All posts by adb108

Updates from UC staff

Good grades don’t equal self-worth

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A few weeks back I was “The Cook’n Chaplain” for a 6 day emotional health course I’d organised for 24 students. And so while I was madly panicking in the kitchen making 50 hamburgers, everyone else were learning life changing things about making friends with their own mental health. As they chowed down on my Spankburgers™ (personal note: other people don’t love beetroot as much as I do) loads of them would tell me about how much pressure and anxiety they were feeling about their upcoming exams. “If I fail this paper, I don’t know what I’ll do! It’s just not worth thinking about…”

Sadly, most students I meet seem to believe the lie that their self worth is something they must constantly work hard to earn. Be it through good grades, securing a high paying job, or keeping their parents happy. Remove one of them and they feel their personal self worth begin to shrivel up. But as the famous monk Father Henri Nouwen put it “You are not what you do, you are not what you have, and you are not what others think of you. No! You are the beloved child of a loving creator.”

Now – you may not buy that last sentence, but regardless of your spiritual beliefs his big point is, you don’t need to earn your worth by passing some exam. Seriously. Because whether you feel it or not, you really are someone of huge worth. Without doing a thing.
Of course failure never feels very good. In the depths of disappointment it can feel like we’re nothing more than a sad garden slug being stood on by a giant academic boot, as we feel our hopes ooze out of us. But sometimes we just need to take a deep breath and get some perspective because despite what some people might imply – getting good grades really isn’t the meaning of life.
You are a person of infinite worth, and a D- or A+ means absolutely nothing on that score. So take a deep breath, remember you are so much more than the grades you get at Uni and remind yourself that in the bigger scheme of things (and if you allow it to), this experience will only make you stronger.

Rev Spanky Moore, Uni Chaplain
spanky.moore@canterbury.ac.nz

Uncategorized, Uni Notices

Education Library moving to the Central Library

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The Education Library on the Dovedale campus will be closing on Thursday 16 November and from Tuesday 21 November, you’ll see the familiar faces of the library assistants behind the desk on Level 2 of the Central Library and the subject librarians will be based on Level 5. Kathryn, Kim, Fiona, Waitangi, and Margaret can meet with you wherever is most convenient – on the Dovedale campus, at the Ātea Ako consultation space on Level 2 of the Central Library, via email or phone. Just make an appointment, email, or give us a call.

The classroom, Māori classroom, Māori and fiction collections are moving to Level 4 of the Central Library and the academic education collections will mostly be shelved on Level 7. While the collections will be inaccessible to the public for approximately a week, you can still place requests on materials and retrievals will take place daily as usual. These requests can be collected from the Central Library. The existing returns box will be available 24/7 (and emptied daily) until the College moves into Rēhua.

A pop-up library service is planned for the Dovedale campus in Semester One, 2018 and more details will be released once finalised.

We look forward to showing you around the new collection, study and service spaces in the Central Library.

Student life

UC Library ‘Can your fines’ a huge success

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Every year UC Library runs the ‘Can your fines’ campaign. The campaign supports both UC students and the wider community and has been a feature of the library calendar for 3 years now.

Students who bring in a can of food during the campaign can wipe $5 from their library fines. The campaign is usually scheduled towards the end of the year, a time that can be stressful for students who have upcoming exams and for the broader community with Christmas looming.

Associate University Librarian Lyndsay Ainsworth agrees the campaign is great way to relieve students stress of owing money.

“Can your fines or other food for fines packages are initiatives that have been used successfully in libraries around the world for many years to allow students to be relieved of the stress of owing money to the library while making a wider contribution to their community. It’s great to partner with a community organisation like the City Mission and help them in their work,” she says.

This years ‘Can your fines’ campaign at UC Library collected over 400 cans which were donated to the Christchurch City Mission.