Hosted by the School of Humanities, University of Auckland
12pm to 2pm 14 September 2014 Patrick Hanan Room Arts 2
Present Karl Flavell, Malcolm Campbell, Makere Rika-Heke, Beatrice Hudson, Matthew Campbell,
Georgina White, Lucy Mackintosh, Elizabeth Rankin, Jane Legget, David Reeves, Ann
McEwan, Cara Francesco, Lisa Truttman, Tanya Sorrell, Gerard O’Regan, Aroha Harris,
Ngarino Ellis, Rebecca Freeman, Matthew Felgate, Alex Jorgensen, Rebecca Phillipps,
Elizabeth Aitken-Rose, Graeme McConchie, Bruce Petry, Jennifer Hayman, Myfanwy Eaves, Carole-Lynne Kerrigan, David Bade, Bev Parslow, Elizabeth Pishief
Apologies
Edward Ashby, Conal McCarthy, John Adam, Julia Gatley, Hana Maihi
Meeting notes
Opened with a karakia by Karl Flavell.
Elizabeth Pishief: The purpose of this meeting is to gauge Auckland interest in the proposal for an Institute and to get ideas and feedback.
Malcolm Campbell: welcome by the School of Humanities, University of Auckland.
Elizabeth Pishief: the idea is not to step on toes or to take over from existing groups. This is to be a coordinating, multi-disciplinary organisation for NZ – it will focus on collegiality, standards and qualifications. It will be broad enough to work in with a number of disciplines. It will be bicultural.
David Reeves: Regarding the list of aims, the first four are broad and on going; the last three are pieces of work. To shorten or clarify list, we could identify the different levels of aims and distinguish between what is short-term and long-term.
Mathew Campbell: Accreditation is a separate issue.
Elizabeth Pishief: Parliamentary input would be required. Perhaps it is better to establish an incorporated society whose first job it would be to explore accreditation. That would require a lot of input.
Mathew Campbell: The other aims are achievable; accreditation is perhaps not achievable.
Elizabeth Pishief: Different levels of membership are required.
Lisa Truttman: From the perspective of setting up incorporated societies, this is good groundwork. As long as you haven’t left anything out you’re intending to do. You can have any number of rules you like. You need to state who you are, what you’re about and what you’re intending to be.
Elizabeth Pishief, Question to group: are you interested in this organisation?
[Name?]: The big question in my mind is what are we going to achieve by having this institute compared to what we have offered to us by other organisations?
Elizabeth: The heritage industry currently operates in silos. There is a need for a multidisciplinary approach. There needs to be greater coordination. Information is not being shared. So this institute is a coordinating institute.
[Name]: And we can’t achieve that with our current organisations?
Elizabeth: It needs to be independent from Heritage NZ. It needs to coordinate.
Alex Jorgensen: how will a heritage institute fix the silos?
EP: We’d need a newsletter; that would help with the multi-disciplinary aspects. We’d need training.
Alex Jorgensen: What sort of training do you envisage? It’s a pretty big aim. What do you envisage if it’s not toward accreditation?
EP: That’s what I mean about having different levels of membership.
Heritage NZ spokesperson: One important aim might be interdisciplinary training, workshops etc. My concern is that you already have HNZ (regulators for archaeology); how would the institute and accreditation affect them?
Elizabeth Rankin coordinator Museum Studies: I am interested in accreditation and pathways into the industry. Do we set up internships? I’m also interested in the variety of accreditation that’s already around.
EP: There’s no land-based heritage education. There are gaps that need to be addressed.
Elizabeth Aitken-Rose, AU: we’re at the early stages of developing a Master’s of Heritage Conservation [check title] to be developed in conjunct with the department of architecture [confirm this dept]. Do you have a model and how will you resource this?
EP: This meeting is to help develop the model.
Ann McEwan: Humanities Association of NZ (HUMANZ) could be a possible model. Its purpose: networking, recognition of awards, and hosting conferences where people can share information and network. Its great achievement was to join the Royal Society.
EP: The conference idea received support in Wellington.
Ann: the rationale for this institute is that it can be more inclusive and can crossover various disciplines.
Elizabeth Rankin: it could be something similar to the H-Net – an online network. This could be a low-cost way of networking.
Mathew Campbell: NZ Archaeology Association has 350 members, is run by volunteers, takes much time and effort – I presume other associations are similar. How would the Heritage Institute lighten our workload? Will it be another layer of complication and bureaucracy?
EP: your organisation would stick to its core business…
David Reeves: another useful model is the National Digital Forum. NDF is comprised of museums, archives and libraries. Its main activity: conferences. These are an opportunity for networking, to share current research, for information gathering, as well as advocacy. NDF has a light touch in terms of organisation. It has a board. It acts as a crossroads. It doesn’t seek to do the work of any other organisations. It’s a meeting place.
EP: Training and networking and standards are the key things.
Alex Jorgensen: How will you apply standards?
EP: The Heritage Institute would have overarching standards. Each institute/speciality would then have standards beneath that.
Alex Jorgensen: How would they be applied? … At the moment the HPT is deciding who is appropriate to work.
Cara Francesco Auckland Council: what would be required to be a member? The Planning Institute has an interview to establish the candidate has an understanding of overarching principles. You also need an accredited degree.
David Reeves: what’s the problem we’re trying to solve? If people are working in silos, what is the impact of that? Why is that a problem? How might we solve that problem?
EP: Heritage is currently viewed from the perspectives of various silos.
Myfanwy Eaves Auckland Council: we receive a document from someone claiming to be an expert who is writing about a site, from one perspective. AC needs multiple perspectives. So the Institute needs to be something where people speak to each other and possibly up-skill each other.
Bev Parsloe Heritage NZ: Historic heritage values must be taken on-board as well as archaeology. Is this an issue about practitioners?
EP: I think it’s about practitioners. They are too narrow in their focus.
Makere Rika-Heke Heritage NZ, Maori Heritage Unit: From a Maori point of view, practitioners may be technically brilliant but have poor cultural competency. Our people need a way to gauge who is competent and who is not. The Institute needs to address tikanga. I can see different tiers that will make up the different curriculum or structure. There are four other groups working with something similar: Northland, Waikato, Victoria University, and down south.
Aroha Harris History Department (AU): I am struggling a bit. Do we all mean the same thing when we say ‘heritage’? Is establishing an institute the resolution? An idea, borrowed from friends and colleagues of Native American Institute: that institute was committed to three conferences; at these they opened up the question shall we have an organisation? Clear goals emerged, as did long-term commitment. It was a three-year conversation.
EP: conference idea has been around; an opportunity to get people to start talking.
Bruce Petry: As a practitioner, there are issues around establishing a professional body as others do (archaeologists, planners etc.). Heritage Management: broad focus. Set up standards, protocols: for me, these are the key aspects. It will revolve around cost and membership. The idea of it being a statutory body brings up many implications. A lot of it will revolve around how it will be funded. It will need to be more than volunteers. It loses credibility if there’s no one to say ‘this is what we’re going to do.’ You need an office, and a CEO.
EP: You need it to be multi-disciplinary in order to get enough people to fund it.
Matthew Campbell Archaeological Association: Agrees - the AA does not have not enough people.
Myfanwy Eaves, Auckland Council: The element of education is an important one. Heritage practitioners should be people with an over-arching understanding. It could be a postgrad degree.
Tanya Sorrell Auckland Council: Another overseas model: California Council for promotion of History: brings together people from a number of disciplines, run by academic professionals, they do conferences, they run on a shoestring, they go on trips and talk about place-based history from multiple perspectives. Idea: you join institute and become a ‘registered heritage professional’. This registration would mean: you’ve volunteered to be part of this conversation, you’ve committed to going to conferences, and you’ve committed to take part in holistic conversations.
EP: But there would need to be training schemes.
Gerard O’Regan: I’m not sure how interdisciplinary we need to be as individuals. Professionalism in NZ heritage partly results because we’ve become more and more specialised. Part of it is just people in the sector respecting their own professional limits. So when we start talking about training and accreditation, I’m not sure about its scope. Aroha is absolutely right, there isn’t a common agreement of ‘what is heritage?’ The question of ‘what is heritage in NZ?’ has not been mapped out and well defined.
EP: heritage is about the people of NZ.
Bruce Petry: It’s about getting a level of dialogue happening and providing input. And it’s important to know that my level of training is the same as other peoples who are working in the same area.
Makere Rika-Heke Heritage NZ, Maori Unit: There are many people doing heritage, there are few Maori faces coming through, and there is lack of succession planning. I like the idea that there might be a broader catchment for new people. I’d advocate professional placements. A model I like re professional training is the training for GIS specialists.
Cara Francesco, Auckland Council: It could be an opportunity for mentoring.
Matthew Felgate: focus on multi-disciplinary institute. For specialists, there’s a limit to broadening out. There’s some benefit to a group like this. The function of registration: make aware of various specialists; form a network. Who is working in the arena? Where are the opportunities to work together?
Jane Legget, Auckland Museum: it seems what we’re talking about is a massive website – ‘heritage central’; an information exchange and a network for meeting people; and from time to time there’d be a conference; people could pay a fee to belong.
EP: The fee could be towards keeping the website going.
Mathew Campbell: an example: if you need a conservator, you go to the conservator’s web page.
Ann McEwan: another model: the PHANZA site; PHANZA talk about pay and what ACC claim you should file. PHANZA gives a directory of all their members. Back to these questions: what’s the problem and what’s the solution? There’s a problem around quality of work (archaeologists producing heritage reports, for instance): solution not to accredit, but to share expertise, research and good work. This process would increase quality of work. This is about sharing research papers, academic papers, site assessments etc.
Bruce Petry: conferences don’t have to be expensive; it’s all about continuing professional development.
Alex Jorgensen: there are two issues: standards and networking (and professional development). We need to nut out the interface between these. Everyone here is in agreement about cross-pollination and networking and sharing ideas. Not everyone is in agreement about standards. People have brought up excellent models of networks that are already in place. We need to be careful about standards.
EP: How do we move forward?
Lisa Truttman: Perhaps set up incorporated society with aims linked to networking, professional development, and conferences, then build from that. You need 15 people. You don’t require an auditor.
EP: We need some body of some kind to move forward. I can’t do it singlehandedly.
Aroha Harris (?): I’m going to disagree with going straight to incorporated society. I suggest you have a committee that works out how to get to the incorporated society. The committee needs to have a longer discussion about aims and purpose, which may or may not lead to the incorporated society.
EP: an original idea was to have a working party.
Lisa Truttman: get something formalised. Then people have something to respond to.
EP: web page could be used to form the rules, regulations.
Gerard O’Regan: we already have membership/professional sector organisations. It strikes me that the sensible path forward is to see the issues explored by a working party of our current organisations. Furthermore, what is a ‘Heritage Institute’ working party going to do that meaningfully supports the existing organisations? For example, I’d love to know what Museums Aotearoa position is, what the various bodies think of this proposed Heritage Institute. I’d like to see some mapping of this sector. I don’t think there’s clarity about what the issues across the ‘heritage sector’ are.
EP: would that be a good theme for the conference?
Gerard O’Regan: Before a conference I’d suggest that the next step is a working party of our existing organisations.
Lucy Mackintosh: within the university, we need to be collaborating and working together…
Bev Parslow? Heritage NZ: the institute needs broader representation.
Gerard O’Regan: What I’m advocating for is that our existing professional organisations have the conversation about what they do, what they don’t do, and therefore what they would see any institute like that proposed could usefully do.
David Reeves: what’s the problem we’re trying to solve? You can define that by looking at what people are doing, and where are the gaps and needs? Like Aroha, I think we need to go broader. When I look at the aims, they seem inward. There’s not advocacy to the broader public, or to politicians.
Ngarino Ellis: What about global networks?
Matthew Campbell: Gerard asked what is the view of other organisations? What is their view of this organisation’s purpose? Purpose: is it to be a networking group, an umbrella group, is to undertake accreditation? Could the group do it all? NZAA would want to see some clarity around purpose. If there is a body to undertake some advocacy, that would be fantastic.
Bruce Petry: re ICOMOS, one organisation in room that should be feeling most threatened. Many functions of this institute are things that ICOMOS has taken the lead in the past. But, it is only a volunteer organisation. My only warning is that whomever takes on this institute needs to be broad-shouldered. Suspect ICOMOS will be grateful for this institute to take on advocacy. But it needs to be serious in what it sets out to do.
Makere Rika-Heke: how many people sit on national bodies? How many sit on international? There are various people doing various things on national and international boards that I have no idea about. This information isn’t shared.
EP: where shall we go next? I’ll analyse the minutes, and see where the emphasis lies, and call for volunteers for a working party – an electronic working party.
Ann McEwan: do you need a resolution?
[Person?]: It’s clear there’s been a lot of support for conference. [Sounds of agreement through room]
Matthew Campbell: The Archaeological Association would like a rep on the working party.
EP: Yes, and some may be covered by Wellington people.
Tanya: it sounds like you could have a real identity crisis. Whether it’s about being a holistic umbrella institute or whether you’re looking at a group to take an advocacy role and create more sophisticated advocates?
EP: Thank you everyone for coming.
Karl Flavell closed the meeting.
Additional Comments arising from minutes:
Rebecca Freeman
The minutes look good to me - just something I was thinking of as I was reading through them: if/when the Master's of Heritage Conservation programme is established at AU, the Heritage Institute will need to be the professional organisation for the people who come through this programme. I have a Master's Degree in Heritage Conservation, but I'm not an architect, planner, archaeologist, historian, etc, and therefore, I don't currently have a professional organisation that I am qualified to join (apart from perhaps ICOMOS, but it has different aims), and neither will anyone who comes through that programme (I know it will be run through the school of architecture and planning, but the grads won't be either architects or planners).
We tend to talk about the establishment of a heritage conservation programme as sort of a holy grail goal, but without a professional institute, the grads will be a bit adrift, kind of like myself, feeling like a Jack of all trades, master of none. I appreciate that there won't be many grads from this programme, and it doesn't make economic sense to set up a whole institute just for them, but this is perhaps another reason why something like a heritage institute is an idea worth pursuing.
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