diff --git a/integration/src/test/java/io/github/dfa1/vortex/integration/JavaWritesRustReadsIntegrationTest.java b/integration/src/test/java/io/github/dfa1/vortex/integration/JavaWritesRustReadsIntegrationTest.java
index 498c7691..7b62a23d 100644
--- a/integration/src/test/java/io/github/dfa1/vortex/integration/JavaWritesRustReadsIntegrationTest.java
+++ b/integration/src/test/java/io/github/dfa1/vortex/integration/JavaWritesRustReadsIntegrationTest.java
@@ -46,7 +46,7 @@
 import org.apache.arrow.vector.IntVector;
 import org.apache.arrow.vector.TimeMilliVector;
 import org.apache.arrow.vector.TimeStampMilliVector;
-import org.apache.arrow.vector.VarCharVector;
+import org.apache.arrow.vector.ValueVector;
 import org.apache.arrow.vector.VectorSchemaRoot;
 import org.apache.arrow.vector.complex.ListVector;
 import org.apache.arrow.vector.ipc.ArrowReader;
@@ -289,7 +289,7 @@ private static String[] readStringColumn(Path file, String column) throws IOExce
             try (ArrowReader reader = partition.scanArrow(ALLOCATOR)) {
                 while (reader.loadNextBatch()) {
                     VectorSchemaRoot root = reader.getVectorSchemaRoot();
-                    VarCharVector vec = (VarCharVector) root.getVector(column);
+                    ValueVector vec = root.getVector(column);
                     for (int i = 0; i < root.getRowCount(); i++) {
                         strings.add(vec.getObject(i).toString());
                     }
@@ -1119,7 +1119,7 @@ void javaWriter_rustReader_masked_nullableUtf8(@TempDir Path tmp) throws IOExcep
             try (ArrowReader reader = partition.scanArrow(ALLOCATOR)) {
                 while (reader.loadNextBatch()) {
                     VectorSchemaRoot root = reader.getVectorSchemaRoot();
-                    VarCharVector vec = (VarCharVector) root.getVector("s");
+                    ValueVector vec = root.getVector("s");
                     for (int i = 0; i < root.getRowCount(); i++) {
                         values.add(vec.isNull(i) ? null : vec.getObject(i).toString());
                     }
@@ -1297,7 +1297,7 @@ void javaWriter_rustReader_zstd_nullableUtf8(@TempDir Path tmp) throws IOExcepti
             try (ArrowReader reader = partition.scanArrow(ALLOCATOR)) {
                 while (reader.loadNextBatch()) {
                     VectorSchemaRoot root = reader.getVectorSchemaRoot();
-                    VarCharVector vec = (VarCharVector) root.getVector("s");
+                    ValueVector vec = root.getVector("s");
                     for (int i = 0; i < root.getRowCount(); i++) {
                         values.add(vec.isNull(i) ? null : vec.getObject(i).toString());
                     }
diff --git a/pom.xml b/pom.xml
index 126c0f0a..dd492199 100644
--- a/pom.xml
+++ b/pom.xml
@@ -70,7 +70,7 @@
 		<junit.version>6.1.2</junit.version>
 		<assertj.version>3.27.7</assertj.version>
 		<mockito.version>5.23.0</mockito.version>
-		<vortex-jni.version>0.78.0</vortex-jni.version>
+		<vortex-jni.version>0.79.0</vortex-jni.version>
 		<arrow.version>19.0.0</arrow.version>
 		<slf4j.version>2.0.18</slf4j.version>
 		<!-- coverage -->