OUSA $4 Lunch SURGES to $5 Lunch

Posted 10:20am Monday 23rd February 2026

Cheap lunch over in OUSA’s Clubs & Socs building has been a mainstay of campus life for decades now. Brought to you by St Kilda’s Tandoree Garden, $4 Lunch has looked the same since 2022. However, four years later, 2026 brings a change in price as well as menu: a $1 price increase, Read more...

The Changing Game: 30 Years of The Highlanders

Posted 3:22pm Sunday 22nd February 2026

Most will remember the first Sunday morning they woke up in their single bed at their first-year hall. For many, it probably felt like coming up for air after holding your breath, with O-Week stretching out in front of you. Endless, scarfie possibility. With so much going on during orientation, many Read more...

Editorial: An Obituary to $4 Lunch (2021-2025)

Posted 3:12pm Sunday 22nd February 2026

It was the first day of Ori last week, and underneath the (short-lived) sun of a packed-tent city, our shit was rocked. After innocently opening an Instagram story from our friends OUSA Clubs & Socs, $4 Lunch had been unceremonially rebirthed as $5 Lunch. What seemed like the last bastion of Read more...

Polytech Proposes Switch To Telehealth Student Health Services

Posted 10:20pm Saturday 4th October 2025

On the 26th of September, the Otago Polytech advised kaimahi, ākonga, the Otago Polytech Students Association, stakeholders, and the media (except for Critic – we found out through a student) of a proposal to move to a telehealth set up for their student health provision for the 2026 Read more...

Everything That’s Happened Since 2019

Posted 6:21pm Sunday 21st September 2025

CW, TW: Discussions of sexual violence.  Sexual harm is prevalent, invasive, and underacknowledged on campus, whether we want to admit it or not.  Three weeks into the academic year, Thursdays in Black (TiB) – the Otago branch of a national student-led sexual harm prevention Read more...

Thursdays in Black Hosts ‘What I Was Wearing’ Exhibit

Posted 5:59pm Sunday 21st September 2025

Content Warning: Sexual violence, child sexual abuse, rape, intimate partner violence Following their recent success in the second annual Sex Quiz fundraiser, the Thursdays in Black exec held the What I Was Wearing exhibit in the Main Common Room last week between Wednesday and Read more...

Execrable: Refusals to Resign & Letters Abound

Posted 6:44pm Sunday 7th September 2025

Push For Jett Groshinski’s Resignation In bombshell news, Political Representative Jett Groshinski was asked to resign by two-thirds of the OUSA Executive at their most recent meeting on Thursday, August 28th. The Exec told Critic Te Ārohi that the decision was “not made Read more...

Political Rep Jett Groshinski Formally Asked To Resign By Executive

Posted 4:58pm Friday 29th August 2025

The Otago University Students’ Association (OUSA) Executive has requested the resignation of Political Representative, Jett Groshinski, following an internal review of conduct and responsibilities at this week’s Executive meeting on the 28th of August. The OUSA Executive told Critic in a Read more...

What Would Happen If There Was A Zombie Apocalypse (And How to Survive It)

Posted 10:35pm Sunday 24th August 2025

On March 25, 2020, Aotearoa New Zealand declared a nationwide state of national emergency and moved to Alert Level 4 in response to the COVID-19 Pandemic. I remember how surreal it was – like something out of a low-budget movie. It affected everyone. If you’d told anyone before it Read more...

Debatable: Is pulling an all-nighter more effective than studying in advance?

Posted 3:19pm Sunday 24th August 2025

For There is something almost heroic about pulling an all-nighter: 2am with an energy drink in one hand, wondering if your flatmates will ever know the sacrifice you made for this essay. You're not just a student, you're an academic weapon sharp enough to cut through half a semester's Read more...