Promoting Otago, 1980s-style

Tags

1980s, film, flatting, promotion

A screenshot from the film ‘Learning is a way of life,’ courtesy of the Hocken Collections, University of Otago Higher Education Development Centre films, MS-4104/003. Copyright University of Otago.

In 1981, following 25 years of a growing or, at worst, stable roll, the University of Otago faced a decline in student enrolments. As the northern universities continued to grow, Otago dropped from 7004 students in 1980 to 6825 in 1981, and would drop again to 6739 in 1982. At a time when travel and accommodation costs were rising rapidly, Otago, which drew the majority of its students from out of town, was at a disadvantage. Adding to its woes was the government’s new Tertiary Assistance Grants Scheme, introduced in 1980 to replace the old student bursary system. The new scheme was less generous, and students did not discover whether or not they had been approved for the “hardship” addition to the basic grant until well into the year; many were turned down. Some potential students were not willing to risk penury and Otago’s enrolments suffered.

The university was not about to take this lying down. Attempts to persuade government to amend its student funding policies proved unsuccessful, meaning the university’s promotional activities became critically important. To attract future students, it produced “attractive colour brochures” about its various degree courses and its residential colleges. It also broadened its promotional efforts with an exciting new venture, the film Learning is a way of life: an introduction to student life at Otago University. The Hocken has recently digitised the 16mm films in its collections, and I’m delighted to be able to share some excerpts on this blog (the film remains copyright to the University of Otago).

Learning is a way of life was produced in-house by the Higher Education Development Centre’s AV production centre, with a budget of $11,700 (including distribution costs). Planning began early in 1981, with a committee of four: HEDC director David Teather, Robert van der Vyver (the film’s producer), English professor Colin Gibson (who wrote the script), and university liaison officer Ian Page. Music professor John Drummond composed the bouncy soundtrack, performed by members of the music department. The budget included two hours of helicopter hire for the opening aerial shots.

Though scripted, the film was based on the experiences of five real students: Peter Griffiths (a med student), Amanda Ellis (arts), Diana Carson (commerce), Graham Mandeno (science) and Joan Parker (education). They were clearly selected to represent a wide range of students. While Ellis was a fresher learning her way around campus, Griffiths was in his third year and a sub-warden at Unicol. Parker (who doesn’t appear in these excerpts) was a mature student with children at school.

Titles and opening scenes:

Orientation:

The “terrific” new clubs and socs building:

The joys of flatting:

Around the University Union:

 

I’ve selected some general scenes of student life to show here, but the 33-minute film also featured lectures, tutorials, field work, music and drama productions, along with a few scenes of the Dunedin shops and entertainment venues. It closed with scenes from graduation.

The film screened on nationwide television in June and September 1982, and there was also a showing at the Dunedin Public Library. By November more than 30 copies had been sold or loaned to schools or individuals. But how successful was the university’s first major promotional effort? Enrolments jumped by 350 in 1983 and by just over 200 more in 1984; by the end of the 1980s growth had accelerated and Otago had over 10,000 students. As the 1985 university newsletter commented, Otago was back to the familiar problem of “a rising roll and a limited budget.” It is difficult to measure what influence the film may have had on enrolments. I’m not convinced that the scenes of Amanda’s hostel room would have drawn anybody here! If you saw this film and it helped sway your decision to come to Otago, I’d love to hear from you.

Otago’s promotional efforts of the early 1980s started something. Competition between tertiary providers was heating up as free market economics gained influence. “This is a competitive world and Otago’s promotional efforts triggered off activity in some of the other universities,” noted the staff newsletter in 1985. Media and communications accelerated in importance and various campaigns have since sought to grow Otago’s “place in the world,” as one slogan put it.

Learning is a way of life was, in the 1980s, an innovative and sophisticated way to market the University of Otago in response to a crisis in enrolments. Though it cannot have been the intention of its creators, it is now a wonderful historical snapshot of life at Otago at that time. I hope it brings back happy memories for some viewers!

Update – 13 October 2014

For those who would like to see the entire half-hour film, I’m very happy to say it is now available on the Hocken Collections YouTube channel (in 3 separate parts) – https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChzpcDq9VcuDLMXaoJHklBQ

 

 

 

Off to war

Tags

1910s, classics, dentistry, languages, medicine, mining, war, women

Alexander Trotter, who graduated MB ChB from Otago in 1913, took this snapshot of some of his colleagues from the NZ Medical Corps in Jericho. They include Capt Warren Young (an Otago medical graduate of 1916), Capt Martin Ryan (a dentist) and Col Robert Walton (an Edinburgh medical graduate). Image courtesy of the Hocken Collections, AM Trotter papers, MS-3397/008, S14-589a.

The barrage of World War I centenary events is now upon us, and this month Dunedin commemorates the embarkation of the first troops who departed here for the war in Europe. It seems an appropriate time to think about the impact of the war on the University of Otago.

At the beginning of 1914 there were just over 600 students enrolled at Otago, 70 per cent of them male; a considerable number were part-timers. Numbers attending dropped off rapidly as young men headed off for the front. The chancellor reported at the end of March 1915 that “at least a hundred students are wearing their King’s uniform, and small detachments are constantly leaving to join the reinforcements.” The March 1915 annual reports of the “special schools” revealed the large impact of war. Of the 29 students in the School of Mines, 9 left in August 1914 to become part of the main expeditionary force, and by March a further 5 had joined them on active service. The tiny dental school, which had just 8 students enrolled in 1914, provided 3 of those to the armed forces. The medical school, too, contributed significantly. Like the dental and mining schools, it allowed students who had nearly completed their degrees to finish early, expediting their departure: “In consequence of the demand for surgeons a special final examination was held last August [1914], and sixteen of the fifth-year students who passed either joined the Expeditionary Force or replaced others who did so.”

The university council took great pride in the contribution being made by its students and former students to the war effort. It had been horrified by news of the “wanton and lawless destruction” of the “ancient and honoured University of Louvain” by German troops invading Belgium; many irreplacable books and manuscripts were lost along with buildings. In an October 1914 letter of sympathy to Louvain, the council noted its pride “that many of its own alumni have gone forth to serve as comrades in arms of the Belgians in the cause of freedom and humanity.” An early sign of the tragedy of war can be seen in the minutes of the following month’s council meeting, which record sympathy at the “cruel death of Dr Angus McNab on the battlefield. While in the act of rendering surgical aid to wounded soldiers it has been reported that he was bayoneted by the Germans, although he was wearing the red-cross badge on his arm.” McNab completed a BSc and BA at Otago in the 1890s, and went on to become a medical specialist in London.

In May 1915 the university council recorded its last sympathy motion for war-related deaths, noting its “mingled feelings of sorrow and pride” at “news of the death at the Dardanelles of three students of the University of Otago – Lieutenants R. Duthie, J.S. Reid, and E.M. Burnard.” All three died at Gallipoli. Death at war, it would appear, then became so common that it no longer warranted a special mention: by the end of the war nearly 100 staff and students had been killed. Their names were recorded in the University of Otago Calendar and photographs of “fallen comrades” appeared in the student publication, the Otago University Review, but there was no longer space for recording them in the council minutes. The council did, however, continue to record military honours awarded to university people, sending congratulations to the families of those concerned.

Putting aside the personal tragedies of the many deaths and injuries, the biggest headache the war created for the university authorities was retaining sufficient staff to keep its normal activities going. Of course, they had no idea how long the war would last, and nobody suspected in 1914 that it still had four years to run. When William Phillipps, a demonstrator in biology about to leave on military service, requested 3 years of leave in February 1915, the council resolved “to grant Mr Phillipps leave for twelve months or until the end of the war should the war terminate in less than twelve months.” Deciding whether or not to grant leave, and how long for, was tricky, and once conscription was introduced in 1916 the council also had to decide whether or not to appeal against the calling up of its employees.

There was a particular demand for people with medical expertise, and replacements for medical school staff could be difficult to find. When Percy Gowland, Professor of Anatomy, asked the council in February 1917 if he might proceed to the front, it sympathised, but informed him that “his services are indispensable to the Medical School.” When Gowland was called up in the ballot in 1918, the university appealed. At the same October meeting of the Military Service Board, it appealed against the calling up of William Carswell, surgical tutor and assistant lecturer, and Alexander Kidd, who worked in the anatomy laboratory. Kidd had asked the council for leave to proceed to war, but Gowland stated he was “essential for the proper working of the Anatomical Department.”

A familiar wartime sight. This unidentified photograph is from the papers of Roland Fulton, one of many Otago medical graduates to serve in World War I. After qualifying in 1914 he headed to England for further training in surgery; he served with the Royal Army Medical Corps during the war. Image courtesy of Hocken Collections, RAH Fulton papers, MS-1667/008, S14-589b.

Some senior staff did head overseas to the war, often for long periods. Daniel Waters, Professor of Metallurgy and Assaying in the School of Mines, served as an officer in the New Zealand Tunnelling Company for a couple of years; he returned to the university after being discharged no longer fit for service at the end of 1917. Henry Pickerill, Dean of the Dental School, served from 1916 to 1919 with the New Zealand Medical Corps, becoming famous for his pioneering work reconstructing the jaws and faces of those injured by war. The Professor of Surgery, Louis Barnett, joined the Royal Army Medical Corps in Malta early in 1915 and was transferred to the New Zealand Medical Corps in Egypt in October 1915. He returned to New Zealand early in 1917, after the university had convinced the military authorities he was essential to the training of the country’s future surgeons. Thomas Adams, Professor of Classics, enlisted early in 1917 and did not return to New Zealand until 1920, having been seconded for army educational duties in England.

Some subject areas struggled in the war years due to a lack of students. With its dean away and very few students, the Dental School was under threat of closure, but managed to survive the war years before expanding greatly in the post-war period. One casualty of the war was the university’s German language programme. In 1915 lecturer Frank Campbell resigned because he had no students. The council regretted “the loss of a teacher of his experience and the removal, even for a time, of so important a study as that of German from the subjects of instruction within the University.”

A more common difficulty, though, was finding substitutes for staff serving overseas. One solution was to appoint women, who were more readily available and not liable to conscription into the military. Isabel Turnbull became assistant to Adams in 1915; for the three years he served overseas she took on full responsibility for Otago’s teaching of Latin. Gladys Cameron was appointed to teach in bacteriology and public health in 1917, and Phyllis Turnbull as assistant in French in 1918; other women became demonstrators. Outside the School of Home Science, women academics had been non-existent at Otago prior to the war. Now new opportunities were opening to them, though sometimes these were temporary. Women also became more prominent as students during the war years, accounting for almost half of students in 1918 before men took over again in 1919.

The ‘Great War’ clearly had an enormous impact on the university, its staff and its students. It is also clear that the university made an enormous contribution to New Zealand’s war effort, with the council  minutes recording numerous students, staff and alumni mentioned in despatches and awarded military honours. For more information about the university and World War I, see this recent article in the alumni magazine, which also features on article about the war commemorations by Professor Tom Brooking.

25 years of Cumberland

Tags

1980s, 1990s, 2000s, Cumberland

Part of Cumberland in 2014, showing both 1910s and 1940s wings of the building. Image courtesy of Cumberland College.

This year Cumberland College celebrates 25 years of existence. It is now a well-established home for over 300 students, but it didn’t get off to a very auspicious start – it was set up at the last minute in a building about to be demolished!

The building which is now Cumberland was originally the Dunedin Hospital Nurses’ Home. Designed by old Dunedin architectural firm Mason and Wales and built by Fletcher Brothers, it opened in 1916 to cater for the growing staff of the growing Dunedin Hospital. This was an era when all nurses lived on the premises and, as many had come originally from out of town, the hospital board wanted to make this a real “home” for them. The nursing journal, Kai Tiaki, gave the new building a rave review. It had “bedrooms of a sufficient size and healthy and comfortably furnished for each nurse, a large, well-lighted and ventilated dining-room, delightful sitting-room for the nurses in training, for the sisters and for the Home sister, a lecture room and library. There is a fine kitchen and its various adjuncts and rooms for the maids at the Home.” Particular features included the “handsome doors with stained-glass” and the “beautiful New Zealand wood with which the Home is panelled throughout.” The windows were “very large and let in all the sunshine which, especially in winter, is so much appreciated in Dunedin.” The wide balcony would overlook “a nice lawn and garden,” yet to be finished, and tennis courts and a croquet lawn were planned.

The future Cumberland College when it first opened as the Dunedin Nurses’ Home in 1916. Image from Kai Tiaki, October 1916, courtesy of Papers Past, National Library of New Zealand.

For decades the building served its original purpose as nurses’ home, with extensions in the 1940s to cater for the still expanding Dunedin Hospital staff. By the 1980s, though, the hospital’s need for staff accommodation had greatly reduced as most nurses lived out. The 1916 building was becoming decrepit, and the Otago Hospital Board decided in April 1988 to demolish it and use the space as a car park, rather than spend the millions of dollars required for upgrading and converting the building for another use.

Meanwhile, the University of Otago, with its rapidly expanding roll, was desperate to find more residential accommodation for students. It was already leasing the old Wakari Hospital nurses’ home from the Hospital Board (this served as Helensburgh House residential college from 1984 to 1991) and had bought the former Aquinas Hall, re-opened as Dalmore House in 1988. It now offered to lease the old Dunedin Nurses’ Home from the board and pay for its upgrade to meet current fire and seismic standards. As the Helensburgh experiment had shown, a former nurses’ home was ideal for student accommodation, requiring no alterations to the existing floor plan. The board, which would receive more income from this than a car park, agreed in September 1988 to the lease of the old part of the building, initially for five years. The board’s chair Michael Cooper, who also happened to be Professor of Economics at the university, noted that “it means one institution helping another to both bodies’ advantage.”

The Cumberland elephant, c.1996. It came from the Bowling Green Hotel (then Zouga Ballantynes), to the Dunedin Hospital creche, still located in the newer wing during Cumberland’s early years. It then became the Cumberland mascot. Image by Peter Walker, courtesy of Cumberland College.

After some very quick work and scrambling around for furniture, Cumberland House opened its doors to its first 145 residents and staff in February 1989. Warden Joy Bennett commented in her first annual report that it “started its year under extreme difficulties with building work incomplete, no kitchenette facilities and rooms requiring some or all furniture.” During the year snow brought down guttering and fascia boards, leading to urgent repairs, and residents sometimes ended up with cold showers as the old water heating system struggled to cope with demand.

Despite these difficulties, she noted that student morale was high in 1989. The residents may have been selected from the accommodation office’s “pool” of those not accepted by other colleges, and were generally of “average” academic ability, but they weren’t short of energy. Their student council was “extremely enthusiastic which led to a very successful social calendar for Cumberland House,” reported Bennett. The old tennis courts and lawn provided a great venue for ball games, and sports of all sorts became an important part of Cumberland life. Perhaps the best known former resident is Jamie Joseph, who played for the All Blacks in the 1990s and is now coach of the Highlanders.

Making good use of the tennis courts in 2013. Image courtesy of University of Otago Marketing and Communications.

In its early years, Cumberland was well down the popularity list for residential colleges. It didn’t have the history and reputation of the older colleges, and its facilities were rundown. But as renovations and improvements continued, its reputation grew better. The university purchased the building from the Otago Area Health Board, also taking over the newer wings. Cumberland was “considered quite presentable” by the late 1990s, noted a 2009 review! The turn of the century brought a new dining room and kitchen (meals had been produced off-site before that), leading to more satisfied residents. In 2005 the college took on responsibility for some of the university flats further along Cumberland Street, even closer to the main Dunedin campus. These became Cumberland Court.

Like all colleges, Cumberland has its own traditions. Residents take part in Colour Wars Day, 2014. Image courtesy of Cumberland College.

The historic building has created its fair share of headaches for Cumberland over the years. Though it was strengthened just before the college opened in 1989, a careful review of university buildings in the wake of the Canterbury earthquakes revealed it to be the most vulnerable major building on campus, at just 19% of new building standards. It was first priority for further strengthening, carried out over the summer of 2011/2012. But an old building also has character, and Cumberland College is not short of that. In 2011 its dining room was transformed into Hogwarts to celebrate the opening of the final Harry Potter film. The college also boasts its own ghost, though not everybody welcomes that – the university chaplain and a kaumatua were called on to calm residents after sightings of the “Grey Lady” in 2012.

Do you have any memories to share of Cumberland’s action-packed first 25 years?

The course critique quiz

Tags

1980s

Something a bit light-hearted this week – a quiz! I have before me some 1980s OUSA handbooks, which offered advice to aspiring students about possible first-year courses. Can you figure out which subject each description refers to? Answers are in the comments below this post.

1. Every paper has its high and low points, so don’t expect to be enthralled all year.
2. An endurance test often criticised for its sausage-machine pace and methods.
3. The reading lists seem quite mind boggling but it is not necessary to read the lot.
4. I hope you will, as I did, find the —– Department and its members a very interesting and friendly bunch – despite the frequent deep pain in one’s gut feeling when entering X lectures.
5. This half unit is the dream course for those who hate lectures. The entire course is covered by a book put together by the department …
6. Lectures range from adequate to boring  but are generally non-essential …
7. Tutorials are not that important, thus can be missed, unless you’re exceptionally bright or thick.
8.  —– is one of the easiest subjects to get an A in, so take heed Med. Int. students.
9. Welcome to the most boring unit on campus. Boring as it may be, it is not difficult to achieve a reasonable pass …
10. Whereas most depart X lectures bubbling excitedly over various points, those leaving the Y lectures tend to do so very quietly, with the glazed look of one trying desperately to understand but not quite succeeding. For indeed one’s first encounter with Prof Z’s Y course is a very harrowing experience and one from which quite a few fail to recover.
11. A superb interest unit and should be made compulsory to every man, woman and child in New Zealand.
12. The lecture theatre is one of those where it is advisable to sit near the front (despite the bad publicity this will produce). Besides being able to hear the lecturer fairly well, this has the added advantage that the wittier graffiti artists have expressed themselves in that area. A mildly successful cure for terminal boredom.
13. Overall the course is quite involved, often interesting and occasionally (oh alright then – usually) tiresome. In other words, much like any other course you’d rather not do.
14. If you have not got the stamina to spend most of this term reading, or are naturally lazy, stay well clear of this subject.
15. Students are only given a general overview in lectures. This unfortunately means that it is necessary to do a bit of reading and out-of-lecture work throughout the year. But don’t overdo this – it’s not worth it as you only have to answer four questions in finals.
16. Prof X’s relationship to the class is like that of a friendly oracle towards its blind and groping followers …. Prof Y reassures the class their lack of comprehension is only a temporary phase.
17. Most students grope through this chaotic course in total confusion.
18. This half unit is a very popular and controversial one …. The whole package of textbook, study guide, lecture overheads, even exam questions is American, which will give you some idea of the content.
19. [Lecturers] are informative and somewhat entertaining in action. My only criticism of the Department is that in certain quarters entrenched sexism often raises its ugly (yet often seen on Campus) head.
20. Feminists will be pleased to know that there is sometimes an exam question on women’s role in society (which appears still open to debate).
21. This part of the paper can be enjoyable – watching half the lecture walk out during it.
22. People really enjoy the course and found lecturers friendly and helpful. Some discover a genuine interest in —–
23. There is one term exam, at which attendance is compulsory. This is a condensed version in similar format to the final exam, suitably timed so as to give many people a necessary shock.
24. Beware of irrelevant detail in the X half of this paper and needless repetition in the Y.
25. There are two excellent books well recommended for understanding the sometimes tortuous lectures.
26. Be prepared to approach staff members, most of whom are relatively human.
27. —– is a subject which provides interest and variation. Most people will find the labs uninspiring but helpful and sometimes fun.

As is clear, the descriptions were often pretty cynical (of course I’ve chosen some of the most amusing for this quiz).  The authors’ boredom threshold seems to have been pretty low! But they also offered some genuinely useful advice – how essential it was to attend all the lectures and tutorials, whether you really needed to buy the textbooks, and how much independent study was required.

Detailed descriptions of courses weren’t published every year, but most years the handbook provided a handy chart of pass rates in the various subjects. As the 1987 handbook explained: “We’ve all heard them; those wonderful rumours that no-one passes old Mrs Wubbles’ Remedial Thinking 104 Half Unit. Or that no-one ever fails the Yugoslavian Basket Weaving Intermediate Unit, no matter how little work they do. Well, the time has come to dispel these and other myths.” The pass rates they published (the most recent available, from 1985), showed that anybody afraid of failure was best to avoid first-year classical studies, political studies, legal system or accounting. Meanwhile, first-year units in foods, English, French, physical education, music and linguistics all had pass rates over 90%.

Bring back any memories of your first year?

 

 

Nourishing science

Tags

1880s, 1900s, 1910s, 1920s, 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, 2010s, consumer and applied sciences, food, food science, home science, human nutrition, medicine, physiology, public health, Wellington, women

One of Otago’s best known nutrition researchers, Dr Muriel Bell. Image courtesy of the Hocken Collections, Margaret Madill papers, r.6653, S14-589c.

Otago’s Department of Human Nutrition is the largest such university department in the Southern Hemisphere, and boasts an enviable international reputation. Its staff are often called on for their expertise in this country and beyond – two of the fifteen members of the World Health Organization’s Nutrition Guidance Expert Advisory Group are Otago human nutrition professors, Jim Mann and Murray Skeaff. Otago’s history in nutrition research goes back over a century, long predating the creation of a specialist department. It involves the story of some remarkable people, including several pioneering women scientists.

It could be argued that the university’s first nutrition researcher was Frederic Truby King, appointed Lecturer on Mental Diseases at the medical school in 1889 to complement his role as Superintendent of Seacliff Lunatic Asylum. Among many other things, he was interested in the role of diet in mental health. This later evolved into his famous work on infant nutrition and the founding of the Plunket Society, which promoted infant health and welfare.

The arrival of John Malcolm as Otago’s first Professor of Physiology (previously combined with anatomy) in 1905 marked a new step in research into nutrition at the university. Malcolm, a Scot, researched the nutritional values of various New Zealand foods, most notably local fish. His introduction of vitamin assays to this country led to practical advice on diets. This benefited animals as well as humans, with the diet he devised ensuring the survival of the dogs on Admiral Byrd’s 1928 Antarctic expedition.

One of Malcolm’s students, Muriel Bell, became a well-known nutritionist and long-serving member of the Department of Physiology. She graduated in medicine in 1922, then lectured in physiology while completing a doctorate on goitre. After some years working overseas, she returned to the department in 1935. As her entry in the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography notes, her “forte was applied research into subjects of practical everyday importance, such as the vitamin content of New Zealand fruit, vegetables, fish and cereals.” She was a public health campaigner as well as a research scientist, and the Department of Health employed her part-time as a nutritionist for many years. She provided advice on war and post-war food rationing, and famously published a recipe for rosehip syrup to provide 1940s youngsters with adequate Vitamin C.

These three significant nutrition researchers were part of the Otago Medical School, but in 1911 another location for nutrition research arrived with the establishment of Otago’s School of Home Science. Food was a key topic within the home science syllabus, though this involved, in addition to nutrition, the study of food preparation and science, including the development of new food products. These were the origins of today’s two separate departments, human nutrition and food science. A Master of Home Science degree, introduced in 1926, brought a new focus on research to the school, with nutrition by far the most popular topic for dissertations.

Elizabeth Gregory, another well-known Otago nutrition expert. Image courtesy of the Alexander Turnbull Library, reference 1/2-C-024999-F.

One early master’s graduate of the Home Science School, Elizabeth Gregory, went on to further postgraduate study in nutrition. She completed a PhD – A study of fat metabolism, with special reference to nutrition on diets devoid of fat – at University College, London, before returning to Otago as lecturer in chemistry and nutrition in 1932. She was Professor and Dean of the Faculty of Home Science from 1941 to 1961. Like her physiology colleague Muriel Bell, with whom she often consulted, Gregory was frequently looked to for her expertise in public health issues relating to nutrition.

Among the 1940s home science students taught by Gregory was a woman who became a world-leading nutrition researcher: Marion Robinson. After completing a master’s degree at Otago she went on to further study at Cambridge. In 1958 she returned to Otago’s Faculty of Home Science, where she worked for the next thirty years. In a new laboratory set up in an old shed, Robinson studied the metabolism of various trace elements, becoming famous for her work on selenium. Meanwhile, Robinson also developed the teaching programme in human nutrition further, and it became available as a subject for BSc, including an honours programme, in the 1970s, as well as remaining a significant part of the home science degree.

The arrival of Jim Mann from Oxford as the new Professor of Human Nutrition in 1987 marked a new phase of nutrition teaching and research. In particular, it increased the links with the health sciences, for Mann is a medical doctor who was also appointed professor in the Department of Medicine and clinical endocrinologist for the health board. Human nutrition soon split out from its longstanding home in home science (which had by then become the Faculty of Consumer and Applied Sciences) and became an autonomous department within the Faculty of Science.

Research in the department also branched out from the previous work on micronutrients to new work on macronutrients and chronic diseases such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease and cancer. With changes in society, over-nutrition had joined under-nutrition as a major concern. Of course, under-nutrition remained a big problem in the developing world, and as the department grew the 1996 appointment of Rosalind Gibson brought in new international expertise in the study of micronutrients, especially zinc and iron deficiency.

After World War II rationing was over, the only future health professionals to take nutrition very seriously were those studying home science in preparation for their postgraduate training as dietitians. More recently, that has changed, with nutrition widely recognised as highly significant for human health and included more extensively as part of health science programmes. And research is no longer confined to the Department of Human Nutrition, with some health science departments – Otago’s Department of Public Health in Wellington for instance – active in research into nutrition and health. In true interdisciplinary fashion, the university’s Edgar Diabetes and Obesity Research Centre brings together researchers from the departments of anatomy, biochemistry, medicine (in both Dunedin and Wellington), public health (Wellington), social and preventive medicine and human nutrition.

Do you have any stories to share from Otago’s long history of nutrition research? Any suggestions as to what Muriel Bell is investigating in the wonderful photograph taken in her laboratory? Some of that equipment looks intriguing!