Interim and permanent buildings

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1960s, 1970s, 1980s, chemistry, computer science, geology, library, mathematics, physics, technology

This year is the 50th anniversary of two significant university buildings. Ironically, the one originally called ‘interim’ is still here, while the other has gone!

The northern side of the new Library/Arts Building in 1965. Image courtesy of the Hocken Collections, S13-217g.

On 7 April 1965 the new Library/Arts Building was officially opened by the Minister of Education with much fanfare (complete with a student protest about inadequate government funding for university staff and facilities). The library, which had been taking up more and more space in the old clocktower building, now had a spacious new home, and there was also room for some of the arts and commerce departments. Those departments later moved out into other new buildings, allowing the library to expand. But as the university grew and grew, the library space became inadequate. Since the building’s design did not allow for any additions, some of the collections were moved into other spaces. Eventually the central library building was replaced by the current Information Services Building, completed in 2001.

Not far away from the library is the other 1965 building, now known as the Information Technology Services Building. It started out as the Interim Science Building. The word interim did not refer to the building, but to its usage – it was to provide temporary additional space for the physical sciences until their large new buildings were completed in the 1970s. There was a lot less fanfare over this building. I haven’t yet uncovered any evidence that it even had an official opening – its residents simply moved in and started using it in September 1965.

Though the numbers seem small by today’s standards, the university was growing rapidly in this period, making the old buildings woefully inadequate. The student roll jumped from 2000 in 1955 to 3700 in 1965; by 1975 it had reached 6300. As the Vice-Chancellor Arthur Beacham commented in 1964 when plans for the interim building were announced, it meant the university could avoid restricting entry into the physical sciences, whose labs were cramped into every attic and basement available.

The key feature of the Interim Science Building – a two-storey light steel-frame construction – was that it could be built quickly. The design, by Auckland architects Beatson, Rix-Trott, Carter & Co., had already been used for buildings at Auckland and Massey universities, though of course the foundations had to be customised for the site. The site was a particularly interesting one. With no space for a long building readily available around campus, it was built to span the Water of Leith. Once government funding was approved in October 1964, the University of Otago accepted a tender from Dunedin building firm Mitchell Brothers and, true to schedule, science departments moved in just under a year later.

The Information Technology Services Building, formerly the Interim Science Building, photographed by Ali Clarke, March 2015.

For several years the Interim Science Building provided extra laboratory space for the geology, physics and chemistry departments. In the 1970s, as the large new Science I, II and III buildings were completed, those departments moved out. The initial plan was for the building to then become available for expansion of the School of Home Science, but nobody had foreseen the ever-growing needs of another original occupant of the building, the university’s computing services.

The timing of the Interim Science Building construction was providential for the beginnings of computing at Otago. Space was reserved for installation of an IBM 360/30 early in 1966; this was run by the mathematics department. The large space under the building, where it crossed the Leith, proved convenient for the running of all the cables needed for the computer and its powerful air conditioning system. There were some disadvantages though. Brian Cox, the mathematician who became Otago’s first computer scientist, recalls that the puzzle of frequent false fire alarms was solved when they discovered that waterblasting under the building had accidentally stripped the insulation off all the wiring! Rumour has it that people waiting for the computer to work through a program sometimes passed the time by fishing out the window.

The Computing Centre’s first machine, from its 1971 ‘Notes for users’.

Early computers were very large in size, if not in data capabilities – Otago’s first IBM had 16KB of memory! A new computer, installed in 1973, filled half the ground floor of the Interim Sciences Building. Later computers were smaller, but there were many more of them, together with a growing staff to manage computer services all around campus, train users and carry out academic research and teaching in computer science. By the mid-1980s computing had taken over the entire building, which was renamed the Computing Services Building to reflect that. The building design had proved flexible – “hardly any of its internal walls are the originals”, commented the staff newsletter in 1986. Later, when Computing Services became Information Technology Services, the building was renamed the Information Technology Services Building.

Do you have any memories to share of the Interim Sciences Building? And do you know of any early photos of the building? The only ones I’ve located so far are in newspaper clippings. It’s hard to photograph these days because the trees have grown so much!

Another view of the ITS Building, photographed by Ali Clarke, March 2015.

Maori Studies celebrates

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1970s, 1980s, 1990s, Maori, university extension

Maori Studies staff in 1991. Standing (from left): Mark Laws, Maureen Bruce, Godfrey Pohatu, Meredith ?, Michael Reilly, Mereana Smith. Seated: Lorraine Johnson, Toroa Pohatu. They are photographed at the Mataatua wharenui at Otago Museum, often used for Maori Studies events prior to its return to Ngati Awa in Whakatane in 1996. Image courtesy of the Hocken Collections, University of Otago Photographic Unit records, MS-4185/016, S14-561a.

Maori Studies was slow to get started at Otago, but once underway it grew rapidly and became a key part of the university. This month – 27 March to be precise – marks 25 years since Maori Studies officially became a full university department and in May it will celebrate this anniversary in style.

As I described in a previous post, the Department of University Extension began community classes in te reo Maori in 1957. These classes proved popular and expanded over the years; a considerable number of those involved were students, who did not have any options for including te reo Maori in an Otago degree. It was demand from students that finally got the university talking about offering Maori as an undergraduate course.

In 1971 the Faculty of Arts set up a committee “to examine the case for establishing courses in Maori”. After consulting widely, the committee recommended in 1972 that Otago should establish a Maori programme: after all, studying the language was “both an opportunity and a responsibility for all New Zealand universities” and there was “a genuine and wide interest” in such a course from students. The faculty approved in principle, but promptly shelved further action until 1975, when the next government five-yearly funding block grant began.

The committee believed it was important that “the first member of staff appointed in Maori be of very high academic quality and that the appointment be made at the level of senior lecturer at least.” The focus on academic qualifications had unfortunate consequences. In June 1975 the academic staffing committee decided that neither of the two applicants for the position was suitable. Conscious that Maori language teachers with higher academic qualifications were rare and in hot demand as Maori courses expanded all over the country, the staffing committee took an alternative approach. Ray Harlow, who had a PhD and had already lectured in the Department of Classics, was an able linguist who currently taught in Germany and planned to study Polynesian languages and literature at the University of Munich. Otago offered him a post-doctoral fellowship to study for a year in Germany, followed by a year at the University of Auckland, studying Maori with Prof Bruce Biggs. After his two years of study was complete, they expected to offer him a position lecturing in Maori.

Unsurprisingly, the news that Otago’s first Maori lecturer was to be a Pakeha who had, as yet, a limited knowledge of te reo, caused a public outcry, with letters appearing in the press around the country.The delay of another two years was also a frustration for those campaigning for a Maori course. The university Maori Club – one of the original advocates for an undergraduate course – was particularly critical of the delay and of the appointment of a person without standing within the Maori community, but it was not alone. Over a thousand people signed a petition protesting that the course would no longer commence in 1976. The university also received a delegation of the Maori Graduates Association, consisting of a high-powered group of Maori academics, professionals and students.

In a concession to Maori concerns the university brought forward its original intention to appoint a second lecturer; this time it hoped to attract “a suitably qualified native-speaker of Maori” and the Maori Graduates Association agreed to encourage applications. However, finding somebody proved difficult. In 1979 the Dean of Arts reported that the position had been offered to three people over the past four years but all had declined; Otago still had no undergraduate course in Maori.

Harlow returned to Otago in 1977 and taught linguistics. In 1980 the Faculty of Arts decided it could delay no longer. Having failed to find another suitable lecturer, it introduced a half-unit in Maori language for beginners in 1981, taught by Harlow. This was “an interim measure pending the introduction of a full unit in Maori when a native-speaking lecturer can be appointed.” It’s important to note that nobody had any personal objection to Harlow. When he left for a position as lecturer in Maori Studies at Waikato at the end of 1989 the Maori Centre newsletter noted he had been “an ardent supporter of nga mea Maori generally on campus and at the multitribal Arai-te-Uru Marae.” He was also an able linguist, recognised in his appointment to Te Taura Whiri i te Reo Maori, the Maori Language Commission.

So, the Maori programme finally got underway in 1981, with the class limited to 32 students for the first four years. A new phase of development began with the arrival of Godfrey Pohatu as lecturer in 1986. After ten years of trying the university had finally found its first Maori lecturer of Maori. Pohatu was an experienced teacher who was part-way through a Master of Education degree at Canterbury; he went on to complete a PhD at Otago in 1998. He was also very active in Maori cultural groups and became a well-known composer of waiata. After all the years of delay there were big expectations of Pohatu; he was fortunate to have great support from his wife, Toroa, who was also an experienced teacher and cultural performer, fluent in te reo Maori.

Toroa Pohatu joined her husband as a lecturer in the Maori programme in 1988. The additional staffing was much needed, for the number of students grew rapidly; there were 212 first-years to be taught that year. A cultural paper – introducing basic cultural concepts, mythology, arts and crafts – was added to the language paper in 1987, meaning students could now complete a full stage one unit in Maori. The same year saw the birth of Te Kapa Haka o Te Whare Wananga o Otakou, a Maori cultural group tutored by the Pohatus which had considerable success at Maori performing arts festivals. The Maoritanga paper quickly proved popular with a wide range of students seeking a basic understanding of the Maori world, and it remains one of Otago’s largest papers. Stage 2 papers started in 1989 and in 1990, with the arrival of Stage 3 papers, it became possible to major in Maori Studies.

At Auckland, Massey, Victoria and Canterbury universities, Maori studies commenced within anthropology departments. At Otago, though anthropology was a department where Maori students felt particularly welcomed, the subject of Maori studies had a different path. Rather than being attached to a particular department, Maori started out as a ‘section’ within the arts faculty, directly responsible to the dean of arts and with an advisory committee of the faculty. This allowed it to develop independently and rapidly, but not entirely unsupported. In 1990 – the year when Stage 3 papers were first offered and Otago’s first Maori studies majors completed their degrees – it gained formal recognition as an independent university department.

After these long and tricky beginnings, 1990 was clearly a major milestone for Maori Studies at Otago – something worth celebrating in 2015! The department – which evolved into Te Tumu, the School of Maori, Pacific and Indigenous Studies – has had various ups and downs since 1990, but enters its second quarter-century in a flourishing state with many great achievements behind it. Do you have any memories to share of the early years of Maori Studies at Otago?

Water of Leith – friend or foe?

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1920s, dentistry, floods, grounds

Damage to landscaping is evident in this photograph of the Leith flowing past the clocktower building soon after the 1923 flood. Image courtesy of Dunedin City Council archives, 89/22.

As it flows gently past the iconic clocktower building, the Water of Leith plays no small part in creating an environment which has seen Otago named one of the most beautiful university campuses in the world (twice!). Recent major landscaping work around the Leith has made it even more attractive and accessible, but its underlying purpose has been to upgrade flood protection, because, like any river, the Leith is not always gently burbling and benign.

The university actually owes much of its site to a major flood of the Leith. The Dunedin Botanic Garden was originally located on the land bounded by Castle, Leith, St David and Albany streets (it can be seen on the right of the old photo in this earlier post). In February 1868 the whole region was swept by floods, and the raging Leith washed away several bridges and about an acre of cultivated land at the gardens, along with the flood defences then under construction. This was the major impetus for the botanic garden to move to their current site in 1869, allowing the university to take over the land in the 1870s.

There have been several major floods of the Leith since the 1870s. The largest recorded by the local authorities was in 1929, but it was a 1923 flood which caused the greatest damage to the university. Alison Breese of the Dunedin City Council archives has recently digitised these wonderful lantern slides, revealing the damage after the 1923 flood.

Late on Saturday 21 April 1923 heavy rain began and it continued until Monday morning, leading to major flooding in all low-lying parts of Dunedin and the Taieri. Many homes were inundated and the hallowed turf of Carisbrook lay 3 feet under water. The Leith became “a seething, foam-wrapt mass of water”, reported the Otago Daily Times. Between Leith Street and Forth Street “the river was a striking sight, the groynes churing the waters into what was a veritable seething cauldron.”

A curious crowd gathered on the Union Street bridge, undermined by the 1923 flood. In the background is the Home Science building (now the Applied Science building). Image courtesy of Dunedin City Council archives, 334/34.

The seething waters caused serious damage to the Union Street bridge, undermining its foundations, scouring out parts of the road and leaving a telegraph pole beside it suspended from its wires. But it was the nearby Dental School building – now the Staff Club – which came off worst. A one-storey addition of galvanised iron which nestled into the back corner of the building was completely washed away by the flood. Parts of the building were found in the harbour as far away as Ravensbourne. Contents of the building, which housed the mechanical room, students’ common room and dark room, were fished out of the Leith and also the harbour: somebody found a dental case with a full set of instruments on the Otago Peninsula side of the harbour. The flood also undercut some of the remaining building, leaving a recently-constructed addition at the back hanging about 2.5 metres over the Leith. The flood made it obvious that the site was not suitable for the expanding Dental School, and in 1926 it moved to its new building (now the Marples Building).

The back of the Dental School after the 1923 flood. An addition which sat immediately behind the original stone building was completely washed away. Image courtesy of Dunedin City Council archives, 334/9.

The university buildings escaped major damage from the more severe flood of 1929, but again there was a big impact on the grounds. A memorial walk, planted beside the Leith in 1927, disappeared as the river washed away its banks for a distance of about 150 metres. Nearby, in places that would later become part of the university campus, the wooden bridges at Leith and Clyde streets were washed away, and the Dundas Street bridge was also severely damaged.

The 1929 flood prompted improvements to Leith flood defences, and these have been gradually upgraded over the decades since. Floods have, of course, continued to come and go, but none have caused as much drama as in 1923. Some students, in their inimitable way, have indulged in adventure sports during floods, taking some pretty reckless kayak trips. In 2010, when the Leith ran especially high, a few dare-devils even tried surfing it.

Debris lies beside the Leith after the 1923 flood. The road at the top left of the photo is Leith Street (then a through road). The building of engineers J & AP Scott is now home to the university’s property services. Image courtesy of Dunedin City Council archives, 89/20.