A quarter-century of tourism

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1980s, 1990s, 2000s, geography, marketing, tourism

By the 1980s New Zealand was being marketed as a destination for wine tourism, and this became a field of teaching and research for Otago’s new Centre for Tourism. This 1980 poster, published by the Government Printer, was photographed by Terry Hann for the National Publicity Studios. Image courtesy of the Alexander Turnbull Library, reference Eph-D-TOURISM-1980-01.

It is now twenty-five years since the University of Otago established a Centre for Tourism and first offered a qualification in that subject. Its arrival was not without controversy – some academics argued that tourism lacked a body of unique disciplinary knowledge and could not be treated as the equivalent of other subject areas. Nevertheless, there was clearly a gap in research into the industry, and Otago was keen to make its mark in this emerging field.

In 1986 the university invited Prof George Doxey of York University, Toronto to visit. His report, “A programme in tourism at the University of Otago,” noted that the tourism industry was growing rapidly in New Zealand but this growth was not accompanied by solid research. A new tourism research centre could play a vital role in coordinating research and training in this increasingly important branch of the economy. The Otago Polytechnic already offered a one-year course in tourist studies; he recommended the development of postgraduate programmes at the university.

After further consultation with the tourism industry the Centre for Tourism got off the ground in 1989. It was, essentially, an initiative of the departments of geography and marketing, and had an interdisciplinary focus. These departments, along with sport and leisure studies at the School of Physical Education, had already been teaching on tourism in some of their third and fourth-year papers; most of these papers had arisen out of an interest in outdoor recreation. Twelve students enrolled for the new Diploma in Tourism qualification in that first year. It was a postgraduate qualification, though people with extensive experience in the tourism industry could enrol without a prior degree. Students completed four papers and a short dissertation.

Students were attracted to New Zealand’s first postgrad course fully devoted to tourism. After the first five years the centre’s director, Geoff Kearsley (previously a senior lecturer in the Department of Geography), noted there were now two applications for each of the 30 places available, and students in the Diploma for Graduates and Masters in Regional and Resource Planning programmes often took a tourism paper or two. The centre already had PhD and Masters students, and nearly a hundred dissertations and theses had been completed. The most popular fields of research were visitor satisfaction, environmental protection and wilderness management.

The growth of the Centre for Tourism led to changes. In 1993 Kearsley, previously half-time in the role, became full-time director, and its administration moved from the Department of Geography to the Division of Commerce, where it became part of the Advanced Business Programme for six years. The Centre’s research received a big boost in 1995 when Kearsley, together with Prof Rob Lawson of the Department of Marketing, received a $900,000 grant from the Public Good Science Fund for a project on sustainable tourism – this was the biggest external research grant yet awarded to the university. Kearsley was promoted to a personal chair in tourism studies the following year.

A 1984 poster promoting New Zealand’s recreational possibilities. Outdoor recreation was a subject of interest to various Otago departments and became an important field of research for the Centre for Tourism. New Zealand Tourist and Publicity Department poster. Image courtesy of the Alexander Turnbull Library, reference Eph-D-TOURISM-1984-02.

Meanwhile, important new developments were happening at undergraduate level. In 1994 the Centre offered its first undergraduate paper, TOUR 201, Principles of Tourism. This attracted over 150 students in its first year, and in 1995 a second stage 2 paper on world tourism was added. In 1997 a stage 3 paper on tourism and heritage helped meet student demand for further courses. In 1996 Kearsley commented that tourism was still being looked at vocationally in New Zealand, and needed to develop “as an academic subject in its own right”; it would “eventually stand alongside history, geography and other social sciences.”

Not everybody agreed. There may have been a market for an undergraduate degree in tourism, but many academics remained wary of its disciplinary credentials. The centre failed in its early attempts to have tourism included as a major within a commerce degree, but did succeed in having their own degree, a Bachelor of Tourism, introduced in 1999. In 2001 the Centre for Tourism reached a new stage of maturity when it became a full department within the Division of Commerce. Finally, in 2007, tourism became a major within the restructured BCom degree, and the BTour came to an end.

As the tourism industry has become an ever more important part of the New Zealand economy in the past 25 years, tourism has also developed as an academic discipline. Undergraduate degrees specialising in tourism are now also available at Waikato, Victoria, Lincoln and AUT universities, as well as in various technical institutes. While competition for the student market is intense, Otago has maintained a strong department, currently employing nine academic staff. As at the beginning, it retains a strong focus on postgraduate research, with thirty current PhD students.

Do you have any stories to share of the first twenty-five years of tourism at Otago?

Beginnings of te reo Maori

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1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, languages, Maori, teacher education, university extension

Tarewai Wesley, standing on the right, was probably the university’s first te reo Maori tutor. This photograph was taken by the Otago Daily Times in 1948 at Otakou Marae, during the celebrations marking the centenary of Bishop Selwyn’s first visit to Otakou. The official party also included (left to right): George Karetai, Margaret and Thomas Bragg (of Stewart Island) and Bishop William Fitchett. Image courtesy of the Hocken Collections, S14-184.

Kia ora koutou! In honour of Te Wiki o te Reo Maori – Maori language week – this post takes a look back at the beginnings of te reo Maori at the University of Otago. It is perhaps unsurprising, in view of the distribution of the Maori population, that Otago was the last New Zealand university to establish courses in Maori studies. It wasn’t until 1981 that a limited number of Otago students could take an introductory Stage I course in Maori language, taught by linguist Ray Harlow. After Godfrey Pohatu was appointed in 1986 a full programme in Maori studies gradually developed, proving very popular.

But there is an interesting and little known pre-history to the development of undergraduate Maori language courses at Otago. The first courses in te reo began more than twenty years earlier, through the Department of University Extension, which offered community programmes designed to reach out to the general adult population, particularly the many people who had not received any higher education. The Otago extension department’s annual report for 1957 noted: “For the first time a course was offered in the Maori language; this was well attended by members of the local Maori community.” Fifty-one people, two-thirds of them women, enrolled for the 12-class course. The tutor was Mr H. Wesley. This was almost certainly Harold Tarewai Wesley, a respected kaumatua of the Kai Tahu community at Otakou. He was renowned as a native speaker of Maori in a community where the language seemed to be dying.

After this successful beginning, the university extension department continued to offer evening courses in te reo Maori. Mr Rua Bristowe, a public servant whose iwi links were to Ngati Porou, took over as class tutor in 1958, and was himself succeeded by Mr Te P. Tawhai in 1960. As the 1961 prospectus made clear, the classes had a strong oral focus: “The aim of the course is to equip a student with a framework on which to build a speaking use of the language.” Enrolments in the late 1950s and early 1960s were not as impressive as in that first 1957 class, but varied between 10 and 30 people per year.

It appears that there were no Maori evening classes in 1963. Perhaps there was no teacher available that year, because in 1964 they resumed under a new tutor, Reverend J.N.A. Smith. Jack Smith was the minister of Kaikorai Presbyterian Church, but had previously served for over ten years in various North Island stations of the Presbyterian Maori Mission, where he presumably developed some fluency in te reo Maori. The extension department was responsible for coordinating adult education throughout Otago and Southland, and their report for 1964 also notes what may have been their first course in te reo Maori beyond Dunedin: 11 people enrolled in a language course at Balclutha, where the tutor was Mrs Kaye O’Connell.

As the Maori renaissance gathered momentum through the 1960s, demand for language classes was clearly increasing. In 1967, 45 people enrolled for the Dunedin class, 29 in Invercargill, 24 in Oamaru, and 11 in the small settlement of Otematata. Tutoring was taken over by some of the permanent lecturing staff of the Department of University Extension, Alexander Skinner and Pieter de Bres. De Bres was a Dutchman who had recently completed an anthropology thesis at the University of Auckland on Maori and religion, while Skinner was a linguist (he took leave one year to lecture on African languages at the University of California). Technology became increasingly important: “tape recordings will be used to improve spoken Maori,” noted the 1966 prospectus. Textbooks used in the late 1960s included Lessons in the Maori Language by W.H. Wills and Te Rangatahi 1 and 2.

As more people completed a first course in te reo, the department began offering level 2 and level 3 classes. In 1971 they introduced an “extension certificate,” which provided a formal qualification to those who passed an examination after three years of classes. The first six people successfully completed their certificates in 1973. The certificate course boosted enrolments, though, as ever, many people did not move past a first year of introductory language classes. The mid-1970s saw a return to a native speaker of te reo Maori as tutor in Dunedin. This was thanks to the Dunedin Teachers College, which was ahead of the university in offering Maori language courses to its students. Muru Walters of Te Rarawa became lecturer in Maori at the college in 1974, and the Department of University Extension employed him as a tutor for their Maori evening classes. Walters was a qualified teacher with expertise in Maori arts and crafts (he taught in the teachers college art department before taking on the Maori language role). He had also gained fame as a Maori All Black; he later became an Anglican priest and is now Bishop of Te Upoko o te Ika. Another 1970s tutor was Reverend Jim Irwin, Dean of Maori and Polynesian Studies at the Presbyterian Theological Hall, Knox College. English-born Irwin had worked for many years in the Maori Mission and was fluent in te reo Maori.

Enrolment forms for the occasional year have survived in the archives of the Department of University Extension to provide a little insight into the Maori evening class students. The earliest, for 1967, only give names, but those reveal that quite a few of those enrolling were Maori, particularly in the classes outside Dunedin (of course people of Maori descent did not necessarily have identifiably Maori names). The 1975 enrolment forms for Dunedin also include occupations. These varied from typist and mother to boilermaker and journalist. Quite a number worked in the civil service or “helping” professions – police officer, nurse aide, pharmacist, librarian, teacher, university lecturer. But the largest group by far were students, who accounted for 26 of the 48 enrolments. Some gave details of their studies – two were divinity students, one was a dental student and three were student teachers. But the rest were simply “students”, presumably at university. The failure of the university to provide undergraduate classes in te reo Maori had forced them to enrol in the extension department’s evening classes.

Do you have any memories to share of the Department of University Extension’s classes in te reo Maori? I’d love to hear more about them!

 

 

Evolution of an old building

Tags

1900s, 1910s, 1920s, 1960s, 1980s, dentistry, law, registry, staff club

The building in its Dental School days, c.1915. The large windows were designed to provide good natural lighting for dental practice. Image by Muir and Moodie, courtesy of Te Papa Tongarewa, reference C.012241.

I’ve been thinking about buildings recently, thanks to the university’s public announcement of its 15-year plan for building developments on the Dunedin, Christchurch and Wellington campuses. Right at the top of the priority list, with plans already well underway, is a new dental school. It seems a good moment, then, to look back at the university’s first dental school building, which has been through some interesting changes of use in its 107-year history.

The building, on the busy corner of Union and Castle streets and just across the Leith from the existing university complex, was designed by Dunedin architect James Louis Salmond specifically for the university’s new dental school, which commenced in 1907. The builders, McKinnon and Hamilton, completed the work that year. The stone building, with one wall finished in brick to allow for later extensions, cost £2421 (just under $400,000 in 2014 values). At the grand official opening in April 1908 the Otago Daily Times described the building as “well lighted, but at present rather bare”: that was probably because building costs had absorbed most of the budget of £2500 (a government grant of £1500 plus £1000 raised by the Dental Association), leaving little over for furnishings. It was, in the words of the newspaper, “a scholastic-looking edifice on the banks of the Water of Leith close to the University. On the ground floor is the director’s office, waiting room, examinations rooms, anaesthetic department, and mechanical laboratory; while above is the ‘filling’ room, the museum, and the lecture hall.”

There weren’t many dental students to begin with: just 2 in 1907 and 14 the following year; the roll didn’t exceed 20 until 1918. But right from the beginning there were plenty of patients; there was no shortage of Dunedin residents in need of dental care but unable to afford the going rates. At the official opening in 1908 the school’s director, Englishman H.P. Pickerill, commented that “he had been prepared for something bad, but the condition of the people’s teeth here was simply appalling.” To provide adequate space for all the patients, the building was extended upwards in 1909. As student numbers grew after World War I, yet more space was needed, and in 1921 the building was extended to the north. This time the design was done by Edmund Anscombe, who carried out much of the university’s architectural work in the 1910s and 1920s. The initial extension was just one storey, but a second storey was completed in 1923.

The dental school’s setting just beside the Leith was picturesque, but proved disastrous when, just after the extensions were completed, a flood undermined one corner (and led to Ian Chirnside losing his box brownie camera!). This damage, along with the steady growth of the school, prompted plans for a move to a more adequate building. Thanks to a government grant of £25,000, the university was able to build a new dental school in Great King Street, which opened in 1926. This second school is now known as the Marples Building; when the third and current dental school building was opened in 1961, the former school became the home of the Department of Zoology.

A 2008 aerial view of the building reveals the location next to the Leith which made it extremely vulnerable to flooding before extensive protection works. Image courtesy of University of Otago Marketing and Communications Division.

Meanwhile, the space in the original dental school building was too good to waste, especially after the city council invested in major flood protection work following the largest recorded flood of the Leith, in 1929. That year the University Council decided to make it the home of its administration, and architects Miller and White designed a suitable conversion. For a quarter of a century the building served as the Registry, the hub of university operations. Then, in the 1960s, the continuing growth of the university roll led to another change. The Dunedin campus expanded rapidly to cope with the growing number of students. With the opening of a new university library in 1965 (replaced by the current Information Services Building in 2001), and the beginnings of the development of major new science buildings, the old teaching spaces and library in the Clocktower Building were freed up to become the new home of the Registry in 1966.

The building then reverted to a space for professional education once again, this time for the law school. As I explained in a recent post, Otago’s law school was for many decades located off-campus, in the law offices of its part-time lecturers and the Supreme Court building. In 1966 it moved into the old Registry at the heart of the campus, with the law library downstairs and a lecture room and offices upstairs. The large old safe where the university had once stored its valuables now housed law journals. This was a big step up for law students and staff, but, just like the dental school, the law school soon outgrew the building. There were just 161 law students and 3 full-time academic staff in 1966, but ten years later there were 471 students and 12 full-time staff and conditions were very cramped. It was with some relief that the law school, including its ever-expanding library, moved into its new premises in the Richardson Building (now known as the Hocken Building) in 1980.

The old building then moved into its fourth – and current – stage of life, and was turned into the Staff Club. The Senior Common Room Association, which until then had met in the Student Union, raised funds for alterations, which were subsidised by the university. These converted the historic venue into a series of rooms where staff could gather over food and drink – an intriguing contrast from the days when students drilled teeth there. The club has since hosted many functions, both formal and informal, with the balcony overlooking the Leith and the Clocktower Building providing a pleasant outdoor lunch venue on fine days. Many an esoteric conversation must have taken place in this building over the years!

The building now known as the Staff Club is a charming one with a most interesting past. Its significance is recognised by Heritage New Zealand (formerly the New Zealand Historic Places Trust), who in 1988 listed it as an historic building. As their listing notes, together with the adjacent old university buildings, it “constitutes a major example of nineteenth and early twentieth century Gothic in New Zealand, impressive in its size and completeness.”

The Staff Club in 2004 – the exterior of the building is very little changed from its dental school days. Image courtesy of the University of Otago Marketing and Communications Division.

 

 

 

How Otago almost had a veterinary school

Tags

1900s, 1910s, dentistry, veterinary, war

A World War I vet with the New Zealand Veterinary Corps treats a horse’s teeth while an assistant steadies the animal. Photograph taken at Louvencourt, France, 22 May 1918 by Henry Armytage Sanders. Image courtesy of the Alexander Turnbull Library, Royal New Zealand Returned and Services’ Association New Zealand official negatives, World War 1914-1918, reference 1/2-013208-G.

One of the little known casualties of World War I is the University of Otago’s proposed veterinary school. By the late 1800s animal health was critical to New Zealand’s economy. The country was dependent on animals for much of its export income, which centred on wool, frozen meat and dairy products; just as importantly, horses still powered much transport and machinery. Yet, at the turn of the century the country was still importing its qualified vets. In 1903 the Canterbury Agricultural College (later to become Lincoln University) appointed W.J. Colebatch as its first veterinary science lecturer, but his role was to instruct students of farming rather than prospective vets.

Around this time the government was looking keenly at the “special schools” of the various university colleges, and was under some pressure from the North Island colleges to divide these more fairly around the country. Otago and Canterbury, as the first universities to get off the ground, had naturally evolved their special schools first: Otago in medicine and mines and Canterbury in engineering and agriculture. Otago now came under pressure from the government to close its School of Mines in favour of Auckland and to instead develop further specialities which would coordinate well with its medical school. It won the battle to retain the mining school (a battle which would be repeated and lost later in the century) but the idea of other special schools at Otago gathered momentum.

The 1904 Dentists’ Act raised the required standard of education for dentists and placed it in the hands of the University of New Zealand. Plans to open a national dental school at Otago quickly took shape and the first students commenced in 1907. This was made easier because some of the subjects necessary for dental students – anatomy, physiology, physics, chemistry – were already on offer at Otago thanks to its medical school. The same would also be true for veterinary students, provided lecturers were able to teach animal as well as human biology. In 1904, the same year that negotiations for the dental school got underway, the university council began negotiating with the government for a proposed course in veterinary science, receiving encouragement from Premier Richard Seddon. It set up a committee which worked with veterinary experts to plan the facilities required to offer a four-year degree in veterinary science. This would include the appointment of a couple of specialist professors, a surgeon and assistants and the building of a veterinary hospital; the old tin shed building of the School of Mines – then under prospect of closure – could be altered to become the new veterinary school.

In early 1907 the University of Otago Council reported “there is every prospect of the school being opened and carried on with success, provided the Government determine to select their Veterinary Surgeons and Inspectors from those who may pass through the school.” But when it offered a veterinary course that year, no students applied. The council remained anxious to start the school, consulted with government veterinary experts again and decided to commence with a shorter nineteen-month Certificate in Animal Hygiene “for the training of Inspectors of the Agricultural Department.” It hoped this less demanding course would be more attractive. Unlike the full veterinary course, which could start with an intermediate year with resources already available, the animal hygiene course would require specialist teaching from the beginning; government funding was needed.

In 1909 the government voted the University of Otago £3,000 to build a veterinary school (around half a million dollars in today’s values) together with £1,500 per year for running costs; “before long, no doubt, the Veterinary School will be in operation,” the Minister of Education reported. The university council was not so confident. With no money to spare from its own funds, it was fully dependent on this government grant. Now the School of Mines had been saved, a new building was needed for the vet school and the grant did not seem big enough. The council continued negotiating with the government for additional money, but meanwhile it was having difficulty finding a suitable site. Ideally the vet school should be fairly close to the main university buildings, but there could be problems housing animals in a heavily populated part of town. Experts advised “a site of sufficient size to allow of stock being kept under the same conditions as they would be on an ordinary farm, and, with this end in view, the Council is desirous of acquiring a property near the outskirts of the town of an area amounting to about 25 acres.”

In 1911 the university’s annual report expressed its hopes of opening the veterinary school early in 1912, but the following year’s report regretted that it was not yet underway: “Very great difficulty has been experienced in acquiring at a reasonable price a suitable block of land which would not be inconveniently remote from the city. Until further financial assistance can be obtained from the Government, therefore, the matter of establishing a veterinary school must still remain under consideration.” The council did not give up hope and continued its hunt for a site; in 1914 it believed it had finally found somewhere suitable on the Taieri and submitted it for government approval, since additional funding would be needed.

World events now intervened: both nation and university had new priorities as resources – both human and financial – were diverted to the cause of the Great War. All thoughts of a veterinary school at Otago were put aside. This was rather ironic because, as the photograph above suggests, horses and their carers played an important role in New Zealand’s war effort. In the jubilee history of the University of Otago, published in 1919, George Thompson wrote: “The presence of the Medical School in Dunedin has necessarily gathered there a group of other schools whose curriculum is closely connected with that of Medicine, viz., Dentistry and Home Science; and probably in the near future a School of Veterinary Science may also be added.” But alas, this was not to be. Had the government been a little more generous in their funding in the early 1910s, Otago might now have a century-old veterinary school. Instead, New Zealand experienced decades of insufficient veterinary services, and New Zealanders who wanted to train in veterinary science had to travel to Australia or further afield until as recently as 1962, when this country’s first veterinary course was established at Massey University.

Sadly there are no Otago veterinary graduates to read this post, but sometimes what didn’t happen in history can be almost as interesting as what did!