We’re excited to launch a new profile series this week, featuring our new Heads of School. Our inaugural post features Head of Computing and Information Technology, Dr Christian Probst, who hails from Germany and can knock up a mean Croquembouche; Head of Trades and Services, Lee Baglow, who’s a Swansea City fan and furry friend father to Rufus; and Head of Creative Industries, Dr Vanessa Byrnes, whose extensive career has spanned stints at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre in London and Shortland Street.
We’re profiling three new Heads each week over February and March – here’s our second feature Getting to know our Heads of School #2: Katie Bruffy, Dan Blanchon and Nick Sheppard.
Lee Baglow – Head of Trades and Services
Tell us about your professional career
After completing my apprenticeship as a plant fitter and a stint in the Army as a vehicle mechanic, I decided that I would give University a go and studied automotive engineering. I have been studying ever since. After graduating, I accepted a teaching position at the local college. In 2010 I was very fortunate to secure a teaching position with Unitec and have been here ever since.
What attracted you to this role?
The opportunity to lead a School of Trades and Services in New Zealand’s largest ITP really is a dream come true and it is a privilege to have been appointed. I truly believe in the power of education and how it can change lives for the better – Trades are an excellent example of this. I am looking forward to the challenge.
What are you looking forward to this year, both professionally and personally?
There is a lot to learn and I am amazed how readily people are willing to give up their own time to help me. I would like to grow the school; there are opportunities for us but first we must get the basics right. I hope that as a school we learn from the past and focus all our efforts on the future. It is time for us to move on, Unitec deserves to be recognised for all the good work that it does. My ambition is that in time, the School of Trades and Services will be viewed as the best example of technical vocational education and training in New Zealand.
Tell us a bit about yourself.
I am from Swansea in South Wales, married with one daughter who has just turned 18. We have one ginger cat by the name of Rufus. We got him from the SPCA last year; he is approaching middle age. I love football and my team is Swansea City. I have supported them since my first match in 1980. I have been in New Zealand for nine years but still miss the buzz of Saturday afternoon matchday.
Dr Vanessa Byrnes – Head of Creative Industries
Tell us about your professional career
I was previously HoPP in Creative Industries (since May 2016) and have worked in the Creative Industries and Education sectors for nearly 30 years. I’m passionate about education and the creative professions; I’ve worked as a producer, arts executive, director, actor, writer, editor, Board/Council Member, and tertiary lecturer in multiple art forms. After doing my Masters I trained as an actor and worked in screen and live theatre in NZ and overseas on about 150 works as an actor and director, including a stint as Assistant-Director at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre (London) in 2000. I taught Acting, directed productions, and was Manager of the Acting Department for 11 years at Te Kura Toi Whakaari O Aotearoa: NZ Drama School. I still try to work as an actor or director where possible to remain current and challenged; I had a short stint on Shortland Street as a new character last year. It’s huge fun, but is a very tricky medium that’s much harder than it looks!
What attracted you to this role?
Enabling student success. The staff and students, and their bravery and talent – both of which never cease to amaze me. The role of Head of School in Creative Industries means creating and enabling a healthy culture that values craft, rigour, diversity, and courage. I’m attracted to the challenge of empowering our teams in all their different Art and Design forms to understand disciplinarity and ‘tradition’, then interact with disruption, originality, business acumen, and of course the element of risk. This takes enormous courage. This kind of courage as makers and sustainable practitioners is what we strive to create with our graduates, and I’m very grateful to work with staff and students who are equally passionate about arts and design in all their forms.
The hands-on and public-facing nature of our disciplines is also really exciting; it means that we are able to respond to the world we live in through experiential Art and Design forms with scepticism, courage, humour, truth, compassion, and delight, often with the view to re-frame the discourse and make things better. I also think that creative expression can bind human experience and unwrap ‘the human condition’ like nothing else. For example, a mentor of mine once said that performing arts ‘offer an escape from life or a way to make sense of it’. This is becoming more vital in our fast-paced, online lives that crave pause and connection.
These qualities of courage and aspiration are also present across Unitec in so many areas, and this attracted me to the role, too. The shared potential of all our eleven Schools is quite unique, and this shared desire for growth in an accessible way with positive leadership is also what attracted me to this role. Key to this is furthering the success of the priority groups; Maori, Pacific, International and Under 25’s.
I’ve always believed that education can change lives in the present and in future generations in exponential ways that can’t quite be predicted by the person undertaking their study, and for me, like so many of us, this guides what we do at Unitec. I’m most attracted to ignite something exciting, unique, and long-lasting at Unitec that positively reverberates. We are on the precipice of an exciting future, and we have the best people to make this happen.
My job is to empower excellence in the staff and students. I love working with people, and education gives us the opportunity to really reach hearts and minds in exponential ways, and through that, to make a meaningful difference. This is a gift.
What are you looking forward to this year, both professionally and personally?
Lots of things! I’m looking forward to working with a great team of staff to further activate excellent learning for our students. I am looking forward to making further connections between arts and design, education, self-leadership and of course across Unitec with other disciplines, plus with other tertiary and providers and industry partners in New Zealand. Industry connections are growing fast in our fields of practice in New Zealand and overseas, and this makes Creative Industries an increasingly more concrete and sustainable reality for all of us. I’m keen to keep the Women in Leadership Group growing with fabulous colleagues.
I’m keen to get the facilities and future direction of spaces consolidated, which will of course determine how we offer our programmes. And I’m keen to develop more meaningful connections across Unitec through the quality and diversity of the work that happens. I am currently writing a book chapter and doing photography in my spare time, so that will keep me busy.
Tell us a bit about yourself
Family and friends are very important to me. I love a good laugh and have twin daughters who are equally passionate about relaxing in the sun, enjoying great food, music, yoga, travel, reading, and feasting on good films. We share a love of good comedy. I do a fairly decent Mexican meal, but my husband is a much better gardener than I am; he really has the knack. Our last place had 24 organic avocado trees and, in maintaining them, we learnt a lot about how to keep these magnificent trees. Here in Auckland we have smaller gardens and a few worm farms that create amazing compost; and we’re always looking for creative ways to take sustainability to the next level. Tips welcome!
Dr Christian Probst – Head of Computing and Information Technology and Director of HTTRN.
Tell us about your professional career
I hold an M.Sc. in Computer Science and a Doctor in Engineering (PhD) from Saarland University in Germany. After my PhD, I spent three years as a postdoctoral Researcher in Southern California at the University of California, Irvine, before I became a faculty member at the Department for Computer Science and Applied Mathematics at the Technical University of Denmark, located just north of Copenhagen. In 2016, I became head of the Section for Cyber Security – and in 2018 I joined Unitec as Director of the High-Tech Transdisciplinary Research Network and Professor for Cyber Security.
What attracted you to this role?
I spent all my professional life, and much of my youth, working with computers at all levels, from designing and assembling hardware, over-developing operating systems, software, and, of course, also using them for many tasks. For more than 20 years, I have also been involved in research, education, and consulting in all areas of computer science. This role is a great opportunity to contribute to Unitec, our wider community and the entire country in providing exciting education programmes that qualify our students to solve today’s and tomorrow’s tasks.
What are you looking forward to this year, both professionally and personally?
Professionally, I’m looking forward to working closely with colleagues in “my” school, of course, but also all staff across Unitec in my ‘other’ role as Director of the High-Tech Transdisciplinary Research Network. The network was recently transformed into an incubator for transdisciplinary projects and just accepted its first three projects. In both areas, it’s important to listen to our partners inside and outside of Unitec to understand their current and future needs, and to help address them. Personally, I enjoy being able to contribute to my team’s success, and to provide my colleagues with an environment where they can grow and excel.
Tell us a bit about yourself.
I come from Saarbruecken, the capital of Saarland, a small state in the south west of Germany close to Luxembourg. I love baking and cooking, everything from very traditional fare to more demanding gourmet food, including Croquembouche, a classic French dessert. My culinary surprises in New Zealand were feijoas and the ready availability of monkfish. In the past, I have travelled a lot, and this year I will finally get around to exploring more of New Zealand, especially the South Island. The goal is to do a road trip, do one of the Great Walks, and hopefully kayak the Whanganui River. I am also getting back into shape to train for my third marathon (the first two were more than 15 years ago) and for the “Vasaloppet” in Sweden, an annual 90km cross-country ski.