She makes it evident that she cares; for the topics we study, for our well-being, for our futures

Le Moana Mua Award winner

Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Arts and Education, Waipapa Taumata Rau | The University of Auckland

"I centre Pacific identities and cultures in my teaching, building authentic relationships and creating inclusive spaces where students feel valued, respected, and supported."

Moeata’s journey from being a student to a lecturer in Sociology at the University of Auckland shapes her passion for teaching. She was raised in Samoa and moved to Aotearoa for tertiary education, becoming the first in her family to graduate from university. Moeata strives to create environments that foster community, belonging and student excellence. Her teaching is relational, holistic and grounded in Pacific knowledge and she uses inclusive, innovative and student-centred practices to support Pacific and diverse learners to succeed. Her teaching excellence was recognised in 2024 through two awards, the Faculty of Arts and University of Auckland Teaching Excellence awards.

Moeata’s early teaching experiences in 2011 as a Tuakana mentor and tutor in Sociology were formative as she was able to integrate Pacific ways of seeing, knowing and doing in teaching and learning spaces. She found that bringing her cultural identity with her into the classroom resonated with Pacific students - and students in general - because her focus was on cultivating relationships. She held part-time lecturing roles from 2015 to 2018, where she redesigned Sociology papers to embed Indigenous and Pacific worldviews into the curriculum and, since 2020, has been a full-time lecturer in Sociology. During her initial two-year contract she developed a Sociology pathway for the Tertiary Foundation Certificate (TFC), a transition programme with a high number of Pacific students, which resulted in two new courses. In 2022, she was appointed as a full-time permanent lecturer.

Grounded in Pacific knowledge and a commitment to Pacific student success, Moeata has redesigned key courses to create a pathway from undergraduate to postgraduate study. These now critically examine social policy and justice issues through Pacific and intersectional lenses. Students explore policy challenges using Indigenous, Pacific, feminist, and queer theories. They challenge colonial constructs of gender and family and analyse how state policies shape gendered and family lives. The Sociology learning community is richly diverse, with strong Pacific student representation but a key challenge across the Faculty of Arts and Education is the declining retention and progression of Pacific students. As a Samoan/Pacific educator, Moeata is committed to driving change by creating learning environments that foster belonging, affirm cultural identity, and empower Pacific students to thrive.

To demonstrate her commitment to professional development and leadership, Moeata co-led the University of Auckland’s first cross-university Pacific Early Career Academic Network (PECAN). This network connects 85 Pacific educators, academics, and postgraduate students, creating a supportive space within which to share knowledge, build teaching and research capacity, and grow leadership in academia. For example, PECAN empowers Pacific doctoral students and early career academics to develop their teaching philosophies, innovate in their practice, and strengthen their leadership skills. As a co-leader of PECAN, Moeata facilitated, led and participated in workshops that enhance Pacific pedagogical practices. She also led a ‘reflexive teaching praxis’ workshop that encouraged the sharing of teaching pedagogies and innovative teaching practices for engaging diverse learners. To enhance pedagogical research, she has collaborated on five transdisciplinary peer-reviewed publications on Indigenous and Pacific pedagogies. One of these establishes Pacific pedagogy as decolonial practice and a second examines how Pacific pedagogies enabled connections with students when COVID-19 required online modes of teaching. The other empirically-based studies explore Māori and Pacific students’ experiences in higher education.

Moeata says reflexive praxis is at the heart of her teaching. Through ongoing self-reflection, she critically examines how her cultural background, experiences, and assumptions shape her practice. She recognises the privilege of her role and never assumes a one-size-fits-all approach. To stay responsive, she invites anonymous formative feedback from her students each semester and adapts her teaching based on their insights. At the end of each course, she invites students to reflect by offering two gifts: one they received from the course and one they wish to give to her and future students, such as potential lecture topics. This practice honours their contributions, builds community, and affirms the value of their voices.

Moeata regularly invites Māori and Pacific scholars and community leaders to share their work, such as addressing family poverty or exploring social policy through Mātauranga Māori, connecting classroom learning to real-world contexts and Indigenous knowledge systems. She is also actively involved in the Tuakana programme, a pastoral care programme for Māori and Pacific students that centres around Indigenous and Pacific ways of being and knowing. For her undergraduate courses, she works alongside Tuakana mentors to deliver workshops that provide academic support with course content and assessments. Her teaching involves a strengths-based approach rooted in Pacific perspectives. She draws on Pacific norms as solutions to contemporary social issues, such as framing multigenerational households/living as a solution to the housing crisis, highlighting the value of collectivist family models.

Moeata invests much of her personal identity into building connections with students. She enters all teaching spaces by sharing her positionality - who she is personally and professionally. She finds there is a real power in knowing and using students’ names as it fosters connection and creates community. She relates theory and abstract ideas to her own life and encourages students to reflect and draw on their personal experiences. She also uses diverse teaching strategies to create dynamic learning experiences, such as incorporating news media, social media, video clips, posters and class debates into teaching. Moeata takes a ‘no one gets left behind’ approach, cultivating mana-enhancing spaces through strong relationships and pastoral care. After assessments, she personally follows up with students who haven’t submitted, offering support and reassurance that they are valued and their success matters. For assignments, she offers encouraging, collaborative and constructive feedback that prioritises learning and growth over grades.

"By supporting their educational journey, I promote Pacific excellence —enhancing retention, progression, and completion, and helping to support the next generation of bold Pacific leaders."

Dr Moeata Keil's teaching video