Rate My Professor Tracie Leckie

Tracie Leckie is the Senior Professional Practice Fellow in the Department of Management at the University of Otago. She joined the Department in 2015 to co-design and deliver MANT252 Developing Responsible Leadership, which she expanded in 2016 to involve students in community and not-for-profit projects for leadership development. Leckie teaches BDBA907 Socially Responsible Business, an applied business ethics paper, in the Dunedin-based Doctor of Business Administration (DBA) programme and serves as DBA Wellbeing and Student Support Adviser, providing face-to-face or Zoom sessions for postgraduate students. Embracing the term “pracademic,” she blends industry and research-informed knowledge with real-world applications in her teaching. She is the Director of the Minor in Sustainable Business, Convenor of the Otago Business School’s Business for Good presentation series, the first Teaching Fellow/Professional Practice Fellow representative on the Vice Chancellor’s Staff and Student Advisory Group (VCSSAG), and a Commerce representative on the Teaching Focussed Academic (TFA) Steering Group. Leckie acts as academic subject adviser for the Sustainable Business BComm minor.

Her undergraduate background is in Psychology, with postgraduate studies in Clinical Psychology at the University of Otago. She is a Master Trainer level Life Wellbeing Coach with experience working with students who have specific learning difficulties, including Dyslexia. From 2018 to 2021, Leckie worked on the Ola Malohi research project exploring Pacific Islands students' experiences of mental health and wellbeing in higher education. She currently provides wellbeing coaching for Pacific students in Health Sciences courses, sponsored by Va’a o Tautai – Centre for Pacific Health. Her contributions have created systemic change for Pacific students by normalizing help-seeking behavior and embedding wellbeing into everyday conversations, earning her the 2025 Wellbeing Award (Individual) at the Ōtākou Whakaihu Waka Staff Awards. Other honors include Otago Business School's Best Professional Practice Fellow in 2022, outstanding commitment to DBA student supervision at the 2022 DBA conference, and outstanding commitment to DBA teaching, student engagement, and support at the 2023 and 2024 DBA conferences. Key publications co-authored by Leckie are 'First-Year Pacific Students’ Perception of Their Well-Being Journey at University in Aotearoa New Zealand' (Open Journal of Social Sciences, 2024), 'Mental Health and Well-Being of First Year Pacific Students at a New Zealand University' (Open Journal of Social Sciences, 2023), and 'Mental health and wellbeing of Pacific students: Protocol of a Pacific perspective study' (Pacific Health Dialog, 2020).