28 April 2009

Welcome to the New IPC President: Professor Wayne L. Edwards

By Shirley Ghozalli and Moira Blake.

The new IPC President, Professor Wayne L. Edwards

"Today, who is feeling excited? Please raise your hand," Professor Wayne L. Edwards, the new IPC President asked the new students in the IPC Senior Common Room on Tuesday 14th April. Many raised their hands - and to their surprise, Wayne raised both of his hands. "Same as you, I'm new at IPC." This easy interaction with the new students as he welcomed them to the College conveyed the new IPC President's friendly character and his enthusiasm for his new position.

Professor Edwards officially took up his role as President of IPC on Monday, 6th April 2009. Continuing the work of Ken Cunningham, the former IPC President, Wayne will contribute to the development of IPC. Soon after his inauguration, he went to Japan to attend the Commencement Ceremony at IPC's sister university, International Pacific University (IPU) in Okayama. He stayed there for a week. This meant that welcoming the new students for Term 1 was in fact Wayne's first task at IPC.

Since starting as a teacher in primary and intermediate schools in Auckland in 1961, Wayne has had a long career in the field of education. Just nine years after he started teaching he won a Fulbright Scholarship and went to Farmington, Michigan, USA. Since then he has held positions in North America, Australia and New Zealand and contributed hugely to the development of higher education systems. Since 1980 he has held various positions at Massey University, always in the education field. Before coming to IPC, Wayne was Professor of Educational Administration and Head of School, School of Educational Studies at Massey University. His work included building international relationships in education with countries in Asia such as Japan and Malaysia, as well as countries in the Middle East such as Oman and Saudi Arabia.

Among the other fellowships, honours, scholarships and appointments for research, teaching and consultancy which Wayne has been granted during his long career are: Fellow of the New Zealand Educational Administration in 1992; Fellow of the Commonwealth Council for Educational Administration and Management in 1996; Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 1995; Life Member, AFS Intercultural Programmes New Zealand in 2002; Honorary Life Member, Antarbudaya Malaysia (AFS Malaysia) in 2005; and Emeritus Professor, Massey University in 2007.

To be able to grow into his new role as President of IPC, Wayne has been interacting with IPC staff members since before his inauguration and is gaining more understanding about IPC. When asked for his impression of IPC, Wayne replied, "IPC's unique point is that it's a New Zealand university where non-native-speakers of English can study English and take 4 year degree programmes at the same time. For that purpose, I can see that the existence of IPC student support and staff is essential." All IPC staff members and students welcome Professor Wayne L. Edwards and are looking forward to the future at IPC under his new direction.

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