The Waikato Management School annually awards a prize in memory of Brendan Thompson to the to student in the international economics course. After I gave the 2008 prize to Nicole Gray on 8 April, 2008, I was invited to make a short speech:
 

Keywords: History of Ideas, Methodology & Philosophy;
 

Brendan Thompson’s first university, the University of Canterbury,  has a Latin motto from Virgil, ergo tua rura manebunt which translates loosely to ‘so shall these fields be yours forever’. I have always thought it a good one, because it says to that university strives to give its graduates something which will affect them for the rest of their life. By his commitment to teaching, Brendan showed he believed the principle too, not only for his students at the University of Waikato, for Brendan was also involved in teaching the wider world through the media.
 

Recently I have been reminded by Brendan of a further meaning of the motto. A university is also committed to research and scholarship. Brendan was a scholar who did meticulous research on the early occupational structure of New Zealand. Ten years later – and forever – that work is there for researchers. This month I am using some of it for two separate projects: a paper on the New Zealand Wars and a contribution on the structural change of the economy for Te Ara, the online encyclopaedia.  The university prize in his memory is evidence that Brendan’s fields remain for his students and for all researchers – forever.