Letters written by Scottish Highlanders forced to leave their homes during the croft clearances of the 18th and 19th centuries could provide researchers with the best evidence yet of the impact of the clearances on families, a visiting historian says.
University of Otago zoology student Gene van der Zanden is spending his days counting bugs, so it is no surprise he finds it hard to get them out of his mind when he gets home.
In the past year, Liam McIlvanney has combined family and work commitments and a move from one side of the world to the other with completing his first novel. Reporter Allison Rudd finds out how the inaugural University of Otago Stuart Chair in Scottish Studies professor coped.
Over a 52-year career, Radio Dunedin host Neil Collins has rubbed shoulders with countless singers, sports stars and celebrities. One of his most memorable experiences was meeting comedian Bill Cosby in the mid-1970s. He tells reporter Allison Rudd the story.
If Campbell Booth has his way, Dunedin will soon forge a reputation as a leading centre of innovation and design.
World War 2 brought two million United States servicemen to New Zealand and many Pacific Islands. Inevitably, many formed liaisons with local women and fathered possibly several thousand children. What happened to those babies, and, more than 60 years later, where are they now? Allison Rudd talks to University of Otago historian Prof Judith Bennett, who has won funding to try and trace the all-but forgotten offspring.
Otago Polytechnic is using the region's "hometown advantage" - its strong existing educational networks - to ensure young people can be slotted into places on the Government's new Youth Guarantee scheme.
Dunedin's tertiary student numbers are expected to increase by almost 740 next year, with both the University of Otago and Otago Polytechnic anticipating solid roll growth.
The University of Otago has received an additional $8.4 million in government funding next year, reducing budget pressures and enabling it to boost the numbers of fully funded student places by 476.
The number of real estate agents in the South has plummeted by 20% in the past two years as the property market tightened and potential commissions disappeared.
Some of the Mosgiel residents living next door to a proposed McDonald's restaurant say they are considering appealing, after hearing on Christmas Eve the Dunedin City Council had granted land-use consent.
University of Otago managers will have a little more money in their budgets again next year.
The University of Otago's building next to the Forsyth Barr Stadium will be "one of the most exciting developments on campus for decades", vice-chancellor Prof Sir David Skegg says.
The Government has moved too far and too fast with polytechnic sector reforms, some polytechnic council members say.
Otago Polytechnic chief executive Phil Ker is a happy man. After months of funding worries, the institution has secured an unexpected boost of $1.2 million for next year.
University of Otago student Jordan Campbell is spending the summer just where he wants to be - holed up in an office designing artificial spider legs.
A new laboratory at the University of Otago is expected to unlock secrets about the genetic heritage of Pacific people, animals and plants, scientists and anthropologists say.
In New York, peace activists yesterday carried mock coffins through the streets to protest President Barack Obama receiving the Nobel Peace Prize.
The University of Otago is about to appoint its first gender equity leader.
When graduates from various Indian universities decided earlier this year to move to Dunedin to study information technology at Otago Polytechnic, they all thought they might be the lone Indian student in the class.