1 August 2006 Rugby and study all part of their 'environment'

Environmental studies and rugby have been jointly at the centre of Matt France's Lincoln University life for the past four years but now, with his degree all wrapped up, the former New Zealand Under-19 representative and current Canterbury player is staring down the career path.

Matt has just finished a Bachelor of Environmental Management degree with an individual major that focused largely on planning.

"It was a great course and has definitely given me an employable qualification," he says.

"I see my degree and rugby as the two things that will now take me forward into the future.

"Ideally a job with a regional council or a local authority would be something in which I could utilise the knowledge and skills gained through the degree."

Matt came to Lincoln University after secondary education at Otago Boys' High School in Dunedin and Roncalli College, Timaru. In 2004 he was awarded a Rugby Scholarship and a Prime Minister's Scholarship which he held through to 2005.

Selected for the New Zealand Under-19s to play in the World Cup Championship of 2003 in France, halfback Matt debuted for Canterbury in its Ranfurly Shield defence against South Canterbury this year and scored a try. Earlier in the season, in the Super 14, he was in the Crusaders Wider Training Group as an understudy for first team halfbacks Andy Ellis and Kevin Senio.

The Ellis connection has a Lincoln University side as well with Andy also a Rugby Scholar and enrolled in the Bachelor of Environmental Management course.

A halfback, like Matt, Andy has been a New Zealand Colts, New Zealand Universities, Canterbury representative and Crusaders player and was on the road to All Black selection this winter until robbed of contention by a knee injury.

Andy is hoping to complete the same major for his BEM degree as Matt but eventually use the degree to assist him with a Landscape Architecture qualification, towards which he already has some papers.

"With landscape architecture the whole environmental side is fundamental, so the more understanding you have of it the better,” he says.

"There are environmental variables present in most landscape designs so it is important to have a really good feel for how everything works. That's how I see my BEM degree assisting me long-term."

Lincoln University's Bachelor of Environmental Management was introduced in 2004 and replaced the Bachelor of Resource Studies.

The course's main focus is the study of the inter-connections between the ecological, social and economic aspects of the environment.

The degree is unique and distinctive in New Zealand as the only undergraduate qualification designed to provide multi-disciplinary training in policy, planning and management relating to the environment. There's a choice of two formal majors – natural resource management and policy and planning, and one major that allows students to develop their own specialisation.

Private and public sector organisations in New Zealand involved in natural resource use, urban and regional planning, environmental protection and conservation need access to the expertise and abilities possessed by Environmental Management graduates.

For further details about Lincoln University's Bachelor of Environmental Management degree see www.lincoln.ac.nz

Ian Collins, Communications Group, Lincoln University, Canterbury, New Zealand