The South Pacific

The South Pacific - Otago, South Island, New Zealand

Central Otago – South Island, New Zealand

AUIP facilitates courses in the South Pacific because this is where we live and work, and where we know best. We have close relationships with local lecturers, field guides, and providers of accommodation and transport across our four destinations: New Zealand, Australia, Fiji, and Antarctica. Our partners are as committed as we are to developing local communities and they share our values of sustainability, active learning, and safety.

Additionally, we believe the South Pacific region provides a safe and relatively easy location for students to learn about other cultures and environments, helping those who may otherwise be unlikely to travel overseas gain confidence with international and cross-cultural experiences. Our in-region location in Christchurch, New Zealand, also allows us to travel quickly to program destinations to provide emergency response as required and strong health and safety support. Christchurch is also a “Gateway to the Antarctic” for researchers from around the world, making it a natural home for our work supporting faculty-led programs in our southernmost continent.

Unlike most study abroad programs, AUIP offers students the opportunity to truly immerse themselves in the culture, wildlife, and natural surroundings that these amazing places have to offer.

Joshua Petit, Virginia Tech (alumnus of course in Fiji and North Queensland, Australia)

We also believe the South Pacific is ideally suited for in-depth, interdisciplinary study. Behind and beyond the surface of stunning scenery, each of our locations offers intellectually challenging experiences, histories, social fabrics, cultures, technologies, and ways of life that encourage students to confront global complexities and big questions. We invite you to get to know our destinations across the South Pacific and to leverage our expertise in developing programs across the disciplines.

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AUIP provides both consortium and customized programs to best meet the needs of partner universities and faculty.

AUIP DESTINATIONS:

NEW ZEALAND

AUIP destination New Zealand
An isolated island nation in its evolutionary infancy, New Zealand is the most recently inhabited country in the world

AUSTRALIA

AUIP destination Australia
Australia is one of the most diverse countries on Earth, both in terms of its landscapes and its multicultural population

FIJI

Destination Fiji
Fiji is an archipelago of 330 islands, 110 of which are inhabited. It is a tapestry of ecological, cultural, and social complexity

ANTARCTICA

AUIP destination Antarctica
The coldest, driest, and windiest place on Earth, Antarctica is a frozen desert that is the least understood of Earth’s continents