groundbreaking study on Ngāti Awa tribal governance. Her thesis, "Ko Ngāti Awa te Toki- Unravelling the Adze," offers an in-depth analysis based on 28 interviews and two supplementary booklets. Vicki's work provides a comprehensive and authentic perspective using the Maihi methodology and other innovative approaches rooted in Ngāti Awa traditions. This research is poised to make significant contributions to the governance sector, showcasing Vicki’s dedication and scholarly excellence. Her work stands as a historic account and a beacon of knowledge for future generations.

Stuart Terry
Thesis: The Making of a Professional: Insights from Four Decades Within Vocational Education

Stuart Terry’s thesis, The Making of a Professional: Insights from Four Decades Within Vocational Education, is a groundbreaking exploration of professional identity construction among professional administrative staff in New Zealand’s vocational education sector. Through a hybrid methodology encompassing autoethnography, narrative inquiry, and qualitative description, the study integrates Stuart’s own 45-year journey with the narratives of 18 participants and insights from three eminent practitioners. Key findings reveal how nomenclature, family and whānau influences, leadership, self-perception, and professional networks intersect with broader societal, political and institutional forces to shape professional identity.

Stuart’s research bridges gaps in literature, especially within the under-researched field of vocational education, offering fresh perspectives on how professional identity fosters commitment and adaptability amidst super-complexity and change. With significant implications for policy and practice, the study not only enriches the professional lives of staff but also advances institutional engagement and learner success, marking a vital contribution to vocation and higher education studies.

Michael Mullens
Thesis: Anticipatory Thinking and Sensemaking for Educational Design in an Era of Disruption

Michael Mullens’ professional practice-based doctoral research, “Anticipatory Thinking and Sensemaking for Educational Design in an Era of Disruption,” explores how Global Service Learning programmes can adapt to volatile and uncertain environments. Using General Morphological Analysis, Mullens developed a framework combining anticipatory thinking and sensemaking with practical strategies for educational design. Drawing on his decades of fieldwork experience and interviews with community development practitioners as part of the study, his work offers tools to navigate disruption and sustain impactful learning initiatives. This research addresses disruptive scenarios, supports resilient international learning programmes, and offers workflows applicable to other fields of practice.

Teresa Margaret Bradfield
Thesis: Navigating the Nexus: Enhancing Engagement in New Zealand's Clinical Governance Landscape

A Qualitative Descriptive Analysis, "Navigating the Nexus: Enhancing Engagement in New Zealand's Clinical Governance Landscape” provides new insight as to why trust-based engagement matters in the governance healthcare environment and illuminates the unintended consequences at an individual and organisational level that occur when this relationship is damaged. Situating clinical governance as a ubiquitous activity at all levels of practice, management and governance, this new lens identifies significant relationships between receptiveness and trust and how this influences application of power and voice within the clinical and governance environment. Subsequently a deeper appreciation of why trust-based engagement matters within the healthcare environment enables a new opportunity to reflect on how health we navigate this complex and often oppositional environment.

Dave Hursthouse
Thesis: Becoming Tangata Tiriti

Dave Hursthouse’s doctoral research, Becoming Tangata Tiriti, addresses the role of non-Māori in the decolonisation of Aotearoa. Positioned within the Relational Edge created by Te Tiriti o Waitangi, his work seeks to disrupt nostalgic remembrance of colonial histories and confront the true legacy of colonisation. Through an innovative fusion of autoethnographic storywork and Critical Settler Family History, Hursthouse unpacks the intersections of coloniality, socio-ecological crises, personal identities, and professional practice. Leveraging his lived experience as an Edgewalking practitioner, his He Ripo framework provides an ethical and socio-cultural practice model that invites non-Māori to reorient themselves as manuhiri, participate equitably in Tiriti partnerships, and engage actively in decolonisation at individual, whānau and community levels. By challenging epistemic dominance and disrupting colonial academic norms, Hursthouse’s work is a form of tangata tiriti resistance scholarship that urgently calls for non-Māori to reconcile enduring colonial inequity through the unfolding process of becoming Tangata Tiriti.