Professor Eloise Jillings

Professor Eloise Jillings (Ngāti Maru Hauraki) is a veterinarian and educator at Massey University. Her leadership is critical to the education of veterinary students and particularly Māori.

This scientist profile is one of six featured in this group of resources that explore animal ethics with a kaupapa Māori approach. A downloadable PDF of the combined scientist profiles is available in both a bilingual and a te reo Māori version.

He mihi

Ko Moehau tōku maunga
Ko Tīkapa te moana
Ko Mātai Whetū tōku marae
Ko Ngāti Te Aute tōku hapū
He uri ahau nō Ngāti Maru ki Hauraki
Ko Eloise Jillings tōku ingoa
Tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou katoa

Eloise’s work as a veterinarian and an educator

Eloise is a Professor of Veterinary Education and Equity and Associate Dean for the Veterinary Programme at Massey University in Palmerston North. She also leads the VetMAP (Veterinary Māori and Pacific) pathway for increasing equity of participation and success for Māori and indigenous Pacific students in veterinary science. Massey University has the only vet school in the country, so Eloise’s leadership is critical to the education of veterinary students and particularly Māori. She is influencing the future of Māori in the veterinary profession and research, which will require thorough change compared to what has been considered ‘normal’ – with little to no visibility of Māori people, language, culture or knowledge previously in the school. Eloise reflects on the challenge.

The School has never had to really think about anything Māori. When I went through as a student, there was nothing. But there’s been a changing societal context, which influences people to be a bit more open to considering things Māori.

Professor Eloise Jillings

All Massey vet students are trained across all animals, but the national veterinary profession is divided into largely three sorts of practice focusing on pets or companion animals (mostly cats and dogs), large or farm animals, and equine (horses). Some practices are mixed, seeing pets, farm animals and horses. Although she trained and began working as a frontline vet, Eloise undertook further postgraduate training in clinical pathology. She explains her area of veterinary science.

My work is the diagnosis of diseases of animals – using blood and tissue tests. So if a dog has a lump, they come into the vet with their owner. The vet gently inserts a needle into the lump to remove some cells, and somebody like me looks at those cells and tells the vet, “These are the cells I saw, this is what I think it means.” That’s my teaching area – I teach students clinical pathology, which is the interpretation of tests and diagnosis of disease.

Professor Eloise Jillings

A shift in focus

Eloise’s work has shifted away from working directly with animals to the more human side of educating veterinarians, with a focus on equity for Māori students in veterinary education. Eloise is the face of the School at on-campus recruiting events. She is also the driving force behind VetMAP, an initiative to support Māori and Pacific students in the vet school. While Eloise is the head of VetMAP, a full-time professional staff member takes care of day-to-day operations.

The programme has a dedicated room in the vet school for the students to meet and support each other. A sense of belonging is critical for the support of Māori and Pacific students. Students who join VetMAP are a mix of school leavers and those who have done something else and are coming back. VetMAP focuses on providing the holistic (cultural, academic and personal) support each individual applicant needs to fulfil their potential. Some are missing a background in science, so Eloise helps them devise a pathway to enable them to get into vet school a year or two later. It might involve going back to school, enrolling in Te Kura (Correspondence School) or a foundation science pathway at the university.

Eloise’s path to becoming a vet

Like most people who apply to study in vet school, Eloise has wanted to be a vet for as long as she can remember. Born in Aotearoa New Zealand as the youngest of seven children of a Māori mother and Canadian father, the family moved to Canada when Eloise was 7, although her oldest siblings had already grown up and moved out. She finished her schooling and started university in Canada, but on finding out she could go directly to vet school in New Zealand, she came back in 1996. She was selected into the veterinary programme in the school where she still works today as a senior academic – the only Māori Professor of Veterinary Education in the country and (presumably) the world.

A week after finishing vet school, Eloise accepted a 1-year relief vet position in the small animal clinic on campus. Prior to that, she had been planning to specialise as a veterinary surgeon, but during that year, she was approached by the head of the pathology department and offered a clinical pathology residency. That was the start of her postgraduate specialist training in clinical pathology.

Māori in the veterinary profession

Eloise’s doctoral study investigated systemic inequity faced by Māori in the veterinary profession. Quantitative study of selection data from the School between 2003 and 2019 showed that Māori applicants were accepted at one-third the rate of non-Māori applicants until a Tiriti selection process was implemented. Eloise adopted a kaupapa Māori framing in terms of the inequities Māori experience in education generally, then applied that framing to veterinary education as a selected entry programme. The title of her doctoral thesis is Rapua te mea ngaro: Exploring the access of Māori to Veterinary Education in Aotearoa New Zealand.

Eloise’s work has opened the pathway to Māori equity in veterinary education in Aotearoa New Zealand. She explains the significance of her leadership role.

I’ve been given the opportunity to do these things that I think need to be done, and if I don’t do them, who will? So I feel a sense of responsibility, with some fears about whether I’m getting it right. But mostly, I feel a sense of gratitude that I have the opportunity to do this because it wouldn’t have happened 10 years ago. Multiple things have come together and allowed me this opportunity now.

Professor Eloise Jillings

Influence of te ao Māori on Eloise’s work

Eloise’s maternal grandmother was a native speaker of te reo Māori and lived at the base of the hill on which her marae, Mātai Whetū, is located. Māori people of those generations received strong messages not to speak in their language to their children, so Eloise’s mother, although growing up living close to the marae, was not raised with te reo Māori or tikanga Māori. Each person’s life story is unique, and it is not very common for Māori children to leave Aotearoa at age 7 to go and live in Canada, then come back aged about 18 to attend university here. But like so many – if not most – Māori people today, Eloise is on her own personal identity journey, back to her roots in the whenua and iwi of Pare Hauraki, the Coromandel Peninsula.

Two Māori concepts Eloise relates to her work are manaakitanga and kaitiakitanga.

Eloise uses manaakitanga as a lens on her work as an advocate and leader of opening up veterinary education to actively include Māori people and knowledge. Manaakitanga brings in the three key Māori ethical values of tika, pono and aroha, which are translated as the large ideas of justice, truth and love (Stewart et al., 2021). In Māori thinking, tika, pono and aroha always act together – in practice meaning doing the right thing with integrity and love (Peters, 2000).

Eloise sees kaitiakitanga as central in veterinary work of guardianship and care for animals, extended to include non-native species that make up most of a vet’s work. Kaitiakitanga calls to whakapapa – the webs of connection of people to place.

For a Māori, land isn’t just land. It’s not just dirt. Māori thinking about species – they're not just birds or whatever. There are actual whakapapa connections – ancestral connections in how Māori think about things – that are different from the way non-Māori would.

Professor Eloise Jillings

Kaitiakitanga means looking after our kin if we take seriously the idea of being related through whakapapa to every other animal species. This applies especially to those animals found in our homelands and reframes the relationship between humans and other animals.

Tāwharau Ora

Eloise led a process for the School of Veterinary Science to achieve a Māori name. Consultation with the university’s Māori Language Advisory Group resulted in the name Tāwharau Ora. As part of that process, Eloise arranged for a pou whakairo (carved pole) to be made and placed at the front of the School. A wharau is a shelter, and ora means health and wellbeing, so the name refers to providing a shelter of wellbeing for both animals and people. Eloise explains her thoughts on the significance of the concepts in the School’s new Māori name.

For me, the name is aspirational. We’re supposed to be this shelter of wellbeing, well how can we do that if we’re not actually showing manaaki for our students, for the staff, for our clients, and for their relationships with our patients, their animals, whether cows or cats? To earn the mana of that name, we’ve got work to do. It’s not a complete reflection of where we are. It’s a goal post and a guideline for us to be able to aspire to be better.

Professor Eloise Jillings

Eloise is focusing on bringing more Māori into the vet school and hence profession. By definition, veterinary work is about caring for animals, so in the longer term, the aspiration to increase the number of Māori vets can only support the place of mātauranga Māori in animal ethics.