The accounting night school

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1910s, 1920s, 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, accounting, economics, law, management, marketing

The Otago University Commerce Faculty Association in 1922. Image courtesy of the Hocken Collections, Paterson and Lang records, 83-070 Box 3, S16-571a.

The University of Otago has been teaching commerce subjects for over a century, but for the first 50 years it was a part-time enterprise. While lectures in economics date back to the 1870s, other commerce disciplines started in the 20^th century. In 1904, in response to advocacy from business leaders who wanted ‘keener, better educated, more live young men’ in the business world, the University of New Zealand approved a new degree, the Bachelor of Commerce. It was closely modelled on similar degrees recently introduced in England’s northern universities. The degree included a mix of subjects, some not yet taught at Otago, so it had little impact to begin with, but a few years later further advocacy from the business sector helped get commerce classes going.

The New Zealand Society of Accountants, which controlled entry to the accountancy profession, in 1911 negotiated with the University of New Zealand to have its examinations run by the university; the university amended its BCom syllabus so that its papers and topics met the qualifying requirements of the NZSA. Funding from the NZSA helped smooth the path of the new system. It offered a five-year subsidy to each of the university colleges; when supplemented with a matching subsidy from the government plus student fees this enabled the cash-strapped University of Otago to take on the new venture of teaching specialist commerce subjects in addition to its existing economics programme. In 1912 young Dunedin accountant George Reid, who had completed a BCom with honours at Victoria University College in 1910, commenced as Otago’s first part-time accounting lecturer, and economics lecturer Harry Bedford added to his schedule the business law teaching required by commerce students (mercantile law, rights and duties of trustees, law of bankruptcy and law of joint stock companies). The new classes met ‘a felt want, a fact which is amply demonstrated by the large number of students who have availed themselves of the facilities offered’, noted the university’s annual report; 46 students enrolled in commerce subjects in that first year.

For the first five decades, almost all commerce students were part-timers working towards their professional accountancy exams; they already had full-time jobs. They could have studied at the technical school or by correspondence from one of the commercial colleges, but the University of Otago courses were an attractive option for southerners, for the commerce faculty soon developed a reputation for high quality teaching, with students typically scoring very well in external exams. Though the early teachers were lauded for their professional knowledge, dedication and teaching skills, they were not, of course, without flaws. One accounting lecturer resigned suddenly in the middle of 1947 after he was accused of embezzling bank funds, hardly the desired behaviour of a man educating the next generation of accountants.

Very few students went on to complete degrees in the early decades. By 1920 just five Otago students had graduated with a BCom; the first, in 1915, was Owen Wilkinson. Before he had even received his certificate, Wilkinson had signed on with the Field Artillery and headed to Gallipoli; he later became an accountant in Christchurch and presided over the Canterbury Chamber of Commerce. It was a very masculine world. The first woman enrolled in the commerce faculty in 1914 and by 1917 the female roll had reached 13. The dean, George Reid, reported that ‘during the latter part of the war period, exceptional opportunities opened up for women in the more advanced branches of commercial work’, with a ‘large number of women seeking to qualify themselves by attendance at the classes in commerce’. But in 1920 female enrolments fell, with just 6 women studying alongside 130 men: ‘evidently the reinstatement of returned soldiers in commercial occupations has made commercial training less attractive to women’, noted Reid. The faculty wanted to attract women, stating in bold print in the 1920 calendar that classes were ‘open to persons of both sexes, without restriction as to age or occupation’. But numbers remained low, and by the time the next world war broke out there were just 9 women studying alongside 118 men.

Classes were held outside business hours to suit both students and lecturers, who were practising accountants and lawyers. Tom Cowan, a student of the 1930s and part-time lecturer from the 1940s, noted they ‘shivered through law lectures in the early mornings and … at the end of the day returned to their desks in the Lower Oliver classroom to study accounting’. An anonymous commerce student noted the advantages and disadvantages of part-time study in a 1946 Review article. ‘Because he dissipates his energy for eight hours a day in an office, [the part-time student] invariably approaches his study with a weary mind, which is not conducive to the clearest thought and greatest absorption’. Part-timers had to develop an ‘orderly and efficient’ attitude, ‘qualities to be commended in all who seek advancement and success, at least in the commercial world’. They had ‘little time for the frivolities and interests so precious to the average student’. However, commerce students did support one another through their own students’ association. This organised various social events, including an annual dinner and ball and rugby matches against the law faculty; debating flourished in the 1920s and by the 1930s there was an annual fancy dress post-exam party at the Gardens tea kiosk.

It wasn’t all grim – the 1933 commerce faculty ball, held in the Dunedin Town Hall Concert Chamber. Image courtesy of the Hocken Collections, Box 237-005, S16-548c.

The 1960s were revolutionary for commerce education at Otago. In 1960 – 48 years after teaching had begun – Tom Cowan became the first ever full-time staff member and was promoted to a new chair of accountancy the following year. He set up in an office ‘right under the clock tower, then in a shaky condition. Perhaps there was some hope that an Act of God might crush the Commerce intruder and his fledgling Department, and, with him, the threatening aspirations of his Faculty’, recalled Cowan. From 1962, controversially, Otago’s commerce lectures shifted from the evening and early mornings to daytime, with the advanced accounting courses on Saturdays as part of a compromise with local employers. It was all part of a strategy to recruit more full-time and degree students; the 1960 Parry report on New Zealand universities was highly critical of part-time study, which was associated with high attrition rates, and commerce faculties were the worst offenders. The faculty was now able to introduce tutorials in the evenings, giving students more contact time with their teachers; course standards rose. Employers became more reluctant to employ part-time students, since they needed to be released during business hours for lectures, and full-time study became more attractive. By 1970, two-thirds of commerce students were full-time, a dramatic change from the 8% of 1960, and in the same period degree completions in commerce jumped from 8 to 76. The roll also grew dramatically, like that of the university as a whole; there were 238 commerce students in 1960, but 580 in 1970 (together with an additional 92 external students, mostly in Invercargill). Some of these new students were attracted to the greater diversity of subjects on offer. From the mid-1960s BCom students could choose between three majors: accounting, economics or management. Otago’s first management course was taught in 1962 and marketing courses commenced in 1966; both proved popular immediately and acquired their own professors the following decade … but that’s another story!

Do you have any memories to share of the accounting night school days? I’m keen to track down photographs relating to the commerce faculty (right through to the 1990s) – I’ve found plenty of formal portraits, but would love to see some more interesting images!

Economics – science, art or business?

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1870s, 1880s, 1890s, 1900s, 1910s, 1920s, 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, 2010s, accounting, economics, history, mathematics, mental science, statistics

Michael Cooper, professor of economics from 1976 to 1994, gives a lecture. Cooper, whose field of expertise was health economics, also held various senior management roles and chaired the Otago Area Health Board during his time at the university. Image courtesy of the Hocken Collections, 692.00119, S13-217i.

Economics is sometimes derided as the ‘dismal science’, but where does it fit in the taxonomy of academic subjects? Is it a science, an art, or a commercial subject? At Otago the answer has varied through the years. Political economy, as economics was officially termed here until 1916, was one of the founding disciplines of the university. That is hardly surprising for an institution established in a place where new theories of colonisation had been attempted in practice and where a large gold rush had recently occurred: economic theory was a visible force.

In the early days, with few staff, subjects had to be yoked together. Political economy came under the umbrella of mental science, which also covered mental and moral philosophy (or, as we now call them, psychology and philosophy). The first mental science professor, Duncan MacGregor, initially offered a course combining ethics and economics to senior students, but by the late 1870s political economy was a stand-alone course. From 1881 political economy became the responsibility of the new professor of English, John Mainwaring Brown. The calendar for 1882 reveals a course covering six topics: the nature and history of economic science; the production of wealth; the distribution of wealth; attempts to improve the present system of distribution; the exchange of wealth; and the economic functions of governments. After Mainwaring Brown disappeared during a tramping expedition in Fiordland in 1888, the university council decided his replacement as professor should be responsible for English alone, with political economy taught by a separate lecturer. Various lecturers followed, with gaps between appointments meaning economics wasn’t taught in some years; from 1895 to 1906 Frederick Gibbons, who had been Otago’s mathematics professor since 1886, also served as economics lecturer.

The next lecturer, the popular Harry Bedford, was one of Otago’s own graduates. Though still in his twenties he had an impressive CV: he had served a term in parliament, and practised law while lecturing at Otago. Initially appointed to economics, he later added history and law to his lecturing portfolio, and when the university created a new chair in economics and history in 1915 he became professor. Bedford was an inspiring teacher who also led classes for the Workers’ Educational Association; he was much mourned when he drowned in 1918. While an acting professor – Archdeacon Woodthorpe – was appointed, the university council felt the time had now come to separate the growing disciplines of economics and history. In 1920 – almost fifty years after first offering classes in political economy – Otago for the first time appointed a professor solely responsible for the teaching of economics.

Meanwhile, the growing university in 1913 arranged itself into faculties: arts/science, dentistry, home science, law/commerce, medicine and mines. Economics was part of the arts/science faculty, and when the arts and sciences split into separate faculties in 1944 it remained with the arts. Most students in economics in the first half of the twentieth century completed a BA degree, but there was also a growing group of commerce students. The BCom degree was introduced by the University of New Zealand, which awarded all degrees in this country, in 1905 and in 1912 Otago began teaching commerce subjects. Most students – and lecturers – were part-time and many were interested only in completing a professional qualification in accountancy, but for those who wanted to complete the full commerce degree course, economics was compulsory.

There was clearly considerable cooperation between the arts and commerce faculties in arranging economics courses to suit all students. In 1920, for instance, ‘the principles of economics’ offered ‘a general introduction to the subject’, covering ‘production, exchange, distribution, and consumption of wealth; the economic functions of government; the elementary principles of taxation’. This was a course designed for the commercial accountants’ exam. The ‘pass degree’ course covered similar material but with ‘more detailed study of prices, money, and banking, and elementary trade’. Other courses available for honours and bachelors’ degrees included ‘advanced economics’, ‘currency and banking’, ‘logical and statistical methods’, ‘economic history of England’ and ‘economic geography’.

The wide range of courses offered set a challenge for the economics staff, but this didn’t prevent an enviable level of research, publication and public engagement. One of New Zealand’s earliest PhDs was earned in Otago’s economics department by Walter Boraman in 1929; he researched the history of public finance in New Zealand. In the early 1930s Professor Allan Fisher and lecturer Geoffry Billing (who became professor himself in 1947) both studied abroad thanks to Rockefeller Fellowships, with Fisher also taking a year’s leave to act as economic advisor to the Bank of New South Wales. Student numbers remained small, but started to grow rapidly, like the rest of the university, in the 1960s; the stage one class had to be split in 1970.

In 1952 Professor Billing, previously dean of the arts faculty, became dean of the commerce faculty. Economics was now part of both these faculties, though it continued to be administered through the arts faculty. Billing raised the possibility of a new combined faculty of economics and commerce, but nothing came of the suggestion at that time. Tom Cowan, the accountancy professor who succeeded Billing as commerce dean in 1960, wrote much later that ‘there was some fear of dominance by Economics, as indeed happened in some universities overseas’. Cowan, too, advocated a closer relationship: ‘With my own background in Economic studies, I am convinced that tendencies within New Zealand universities for Economics departments to distance themselves from Commerce departments have been contrary to the national interest’. There was a need, he suggested, ‘to bridge a gap that seems to disregard the common ground and interdependence of economic and business studies’.

In 1989 the University of Otago was restructured into the four academic divisions which survive to this day: health sciences, sciences, humanities and commerce (also known as the school of business). Over the preceding decade the number of commerce students had risen rapidly, from around 10% of Otago student enrolments to over 20%; by 1988 about three-quarters of economics majors were working towards commerce rather than arts degrees. Given a choice between the humanities and commerce divisions, the economics department chose to go with commerce. This was a sad loss to the humanities, but a real boon to commerce, which now gained the full commitment of one of the university’s oldest disciplines. The fine scholarly record of the economics department proved critical to the division as research funding became ever more important; some of the other commerce disciplines did not have strong research traditions and economics gave the business school more credit with other scholars and, more importantly, with funders. Economics remained a subject available for both arts and commerce degrees; from 1999 it was also available as part of the philosophy, politics and economics (PPE) major for a BA. But economics also had a wider reach, appearing on the BSc schedule from 2002 as part of a major in economics and statistics, and from 2012 as a major on its own.

The issue of where economics fits as a discipline is a subject of considerable philosophical debate. At Otago, the answer is that it is an art, a science and a business! For over a century it was under the rule of the arts, but in the 1980s commerce took over. Throughout, it has been a popular subject with a strong research record. Do you have any memories to share of the ‘dismal science’ at Otago?

Among the brightest and the best

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1900s, 1920s, 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, 2010s, anthropology, botany, economics, geology, law, medicine, physics, Rhodes, scholarships, sports, vice-chancellors, women

James Allan Thomson, New Zealand’s first Rhodes Scholar, as he appeared in the Auckland Weekly News, 7 July 1904. Image courtesy of Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, AWNS-19040707-7-2.

The Rhodes Scholarship – one of the most prestigious academic awards in the world – has shaped the lives of some of Otago’s most gifted graduates. The scholarship, which provides for study at Oxford University, has been awarded since 1902 thanks to a generous bequest from Cecil Rhodes. Rhodes, an English clergyman’s son and Oxford alumnus, made his fortune as a mining magnate in southern Africa. He was an ardent promoter of the British Empire and played a large hand in African politics as Prime Minister of Cape Colony in the 1890s. His business ethics and racial views seem highly suspect today, but the purpose of the scholarship he founded – to promote peace and civic leadership by bringing together young people from the British colonies, Germany and the USA to further their education – remains admirable. The scholarships provide tuition and living costs for two or three years of study at Oxford; they are awarded to young people who demonstrate a combination of intellect, moral character, leadership, physical vigour, and an unselfishness which will lead to a commitment to public service.

There have now been 219 Rhodes Scholars from New Zealand. This country was generally allocated one scholarship per year from 1904, with two per year from 1926 until 1993, when the allocation was increased to three. Otago has a proud record of producing 61 of New Zealand’s Rhodes Scholars, and for some years now has been neck-and-neck with the much larger University of Auckland for first place honours. Rhodes Scholars are, by definition, outstanding people. All have interesting stories and it is not possible to recount them all here. Some feature in items produced to celebrate the centenary of the scholarship, including an Otago Magazine article and an exhibition at the University of Otago Library Special Collections.

Otago’s – and New Zealand’s – first Rhodes Scholar was a geologist, Allan Thomson. He taught at Oxford and worked in Australia before returning to New Zealand, where he was a palaeontologist with the Geological Survey before becoming director of the Dominion Museum. He made major contributions to the organisation of science in this country before his life was sadly cut short by tuberculosis (his initial diagnosis prevented him from taking up a position on Robert Falcon Scott’s Terra Nova expedition to Antarctica).

A considerable number of Otago Rhodes Scholars continued their careers beyond these shores. For example, there were several from the 1930s – when there were fewer scholarly opportunities in New Zealand – who became well known: doctor and Olympic champion Jack Lovelock (1931), journalist and war correspondent Geoffrey Cox (1932), Oxford English professor Norman Davis (1934), and writer and publisher Dan Davin (1936). Quite a few, like Davis, continued their academic careers at Oxford and other overseas universities.

Arthur Porritt in 1923, the year he was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship. Image courtesy of the Alexander Turnbull Library, S P Andrew Ltd :Portrait negatives. Ref: 1/1-018584-F.

Other scholars brought their overseas experience back to New Zealand. Where leadership is concerned, the best known is Arthur Porritt (1923).  At Oxford he completed the medical studies begun at Otago and went on to a stellar surgical career in England, becoming president of the Royal College of Surgeons and British Medical Association. He was also a stellar athlete; his bronze-medal win at the 1924 Paris Olympics was represented by the fictional Tom Watson in the film Chariots of Fire. From 1967 to 1972 Porritt returned to New Zealand and served as the first locally-born Governor General.

Sir Arthur and Lady Porritt in vice-regal splendour for the opening of parliament in 1968. Image courtesy of the Alexander Turnbull Library, Further negatives of the Evening Post newspaper. Ref: EP/1968/2679/6A-F.

Some Otago Rhodes Scholars returned to their alma mater and took up significant leadership roles. Hubert Ryburn (1921) was a mathematics scholar and Presbyterian minister; he sat on the University Council from 1946 and served as Chancellor from 1955 to 1970. Otago managed to entice another former Rhodes Scholar, Robert Aitken (1924), back to New Zealand to serve as its first full-time administrative head in 1948. Aitken left his position as Regius Professor of Medicine at the University of Aberdeen to become Otago’s vice-chancellor; he left in 1953 for a position as vice-chancellor at Birmingham. A more recent vice-chancellor, David Skegg, was also a Rhodes Scholar (1972). Skegg, who graduated top of his class at the Otago Medical School, relished the opportunity to study at Oxford with distinguished medical epidemiologist Richard Doll. In 1980, at just 32 years, Skegg returned to Otago as Professor of Preventive and Social Medicine, skilfully leading that department until 2004, when he became a popular vice-chancellor. He left that role in 2011, but continues as a highly respected research professor to this day.

David Skegg outside the Bodleian Library at the time of his graduation with an Oxford D Phil. Image courtesy of David Skegg.

Others also returned to Otago, sometimes briefly, and sometimes to make a career. A couple of recent examples are Jesse Wall (2008), now on the law faculty staff, and bioethicist Tom Douglas (2003), who remains at Oxford but visited last year to foster research links with Otago staff.

Athletes Porritt and Lovelock weren’t the only famous sportsmen on Otago’s Rhodes list, which also features two All Black captains, Chris Laidlaw (1968) and David Kirk (1985). For Kirk, like some others, the scholarship provided an opportunity to branch out from his original field of study. He was a medical graduate, but studied PPE (politics, philosophy, economics) at Oxford, returning to a career in politics, then business, in New Zealand and Australia. For Kirk, Oxford also provided a welcome respite from his celebrity status in New Zealand as Rugby World Cup-winning captain.

Cecil Rhodes’s will limited the scholarship to men. By the 1960s this had become a sore point, and from 1968 to 2000 Rhodes Visiting Fellowships were awarded so women who had already embarked on academic careers could also benefit from time at Oxford. Only 32 of these fellowships were awarded, so it is remarkable that 11 went to New Zealand women, two of them from Otago: archaeologist Helen Leach (1980) and lawyer Mindy Chen-Wishart (1992). In 1977 an Act of Parliament overturned the gender restriction and made the original scholarships open to women. Otago’s first woman Rhodes Scholar was law student Christine French (1981); since then women have accounted for just over half of the Otago recipients. The Rhodes Project, established by one of the first American women Rhodes Scholars to promote public understanding of female achievement, provides information about some of the Rhodes Scholar women and their subsequent careers.

Though Otago’s first Rhodes Scholar was a scientist, the list is dominated by arts, law and medical students; the most recent Otago science student to win a Rhodes was Jane Larkindale (1996), who majored in plant biotechnology and physics and is now a research scientist in the USA. Commerce students are even rarer, though Louis Chambers (2013) was a student of economics as well as law. Talented commerce and science students of today might like to consider this a challenge!

Castle Flats and Union Court

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1930s, 1970s, 1980s, flatting, human nutrition, international students, physical education, Toroa

Union Court from Union Place, photographed by Ali Clarke, August 2014.

From refined apartments to student flats to university offices, the building now known as Union Court has seen many changes. There are few university buildings dating from the 1930s – others are the former Queen Mary Maternity Hospital in Cumberland Street (now home to the School of Surveying and Department of Marine Science) and one wing of Cumberland College (formerly the Dunedin Hospital Nurses Home) – so the art deco style of the period is rare around campus. This two-storey brick building presents a dramatic contrast to the adjacent large wooden villas and the multi-storey concrete 1970s Science I Building opposite.

The building dates from 1930 and was a project of some innovative property developers, Castle Buildings Ltd. The company included builders Frank Lawrence and George Lawrence, who carried out the construction, and various Dunedin businessmen, including a quarry owner, a tannery manager, an accountant and two butchers. They set up with a capital of £8000, apparently with the sole purpose of financing this project. The Evening Star commended the project because it had, among other things, “helped considerably to keep a large staff of men in constant work”: this was, of course, a time of economic depression. The architect, William Henry Dunning, had designed various well-regarded Dunedin buildings; the Star suggested that his involvement was “sufficient in itself to guarantee the Dunedin public something of no mean order”. (There is an interesting piece about another of his designs, Barton’s Buildings, on the Built in Dunedin blog).

The building was originally named Castle Flats and included 14 self-contained flats, mostly with 2 bedrooms, built around a courtyard. Two separate blocks were connected by “well-fitted washhouses and archways.” Purpose-built flats were rare in Dunedin at the time, but the Star believed that the “demand for residential flats planned on modern lines is increasing daily in view of the great difficulty in obtaining a dwelling at a moderate price within the city.” These were no cheap or poky apartments, being “artistically designed, and beautifully finished,” with rooms spacious and well lit and tiled fireplaces in living rooms. The target market was “Varsity graduates and professional men whose near abode to the University class rooms is so necessary.”

The front entrance of Union Court, looking through to the courtyard. Photographed by Ali Clarke, August 2014.

At least one early resident worked at the university: Dr Morris Watt, who lived in Flat 6 for a few years, lectured in bacteriology at the medical school. But most of the flats were occupied by people with no obvious link to the university: 1932 residents included a police sergeant, a warehouseman, a clerk, an insurance manager, a couple of railway employees, and various single and widowed women (street directories of the day assigned them no occupation). In 1950 Flat 6 was the home of Sister Mary Ewart, a former deaconess of Knox Church. Other residents at that time included musician Rodney Pankhurst, teacher Rae Familton, Victor Castleton, who was manager of the Octagon Theatre, civil servant Augustine McAlevey, driver Alex Borrell, and various people without occupations listed. Elizabeth Noble lived in Flat 12 for at least 20 years.

By the 1970s, the Castle Flats building was becoming rather run-down. In 1977 it was purchased by the Otago University Development Society, founded in 1948 for “the rendering of assistance and support to the University of Otago”. Until it wound up in 2002, the society raised money for various university projects. It also invested in buildings – including student accommodation – which would help the university. As an extensive renovation programme to Castle Flats began, society president Maurice Joel suggested that they would “provide pleasant and comfortable accommodation, primarily for staff, and are ideally situated at the centre of the complex.” But by 1978 the society was finding that there was great demand for all its properties from students; the 1979 report commented that Castle Flats were “particularly valuable as accommodation for married post-graduate students from overseas.”

Soon most of the flats were occupied by international students. Some lived there with their families, while others shared with fellow students. OUSA president Jon Doig noted in 1988 that this was a “supportive environment” for students from overseas, who were “often under great financial hardship” and had “trouble finding other flats of suitable standard and price.” A list of 1988 tenants is dominated by Indian, Arabic and Chinese names; most of the residents were undergrads at the university or polytech. Doig was acting as an advocate for those students, who were about to lose this accommodation option. By the late 1980s the rapidly-growing university was desperate for space. In early 1988 the university asked the development society for use of one of the flats for “a university related business venture,” but by the end of the year wanted the entire building for the mushrooming Commerce Division, whose new building was not completed until 1992.

Since the Otago University Development Society’s sole object was to assist the university, it was not about to turn down such a request. Accordingly, late in 1988 the university purchased the building for around $365,000, a price determined by an official valuation. It was converted into offices, and later the university added an extension at the back (facing the University Union), designed to blend seamlessly in style with the original building. These days the building, now known as Union Court, is occupied by the Department of Human Nutrition, the School of Physical Education, Sport and Exercise Sciences, and the administrative offices of the Division of Sciences. Meanwhile, there were plenty of international students looking for accommodation. In 1996 the university opened a new place for them in upgraded blocks of flats in Queen Street. Toroa International House, as it was known, provided self-catering flats in a supportive environment complete with communal areas and computer facilities (it is now Toroa College).

Do you have any stories to share of Castle Flats/Union Court? I’d especially love to hear from anybody who lived there when it was an international student community. I’m also on the lookout for earlier photographs of the building!

Looking from the west towards Union Court. Photographed by Ali Clarke, August 2014.

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?

 

 

A quarter-century of tourism

Tags

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?

Otago beyond Otago

Tags

1920s, 1930s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, Auckland, Christchurch, clinical education, executive programme, Invercargill, medicine, public health, radiation therapy, teacher education, university extension, Wellington

In the late twentieth century changing government education policies allowed universities to become very entrepreneurial and expand into the territories of other institutions. Massey University opened a new campus in Albany, not far from the University of Auckland, in 1993 and merged with Wellington Polytechnic, not far from Victoria University of Wellington, in 1999. Otago’s first expansion into other territories came decades earlier, when New Zealand’s universities were under much stricter central control and direct competition was discouraged. The expansion resulted from a desire to provide improved clinical education for senior medical students, at a time when Otago had New Zealand’s only medical school.

In 1923 the undergraduate medical degree was expanded from five years to six, with the last year to concentrate entirely on clinical work. Finding sufficient clinical experience in Dunedin for the lengthened course proved difficult. Dunedin was New Zealand’s largest urban centre when the medical school began teaching in 1875, but by the 1920s Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch were all home to larger populations. The medical school began sending some of its sixth-year students to hospitals in the other main centres and in 1938 these were formally established as the Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch Branch Faculties of the Otago Faculty of Medicine. The Auckland Branch closed in 1972, as the first students of the new University of Auckland Medical School reached senior level (the Auckland course began in 1968).

An aerial view of Wellington Hospital in 1971, soon before its Branch Faculty of the Otago School of Medicine became a full Clinical School. Image courtesy of the Alexander Turnbull Library, negatives of the Evening Post newspaper, reference EP/1971/0946-F.

Meanwhile, big changes were afoot in Wellington and Christchurch. A major 1968 review of the Otago Medical School, undertaken by Professor Ronald Christie (Medical Dean at McGill University, Montreal), recommended big changes to the Otago programme. Noting the inadequate experience then available in Dunedin, Christie advised that, unless the medical school was to be downsized, it needed to expand its Christchurch or Wellington facilities into full clinical schools. After considerable political negotiation (with considerable resistance from advocates for the alternative of the University of Canterbury or Victoria University of Wellington opening their own medical schools) both Christchurch and Wellington became full clinical schools of the University of Otago, in 1971 and 1973 respectively. After the first three years of education, medical classes were divided into three groups, destined to spend the final three years of their education in either Dunedin, Christchurch or Wellington.

Since the 1970s the Christchurch and Wellington campuses, originally known as the Christchurch/Wellington Clinical Schools, have had name changes which reflect their expansion beyond the teaching of undergraduate medical students into other courses, and their significant roles in research and postgraduate education. In 1984 they were renamed the Christchurch/Wellington Schools of Medicine and in 2007 the University of Otago, Christchurch/Wellington. The Wellington campus now has nine academic departments, including radiation therapy, for which it is the sole national provider of undergraduate and postgraduate education. Its Department of Public Health also provides an undergraduate Certificate in Health Promotion by distance education. Wellington researchers, especially public health professors Philippa Howden-Chapman and Michael Baker, frequently appear in the national news. The Christchurch campus today has eleven academic departments, together with a Centre for Postgraduate Nursing Studies and Maori Indigenous Health Unit. Its postgraduate students have outnumbered its undergraduate medical students since the late 1980s.

The University of Otago’s activities beyond Dunedin have not been confined to the health sciences. In the late 1990s it moved into the competitive Auckland education market, offering an executive MBA and opening its Auckland Centre. That centre evolved into an information and liaison facility for Otago in the north, but still offers some Summer School papers and postgraduate distance courses. Closer to home, the university has run numerous courses around Otago and Southland over the years as part of the former Department of University Extension. Its adult education programme was very active in Invercargill and the Faculty of Commerce, among others, also offered various distance papers there for its degrees. The university opened an administrative centre in Invercargill in the 1970s, located in the Southland Polytechnic grounds – a sign of the cooperation between the two institutions in that period. The merger with the Dunedin College of Education in 2007 brought a new relationship between the University of Otago and Invercargill, because the college also had a Southland campus. The university now offers various teacher education programmes in Invercargill, including a degree specialising in primary bilingual education.

When people think of the University of Otago they often think of its iconic Dunedin campus, but it is clearly much more than that! Do you have any stories to share of the northern, and southern, campuses?

Summer school

Tags

2000s, 2010s, summer school, university extension, Wellington

Summer school, from the cover of the 2009 prospectus.

Happy new year! The Dunedin campus came back to life last week as summer school began, so this seems a good moment to look back at the short history of the summer semester, now in its 14th year.

For many decades the University of Otago offered various special courses over the summer, but with a few exceptions these did not give credit towards university qualifications. Most were continuing education programmes, run by the Department of University Extension, which offered a wide variety of opportunities for learning over the summer. People came to Dunedin from near and far for short intensive courses on everything from creative writing to a seniors’ course on the living environment. Bridging and promotional courses were also offered over summer, as remains the case today, with JumpStart Physics and Hands-On Science bringing many people to campus. Beyond Dunedin, the University of Otago, Wellington, established a Public Health Summer School in 1997. This popular programme continues to offer short intensive continuing education courses on numerous public health topics.

This was all very commendable, but did not help students who would like to use the long summer break to complete more of their course. Perhaps they wanted to repeat a paper they had failed, or meet a prerequisite needed so they could change their major, or just to spread their workload more through the year. By 1999 the University of Otago was the only New Zealand university without a summer school offering papers for credit. This clearly put it at a disadvantage in the contest for new students; what is more, some Otago students attended summer schools at other universities to further their learning, showing a clear demand for such a service. The Vice-Chancellor set up a committee to investigate extending Otago’s teaching year. It quickly ruled out the idea of three equal teaching semesters and became the Summer School Working Party. Its final report, in February 2000, recommended that a summer school be introduced, with the first two or three years as a trial. Associate Professor Merv Smith, who had for many years chaired one of Otago’s largest departments, biochemistry, was appointed to the new key position of Director of Summer School.

In January 2001, 700 students arrived on campus to study the 23 papers on offer at Otago’s first formal summer school. This was more students than anybody had hoped for; the programme was a roaring success from the start. After a second successful year, with over 1000 enrolments, the trial was over and summer school was confirmed as a permanent fixture on the Otago calendar. By 2010 summer school enrolments had grown to 2639, but the university had to cap numbers at a lower level the following year to avoid carrying more students than it received government funding for.

Effective writing, computer programming, criminal justice, introductory economics and introductory business management featured among the most popular papers in the early years of summer school. Alongside such bread and butter offerings, some departments quickly recognised that summer school provided an opportunity to provide quirkier courses which might attract new students who would come to do a paper or two just for personal interest. Visiting lecturers – sometimes from overseas – could be appointed to teach a special paper, offering opportunities for some very creative curriculum choices. The only course which might be considered a little out of the routine in 2001 was a second year paper on wine tourism, but soon it had been joined by a wide range of other papers offered only at summer school. Some courses have related to current political issues or to popular culture: theology, money and markets; governing the global environment; the vampire on screen; and the fantasy worlds of CS Lewis, Philip Pullman and JK Rowling, to take four recent examples. Others have introduced completely new subjects into the Otago curriculum: disabilities studies; Arabic language; and, one of the most popular papers of recent summers, forensic biology.

My best wishes to everybody involved in summer school in 2014. You might appreciate some advice given by Vice-Chancellor Graeme Fogelberg in the prospectus for Otago’s first summer school: “Perhaps you will also take some time away from your desks to enjoy Dunedin and its environs at a time when the days are longer and warmer than those during our normal semester programmes.” This summer hasn’t been notable for its warm temperatures as yet, but there are still those magnificent long southern evenings to enjoy!

A tale of two departments

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1960s, 1970s, 1980s, computer science, computers, information science, mathematics, technology

Otago students wanting to specialise in computing have a choice of two departments in which to base their studies: computer science (based in the Division of Sciences) or information science (based in the Division of Commerce). Universities around the world have varied ways of dividing their computing and information technology courses and departments. Otago’s departmental division would probably have once been seen as eccentric, but it has survived intact over many years (and many reviews!). Otago computing pioneer Brian Cox comments that courses evolved in different ways at different universities depending on local needs and existing resources and interests. For instance, in universities with engineering schools, computer science found a natural home within engineering. At Otago, commerce got in on the act at an early date.

In 1966 the university established its Computing Centre and installed an IBM 360/30. The computer was available to staff and students conducting research, and for university administration. Brian Cox, an Otago graduate who had completed a PhD at Cambridge before returning to Otago as a lecturer in the Department of Mathematics, was appointed to run the centre. He had obtained experience with early computers in the UK while working on complex calculations for his thesis. The Faculty of Commerce realised early on that students aiming at careers in the business world would benefit from learning about this quickly evolving technology, and Cox helped teach some commerce courses. Then, in 1968, the first academic computing courses were offered in the Faculty of Science, as part of the advanced applied mathematics papers.

From these 1960s beginnings, Otago has experienced the parallel development of computing as an academic subject in both science and commerce. There has been considerable cooperation, with combined first year courses, but each field has developed its own specialty. Within commerce, information science focuses on the practical application of information technology in business, while in science, computer science is more centred on the technical and scientific elements of the workings of computer technology. Students can major in either subject for both BSc and BA degrees, and information science can also be a BCom major.

For many years, computer science – which became a full major in 1978 – was taught from the Computing Centre, which had a double life serving the IT needs of the university as well as teaching.  While this ensured the best use of resources at a time when computers were very large and very expensive, it also had disadvantages. Should a computer break down, completing the payroll definitely took priority over academic needs once it was back in service! In 1984 the two functions were finally separated with the establishment of the Department of Computer Science, Cox becoming the foundation professor.

Hank Wolfe with the Department of Quantitative and Computer Studies computer – a PDP 11-34 – in 1979. Image courtesy of Hank Wolfe.

Meanwhile, over in the Faculty of Commerce, business computing was taught from the 1970s department with the rather cumbersome name of Marketing, Quantitative and Computer Studies – generally known as MQCS. In 1978 it split off from Marketing to become just Quantitative and Computer Studies, and has been Information Science since 1992. Hank Wolfe left the rat race of Washington DC to become a lecturer in the department in 1979, and is still there as an associate professor. Like other members of the department at that time, he had considerable business experience as well as an academic qualification. One of his first tasks was to teach students COBOL and FORTRAN. Things have moved on considerably from his early days, when a class of 150 or so students lined up to have the one card reader process the “mark sense” cards they had filled out, hoping they would have a good run.

I’m happy to say I was able to produce this blog post without having any idea of the workings behind my computer or its network or its software – thank goodness for all those computer science and information science experts who contribute to our technological working world! Do you have any interesting memories to share of past days in Otago’s computing departments?

The big tent protest

Tags

1980s, 1990s, 2000s, protests

Photograph courtesy of Lyall McLean

Who might stage a highly visible protest on campus? The Dean and senior staff of the Faculty of Commerce don’t seem the most likely candidates, but that is just what happened in 1986. The faculty needed a large venue for course approval at the beginning of the year, but their booking for a suitable space was cancelled, bringing frustration over a lack of suitable accommodation to a head. In a highly practical protest, Michael Fay, the Dean, hired a large marquee for the lawn next to the Arts Building. Lyall McLean, Chair of the Department of Accounting and Finance, undertook the decoration, using helium balloons and a large banner labelling the tent the “new commerce building.” McLean, who succeeded Fay as Dean the following year, recalls that “it was good fun the first day but it rained the next and the lawn in front of the Arts Building became quite muddy.”

By  1986 the Commerce Faculty had been campaigning for a new building for over twenty  years. Commerce had slow beginnings at Otago. Although economics was taught  from the university’s outset, it was part of the Faculty of Arts until 1989. Teaching of other commerce subjects began in 1912 but remained for many years a part-time enterprise (for both students and staff). Full-time teaching began in the 1960s and student numbers increased rapidly over the following decades. Staff outgrew one of the old professorial houses (Black House) and moved in 1963 to the Zoology/Commerce Building (formerly the Dental School). They soon outgrew that space as well, and moved back to Black House and an additional five houses in Castle Street in 1970. Ten years later, the faculty moved into the eastern end of the library building, but soon had additional staff and facilities  spread around the campus, including parts of the Archway Building and various  buildings in Union Place, Albany Street and Castle Street. Student growth was  particularly strong in the 1980s: while just over 700 students enrolled in the  Faculty of Commerce in 1979, the number had doubled just six years later, in  1985, and almost doubled again by 1990.

Getting approval for an expensive new building was never easy, especially when decisions about capital projects were made on a national basis by the University Grants Committee. Once funding and operating costs were devolved to individual universities in 1989, the Commerce Division was finally able to convince the Otago authorities of the desperate need for a new building to house its expanding enterprise. Some, perhaps, recalled that 1986 tent. In 1989 planning for a new building began, construction commenced in 1990, some departments moved into their new premises at the end of 1991 and work was complete by the end of 1992.

Unfortunately, the choice of a tent to represent the new building proved somewhat prophetic. A major design feature of the building – a large central atrium with a partial glass cover – immediately became a major problem. Wind and rain entered the atrium through the gaps in the roof at rates far beyond the architects’ expectations. The supposedly non-slip atrium floor tiles did not meet expectations either, leading to numerous minor accidents and a more serious one in 1996 where a student broke their jaw. In 1997 the atrium’s glass cover was extended. Although this was a big improvement, the building remained somewhat vulnerable to the elements; further modifications took place in subsequent years. Not all the problems were due to design flaws: in 2004 earthquakes caused the atrium structure to move, leading to yet more repairs. Still, during a major downpour in 2005 water poured into the atrium and caused major damage to the adjacent computer room and teaching spaces.

The Commerce Building has many great features and was an enormous improvement on the facilities previously endured by commerce staff and students. I can’t help thinking, though, that the big tent was tempting fate!