A senior lecturer in EIT’s School of Health and Sport Science, Dr John Maxted has been granted a Fulbright New Zealand Travel Award which will take him to the USA and eastern Canada.

John predominantly teaches in the recreation strand of EIT’s Bachelor of Recreation and Sport programme, bringing a sociological and ecological slant to his work. He particularly enjoys challenging students to broaden their perspectives surrounding competitive sport to wider issues of recreation, well-being and health.

With the support of Fulbright New Zealand and the Eastern Institute of Technology, John will travel to the USA in November to present aspects of his research at the Association of Outdoor Recreation and Education Conference in Utah, the University of Idaho and the University of New Hampshire.

He will also speak at Acadia University and Cape Breton University in Canada.

“It’s going to be a busy three weeks,” he says of his time away. “I’m very much looking forward to the trip – the Fulbright New Zealand Travel Award is a privileged opportunity to share my research work internationally and be an ambassador for EIT and for New Zealand. Plus I’ll be reconnecting with some friends who I studied with whilst living in Canada years ago who have gone on to become quite famous academics. ”

John gained his Master of Arts degree based on a participatory project with elders from a Metis-Cree community in Alberta.

During his travels, John will also be sharing insights drawn from a “rich and rewarding” career in outdoor adventure education. That includes his leadership of two significant training organisations – the Sir Edmund Hillary Outdoor Pursuits Centre bordering Tongariro National Park and the Sir Peter Blake Marine Education Centre near Auckland.

Themes will include lessons learned from the Mangatepopo River tragedy in which six teenagers and their teacher lost their lives while taking part in a recognised outdoor education programme and results from John’s PhD research project examining wilderness solitude experiences of adolescent students camping alone for 48 hours in the New Zealand bush.

While in Nova Scotia, he will explore two Canadian programmes that centre on sustainable community development and sustainable recreation.

The Fulbright programme, established in 1946 as an initiative of US Senator J. William Fulbright, operates in 155-plus countries, funding some 8000 exchanges for participants to study, research, teach or present their work in another country.