USP Open Day 2008

On Thursday 16th October it was open day at USP Alafua Campus. This date was chosen so we could link to the USP campus in Fiji via video conferencing, as it was open day there on Friday 17th (time zone differences!) We were all in the library on Wednesday night to do the decorating. With the sounds pumping we blew up balloons and made streamers plus put together a display to show the various courses we can support in the library. Although the Alafua campus primarily focuses on Agriculture, there is increasing interest in Distance and Flexible learning (DFL) courses that can be studied via the video conferencing facilities and using the learning management systems Blackboard and Moodle.

In the library we wanted to help promote all the different courses offered by all the campuses of USP around the pacific and encourage students to enrol in their area of interest whether it be accounting, law, business, tourism, agriculture etc. Our display looked very nice once we had finished and we even managed to adorn it with a few agricultural products just to give it “flava”! Potatoes, tomatoes, sprouting coconuts, beans and corn plus a couple of cabbages.

The library staff wore their new, very professional looking uniforms for the day and received many favourable comments! The opening ceremony took place under the Pulu tree. This is a massive tree on campus that must have been there for years. There were stalls and gazebos set up under the tree and in the field and a stage for the formalities. The campus manager Lemalu Taefu said a few words and introduced the USP campus and was then followed by a government minister before the cake was cut by the Australian High Commissioner, supported by the NZ High Commissioner (who supply lots of funding for USP). Not only was it open day but USP was celebrating 40 years of business in education.

Once all this was over it was time for the tours of campus to begin so we high-tailed it back to the library to get ready. We must have had 15-20 groups of students through the library within a 2 hour period. It was busy but nice to see the place humming. The students were great, even if they only had 5 minutes each in the library before moving on to other areas of campus such as the IT studios, the farm and the soils areas. Managed to get a few photos as it seems if you produce a camera there is no shortage of people willing to have their picture taken!!

During the afternoon we closed up the library so we could go and enjoy the cultural performances by the current USP students. We had heard them practicing in the fale for weeks so it was time for it to become a reality. I very much enjoyed this part of the day and seeing the dancing from many different pacific island groups such as, Samoan, Fijiian, Tongan, Kirabati, Tuvalu, Solomons, and Vanuatu. My favourite were the Fijiian boys who performed some very convincing war dances. The outfits from each group were great and the students went to a lot of trouble to produce very polished performances. I have made video clips of each of the groups for you to see so check out our YouTube site. Awesome.