Alison’s teaching, from her early course on feminist theory, to writing workshops for colleagues in New Zealand and across the Pacific, to her current role supervising postgraduate students in the school of Māori education, has been driven by an interest in social justice and in helping students achieve their full potential.  Her incorporation of Māori values and practices has been a feature of her students’ engagement and success.  A student talks about her as “a model of how one can combine the heart and the mind!”  

 

Alison is enthusiastic, supportive, patient and positive with students. She establishes warm, engaged and productive relationships and many have gone on to become close friends and colleagues.  Students are required to engage in critical dialogue and in-class debates – Alison says that she is “positively allergic” to empty political rhetoric unconnected with good evidence and argument.  One of her former students praised the “intoxicating intellectual and theoretical experiences” in her classes.  Another said “I will be forever grateful I climbed on board her waka because I know already it will be some ride.”