The childcare revolution

Tags

1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, 2010s, childcare, women

The crèche in its original premises in the old All Saints Church Hall. The notes on the back of this photo are difficult to decipher. The voluntary helpers are identified as Vivienne Moss (although that name is crossed out) and Jenny Heath. The child facing the camera at the centre is Rebecca, with Rachael nearest the camera. Please get in touch if you can confirm any names! Photo courtesy of the Otago University Childcare Association.

There is one organisation affiliated to the university which, although unknown to some students and staff, has had a big impact on the institution since it began nearly 50 years ago: the Otago University Childcare Association (OUCA). During the university’s first century there were few women academics, even fewer married women academics and scarcely any with young children. Microbiologists Margaret and John Loutit arrived at Otago from Australia in 1956; Margaret obtained part-time work as a botany demonstrator and then microbiology lecturer while working on a PhD. As a working mother she encountered considerable criticism. Her salary was mostly absorbed in paying for private childcare, but her hard work was rewarded with the completion of her PhD in 1966; she then became a full-time academic and eventually a professor. For many others, motherhood spelled the end of any academic career, while most students abandoned degrees when they gave birth. In the 1960s and 1970s, when many New Zealanders married young and, whether married or not, also had children young, that meant a lot of ‘academic wastage’.

Improving childcare provision helped the next generation of women. Several younger staff wives instigated the university’s first crèche, designed to provide part-time childcare for students. Since the university was unwilling to provide childcare, the founders set it up as a community venture; the vicar of All Saints Anglican Church offered the use of the old church hall. They invited women students to a meeting late in 1968 and ‘it was evident from the animated discussion that a nursery would fulfil a need’. The University Nursery Association – later renamed the Childcare Association – was a parent cooperative, with Jean Dodd as first president; she was a lecturer’s wife who previously set up a playcentre in Leith Valley. The nursery/crèche (both names were used at various times) opened in 1969 with kindergarten teacher Barbara Horn and Karitane nurse Ann Leary as its first supervisors; parents provided assistance according to a roster.

Outdoor play and learning in the 1990s. Photo courtesy of the Otago University Childcare Association

The new affordable and convenient crèche, together with new access to contraception, made a big difference to women, comments one student of that era, Rosemarie Smith: ‘gaining control over fertility and creating childcare revolutionised women’s access to education – and also to employment in the university’. She ‘graduated in 1971 with a BA and a baby thanks to that crèche’, and worked on the general staff for a couple of years. There was some resistance to the crèche. Most people in positions of authority in the university – generally men – saw no need for it, but there was also resistance from women uneasy about working mothers. There was, however, a demand for childcare and the association grew quickly, from 39 paying members in 1969 to 83 in 1971. That year it moved into the Cumberland Suite (an old house) of the University Union and in 1973 into a house at 525 Great King Street. That was provided by the university as temporary accommodation, since it intended to demolish the building to make way for a carpark. Instead it became a long-term home for the association, which expanded into two adjoining houses in the 1980s.

Childcare became more respectable as increasing numbers of middle-class married women joined the workforce. OUCA helped overcome some resistance in its early years by insisting it was a part-time service, but from 1980 it offered full day care. The service was increasingly used by staff, although students retained priority. In 1994 there were 138 families using university childcare; 71 were staff and 55 were students. It remained affiliated to, rather than owned by, the university, although the university provided its buildings – including splendid new Castle Street premises in 2014 – and small grants from the university and students’ association covered a small portion of its expenses. Unsurprisingly, given its clientele, OUCA attracted highly capable people to its management committee. Among the parents who served were some who subsequently held senior posts in the university, including future vice-chancellor Harlene Hayne; she was succeeded as president by historian Barbara Brookes, who suggests it ‘was perhaps the most important committee in the university in terms of the connections we made’. Brookes, her husband (also an academic) and children all made, through childcare, ‘deep friendships that nourish us today’.

Behind the facades of several villas in Castle Street, across the road from Selwyn College, Te Pā opened in 2014 as new premises for the Otago University Childcare Association. It incorporated four childcare centres, including a new bilingual centre, Te Pārekereke o Te Kī. The association also continued to run a centre at the College of Education. Graham Warman photographs, courtesy of University of Otago Marketing and Communications.

A sporting university

Tags

1870s, 1880s, 1890s, 1900s, 1910s, 1920s, 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, 2010s, physical education, recreation, sports

The women’s A grade hockey team of 1920. Back (from left): R. Patterson, W. Elder, G. Lynn, F. Barraclough. Centre: E. Stubbs, H. Sellwood (captain), Prof George Thompson (president), V. White (deputy captain), M. Morton. Front: E. D’Auvergne, I. Preston. From Otago University Review, 1921.

With the Olympics underway, it seems a good time to think about sport! The first serious sporting fixture at the University of Otago involved rugby, though it was a very different sort of game back then. In 1871 there were just 81 students enrolled at Otago, but they managed to muster a team for a 22-a-side football game against Otago Boys High School. It extended over several hours and two Saturdays and ended in a draw. George Sale, the young classics professor and an old boy of Rugby School, played alongside the students, and in 1884 he became inaugural president of the Otago University Rugby Football Club. Cricket wasn’t far behind rugby, with its first match also in 1871, against the Citizens Cricket Club. Cricket historian George Griffiths suggested this first match was ‘archetypal’, for it ‘began disgracefully late, two selected players failed to turn up, and University were resoundingly beaten’. George Sale was again one of the team. Enthusiasts formed a University of Otago Cricket Club in 1876, but it only lasted three seasons; a second attempt survived from 1895 to 1900. The university managed to scratch together teams for one-off matches, but it was in the 1930s that it again managed to get together a club which played regularly in the local competition.

Taking a break during the home science tennis tournament of 1952. Photo courtesy of Sadie Andrews.

Tennis was one of the most popular early sports, for it required few people and could be played by men and women together. In 1884 students petitioned the university council to provide a tennis court and it duly obliged; the students formed a tennis club and within a couple of years had raised funds to lay down a second court. The tennis club, like many, had its ups and downs through the years. In 1890 one of its courts had to make way for the new School of Mines building and this was not the last time tennis courts were to provide an ideal flat site for building expansion; in the 1970s the Archway Lecture Theatres took the place of tennis courts.

The Otago University Bicycle Club, featured in an earlier post, was founded in 1896, and a year later the University Gymnastic Club began meeting weekly for ‘both exercise and amusement’. By 1901 the ‘noble art’ of boxing was an important feature of the club: ‘It is a huge treat to see a couple of junior Meds punching each other vigorously’, noted its correspondent in the Review. The gymnastic club was very short of members though, and may have evolved into the more specialist boxing club, which was up and running by 1910.

Hockey was another favourite with both men and women. ‘The hockeyites are enthusiastic and promise great things’, noted the Review in 1905, when both women’s and men’s clubs got started. Otago women students were early adopters of basketball (known as netball from 1970). This new sport, which some found preferable ‘to the more strenuous game of hockey’ was taking off in Dunedin schools and church organisations. University teams played in local matches in 1915, the year that the Otago Basket Ball Association, New Zealand’s first, was established, and by 1918 there was an established university club. The Golf Club, consisting of ‘some thirty enthusiastic players’, got started in 1920. Later to start than some other sports clubs, but destined for a flourishing future, was the rowing club, founded in 1929. It started out using the facilities of the Otago Rowing Club, but by the late 1930s had acquired its own boats and had dozens of members. In subsequent decades the growing university was able to support an ever-broadening range of sports clubs, from archery and taekwondo to diving and badminton, and of course some students also played for clubs outside the university.

Preparing to set off in the men’s harrier race, 1952. Photo courtesy of Sadie Andrews.

Students didn’t have to join a club to enjoy sports. Many a scratch team was put together for a bit of fun, such as the regular annual footy matches between dental and mining students. Residential colleges promoted sports as well, forming teams and playing against other colleges. Soon after Otago’s second college, Knox, opened in 1909, it began playing tennis, hockey and rugby games against the first college, Selwyn. In 1932 they institutionalised their sporting rivalry with the Cameron Shield, hotly contested in various codes ever since. Arthur Porritt, an early 1920s medical student and Selwyn resident, recalled that ‘statutory work accomplished, we indulged to the maximum extent possible in sport …. “Billy” Fea and Mackereth – two “All Blacks” – were our heroes – and we rejoiced in winning the Inter Varsity Tournament’. Porritt was an outstanding athlete himself, winning a bronze medal in the 100m at the 1924 Olympics in Paris (famously portrayed in the film Chariots of Fire, but with a fictional character representing Porritt). Athletics took off at Otago when the Easter Tournament between the four university colleges commenced in 1902. Soon after that first tournament – hosted and won by Canterbury – Peter Buck (Te Rangi Hiroa) presided at the founding meeting of the Otago University Amateur Athletic Club. The club ran annual ‘inter-faculty’ events, where students of Otago’s various faculties competed for athletic glory; they served as trials for the Otago tournament team. In 1923 the athletic club acquired ‘an offspring’, the University Harrier Club, which held Saturday afternoon distance runs. The harrier club reported in 1930 that its ‘finest individual performance’ came from one J. Lovelock, ‘the best distance runner whom Otago University has yet produced’. Jack Lovelock, a medical student of 1929 and 1930, headed to Oxford on a Rhodes Scholarship in 1931 and became ‘one of the most celebrated of all Olympic champions’, winning gold in the prestigious 1500m race at the 1936 Berlin Olympics.

Women harriers ready to set off, 1952. Photo courtesy of Sadie Andrews.

Otago students have become sporting stars in many codes through the years. Some came to Otago for its physical education school, which for several decades offered the country’s only sports science tertiary qualification. Many of its alumni became household names, such as netballers Adine Wilson and Anna Rowberry, rugby players Anton Oliver, Josh Kronfeld and Jamie Joseph and cyclist Greg Henderson. Farah Palmer first took rugby seriously after arriving in the south; she went on to lead the Black Ferns to three world cup wins and complete a PhD in physical education. But sports stars came from other disciplines as well. In 1998 Otago claimed a national ‘captaincy treble’: Palmer was captain of the Black Ferns; Taine Randell, a 1997 law and commerce graduate, captain of the All Blacks; and Belinda Colling, a 1998 psychology graduate, captain of the Silver Ferns. Completing a degree while representing your country or province in sport was no easy feat and some sports people dropped out or took longer than usual to finish their studies. In 1990, for instance, John Wright, captain of the New Zealand men’s cricket team, graduated with a BSc in biochemistry, completed after a 15-year break from study. In 2012 the university celebrated when two former students, Hamish Bond and Nathan Cohen, won gold for rowing at the London Olympics; both had studied commerce at Otago before sport took over and they switched to distance education via Massey University. The students’ association recognised its star sportsmen and women with ‘blues’ for outstanding achievements. It also provided financial support for various sports clubs and their facilities. One of the biggest OUSA investments was the Aquatic Centre, opened in 2002 as a new home for the rowing club, which had lost its old premises and boats in a 1999 fire. The splendid facilities presumably contributed to Otago’s long run of success in national and international rowing events in subsequent years.

University sport can be pretty casual! ‘Burgers’ playing volleyball in the spacious surroundings of Helensburgh House, a hall of residence from 1984 to 1991. I’d be delighted to hear from anybody who can identify the year this photo was taken. Photo courtesy of Glenys Roome.

Of course, most students had lesser sporting abilities, and OUSA also developed premises for those who just wanted to keep fit and have fun. Smithells Gym provided room for some indoor activities, but the needs of the physical education school took priority there. OUSA built its Clubs and Societies Building in 1980 to cater for a wide range of activities, and it was soon hosting aerobics classes and weight training. It quickly proved inadequate for the rapidly growing student roll, providing an incentive for the OUSA to take part in a new scheme proposed by the Otago Polytechnic Students Association. The two associations and the university purchased and converted a former stationery factory in Anzac Avenue into the Unipol Recreation Centre, which opened in 1990 and immediately became a hive of physical activity. The university itself developed a recreation services department in 1984, hiring out equipment and organising courses and trips. Recreation services also held the contract to run Unipol. In 2012 Unipol moved to a larger purpose-built space in the new University Plaza building, attracting a jump in student use. Soon afterwards OUSA sold its share of Unipol to the university, unwilling to commit more funds and confident that the university had student needs at heart. Student president Logan Edgar cited the famous example where Unipol had refused a gym booking to the All Blacks ‘when it would have limited the space of students attempting to work out’. OUSA put the proceeds towards a major upgrade of the Clubs and Societies Building (then known as the Recreation Centre), completed in 2014.

This shot of officials at the 1953 interfaculty sports, held at the University Oval, demonstrates the commitment of staff to university sports. From left: Michael Shackleton (medical student), Prof Philip Smithells (Physical Education), Prof Angus Ross (History), Stanley Wilson (Surgery), Prof Bill Adams (Anatomy), Dr Bruce Howie (Pathology), Prof Jack Dodds (Physics), Dr Gil Bogle (Physics). Photo courtesy of Michael Shackleton.

Throughout the university’s history, its students and staff have played an important role in local sport, some as participants and administrators and others as spectators. Indeed, cheering on the local team on the terraces of Carisbrook or, more recently, in ‘the zoo’ at Forsyth Barr Stadium, is an iconic part of ‘scarfie’ culture. This no doubt contributed to the university’s 2014 decision to sponsor the local super rugby team. That decision raised many eyebrows and attracted some opposition, notably from the Tertiary Education Union, unhappy with the extent of spending on marketing within the education sector. Fortunately, the university’s sponsorship coincided with a big improvement in the Highlanders’ results, and when they won the championship in 2015 with ‘University of Otago’ emblazoned on their shirts it was a proud moment for their sponsors. The Highlanders have had another good season, even if they didn’t retain champion status; now it’s time to cheer on our Olympic athletes!

An administrative note

Regular readers may have noticed that this blog post is later than usual. From now on I will be putting up new posts every 4 weeks, rather than every 2. That’s simply because I need to devote more time to writing the book this blog project arose from!

 

On a foreign field

Tags

1930s, Critic, history, international students, medicine, mining, war, writers

Alexander Maclure (mistakenly named here as Arnold) and other international volunteers arrested while attempting to enter Spain, at an appearance in a French court in 1937. Image from the Workers Weekly, 2 July 1937, courtesy of the Hocken Collections, S16-521d.

I’ve written previously about the university in World War I and World War II, so to mark Anzac Day this year I’m exploring the intriguing and little-known story of an Otago student killed in one of the other conflicts of the 20^th century, the Spanish Civil War. Alexander Crocker Maclure was not your average Otago student. For a start, he came from Canada, not a common origin for students at that time. Born in 1912, Alex Maclure grew up in Montreal. After leaving school, where he did well, he headed to remote northern Manitoba, working as a wireless operator at Fort Churchill. He was, it seems, a man of adventure and one keen to escape his roots in Westmount, a wealthy Anglophone enclave of Montreal. His parents loved their oldest son, but had no time for his leftist politics; indeed, his father chaired the council of the Montreal branch of the Royal Empire Society. In 1931 Alex Maclure enrolled at the Otago School of Mines. We can only speculate about why he came here when he could have attended one of Canada’s mining schools. The Otago school had a distinguished international reputation, so perhaps that was the drawcard; perhaps he wanted also to explore a new country.

There were only around 1100 students at Otago when Maclure arrived, and he quickly earned the reputation of being the most politically radical person on campus. That wasn’t an especially big challenge: a study by Sharon Dooley of Otago students in the depression concluded that most were ‘conservative members of the middle class’, preoccupied with completing their qualifications. There were a few, like future history professor Angus Ross, who were shocked by the poverty they witnessed in those difficult times and took an active interest in politics as a result, but Maclure was unusual in being a committed member of the Communist Party (it expelled him more than once for unorthodox views). Maclure was a driving force behind the formation of the first formal left-wing groups on campus. The Public Questions Union, first affiliated to OUSA in 1932, organised regular discussions and mock parliaments; it also served as a ‘front’ for the Independent Radical Club, ‘an influential cell’ of more radical students, with about 30 members by 1935.

Maclure was heavily committed to his political beliefs. He was always up for a discussion and a very good speaker, though his views shocked many. He started out living at the Dunedin YMCA and later lived in digs in Cumberland and Hyde streets. His university enrolment card for 1935 gave his address as ‘no fixed abode’; that may have been when friends recalled him living in a deserted house, unable to afford heating or food. He had little choice but to turn to his parents for financial support. Writer Dan Davin, a student contemporary, later wrote a vivid portrait of Maclure (disguised as McGregor) in his short story ‘The Hydra’, published in The Gorse Blooms Pale in 1947. It revealed the radical as an extremist, who always ‘seemed too vehement, slightly absurd’; other students threw him in the Leith when he advertised the first meeting of the Radical Club. But Davin also expressed some sympathy with Maclure’s views on food riots by the unemployed, and felt uncomfortable at his conviction and fine for scrawling political slogans on Dunedin footpaths. Maclure wrote about politics wherever he could, including in student publications Critic and the Otago University Review. Meanwhile, he slogged his way through the mining course, completing some of the practical component in the West Coast mines. He took a year off his course in 1933 and it is unclear what he did then; perhaps he simply got a job to fund his later studies. He completed his final course work at the school of mines in 1936; he didn’t receive his diploma, but that was only because he had yet to complete the required thesis about his practical work, often submitted by students a year or two after they left the mining school.

Maclure now had other priorities. Like other political junkies he developed a keen interest in events in Spain, where in 1931 a coalition left-right government took over from the previous deeply conservative dictatorship and monarch, and after the 1936 election a coalition leftist government – the Popular Front – won power. Later that year the right-wing military began an uprising, led by General Francisco Franco, and a brutal civil war broke out in earnest; the war was eventually won by Franco in 1939. The fight was confined to Spain, but it had much broader significance as a battle between the extremes of left and right in a region where fascism was on the rise. Hitler and Mussolini committed resources, including troops, to Franco’s cause and, in the absence of any effective intervention from other countries, leftists around the world recruited volunteers to support the republican government’s battle against the right. The International Brigades, as they were known, eventually included around 40,000 volunteers from 50 countries. Soon after the war broke out Alex Maclure helped set up the General Spanish Aid Committee, later absorbed into the Spanish Medical Aid Committee, which became this country’s major relief organisation for the war.

But Maclure wanted to do more than raise funds. Early in 1937 he returned briefly to Canada, where he joined a group of Canadian and American volunteers heading to Spain. He intended to get involved in the blood transfusion unit, but because of his record as a crack marksman (he won prizes for his shooting ability at school) he was posted to a fighting unit of the MacKenzie-Papineau Battalion. The first challenge was to gain entry into Spain, as France closed its border in February 1937. Maclure and some of his companions were captured by French authorities while travelling up the Mediterranean, hidden in the hold of a fishing vessel; together with several others, picked up by border patrols in the Pyrenees; they spent 20 days in a French prison for evading a non-intervention agreement, which supposedly banned all foreign powers from intervening in Spain. The Workers Weekly, the New Zealand communist paper, published a letter from Maclure in jail, as did the Grey River Argus. The prisoners were in high spirits, and received lots of support from French locals. They finally made their way into Spain some weeks later, crossing by foot in darkness over mountain trails.

Maclure’s movements in Spain remain unclear, but he became sergeant in charge of one of the American Division’s machine guns and was reported wounded and missing in August 1937; he died a couple of months later, probably in battle at Fuentes de Ebro, in the Zaragoza (Saragossa) province of northern Spain. News of Maclure’s death reached Dunedin in December 1937; the Workers Weekly proclaimed the heroism of a comrade ‘killed in action defending, with his comrades in the International Brigade, freedom and world peace against the Fascist invaders’. He ‘demonstrated that New Zealand can point to men to whom freedom means more than life itself’. An obituary in the first issue of Critic for 1938 recalled Maclure’s years as an Otago student, noting his ‘considerable’ intellect and his whole-hearted promotion of his Communist beliefs. ‘His enthusiasm, his sincerity, his moral fearlessness earned him the regard of all who respect such qualities’. Critic did not, naturally enough, demonstrate such approval of Maclure’s politics as the Workers Weekly, commenting that ‘there are many who heartily deplore the theories for which Maclure fought’. It did, however, acclaim his sincerity: ‘to whatever creed we cling we can not but feel admiration for the rare and fine qualities in Maclure’s character, qualities that are revealed by his giving up his life for his ideals’.

Maclure was, to the best of my knowledge, the only Otago student or graduate to serve as a frontline soldier in the Spanish Civil War, but a couple of others did play significant roles in journalism and medicine. Geoffrey Cox completed an MA in history at Otago before heading to Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar in 1932. He stayed on in England, beginning an acclaimed career in journalism as a junior reporter for the News Chronicle. In the early months of the Spanish Civil War, Cox became the paper’s correspondent in Madrid. The original correspondent had been captured, and Cox suggested he was sent because the paper saw him as junior enough to be expendable. His reports from the Spanish capital, then heavily besieged by Franco’s forces, became one of the few sources of information to the outside world. His vividly written eye-witness account of five weeks in Madrid was published in the book Defence of Madrid the following year. His reputation as a correspondent grew as he reported for the Daily Express from Vienna and Paris in the years leading up to World War II, covering the Anschluss and Munich crisis and the invasion of Poland, then the war in Finland and German invasion of the low countries. After the fall of France he signed on with the New Zealand Division and served with distinction. When the war ended he returned to his career as an English newspaper journalist, later becoming a pioneer of television journalism.

Geoffrey Cox, photographed by S.P. Andrew in 1932. Image courtesy of the Alexander Turnbull Library, reference 1/2-C-22830. Alexander Turnbull Library

Douglas Jolly was another Otago graduate who published a book based on his experiences in the Spanish Civil War, but it had a very different purpose: to equip surgeons for battle. Jolly graduated in medicine in 1930. During his university years, and later, he was heavily involved in the Student Christian Movement, becoming a convinced Christian socialist. When the war broke out in Spain he was in England, close to completing his specialist qualifications as a surgeon. As the republicans lost most of their military medical services with the army rebellion and the Red Cross refused to intervene in an internal conflict, there was a call for international volunteers to support the leftist cause. Jolly immediately abandoned his studies, arriving in Spain in November 1936 with the first contingent of British medics. He was assigned to the XI International Brigade, for whom he formed a 50-bed mobile surgical unit. He gave two years of almost continuous service as a frontline surgeon, only departing when all international volunteers were withdrawn from Spain. He proved an excellent surgeon, ‘courageous and totally reliable’, much respected by all with whom he served. His patients included civilians injured in air raids alongside frontline soldiers, and the settings for the ever-mobile field unit ranged from the basement of a shell-ruined flour mill to railway tunnels and a cave. After the war he campaigned on behalf of post-war refugees, including during a return visit to New Zealand in 1939. When World War II broke out he returned to England and wrote the medical manual Field Surgery in Total War, published in October 1940 to glowing reviews. His advice on abdominal surgery saved many lives, and his systems for dealing with multiple injured patients became the basis for surgical units in World War II, Korea and Vietnam. Doug Jolly also signed on with the Royal Army Medical Corps, serving as a surgeon in North Africa and Italy. His long service on the battlefields of two wars eventually caught up with Jolly; after World War II he lost his enthusiasm and confidence for surgery, spending the rest of his career as medical officer at Queen Mary’s Hospital for amputees in London.

Marianne Bielschowsky in April 1939. Image courtesy of the Hocken Collections, Bielschowsky papers, MS-1493/036, S16-521d.

The involvement of two later Otago staff members, Franz and Marianne Bielschowsky, in the Spanish Civil War was less intentional than that of the three Otago-educated people already mentioned. They were already living in Spain when war broke out. Franz Bielschowsky, son of distinguished German neurologist Max Bielschowsky, undertook his medical training in a succession of German universities before completing an MD at Berlin and embarking on a career in medical research in Dusseldorf. Early in 1933 he was dismissed from his job because of his Jewish parentage and fled to Amsterdam. In 1934 he relocated to Madrid, where he became a lecturer in the medical faculty; in the following year he was appointed director of the biochemistry department of the new Institute for Experimental Medicine at the Central University of Madrid. Marianne Angermann, a German biochemist who had worked with Franz Bielschowsky in Dusseldorf, joined him at the Institute in Madrid late in 1935; they were to marry in 1937. Angermann and Bielschowsky refused offers to leave Spain when the civil war began; they did not feel vulnerable and respected the support they saw for the republican government. But as the siege of Madrid lengthened, their research work became impossible. Franz joined the republican medical service and worked at a military hospital in Madrid. The Bielschowskys remained in Madrid after the withdrawal of international medical staff in 1938, but fled Spain early in 1939, as Franco’s forces prepared to enter the capital. They were now refugees for a second time, and as war took over Europe they ended up in England. They both obtained work at the University of Sheffield, where Franz’s research took a new direction, investigating the role of hormones in the development of cancers. In 1948 the Bielschowskys arrived in Otago, where Franz had been appointed director of the cancer research laboratory. Like his work in Sheffield it was sponsored by the British Empire Cancer Campaign Society. Franz continued a productive research career at Otago for 17 years, until his sudden death in 1965. Marianne, who worked alongside him, continued her work until her own death in 1977. She was especially known for her development of various special strains of mice, used worldwide for medical research.

Franz Bielschowsky in 1949, when he was Director of Cancer Research at the University of Otago. Image courtesy of the Hocken Collections, Physiology Department records, r.6681, S16-521c. (I would be delighted to hear from anybody who can identify the woman in this photo).

The Spanish Civil War of the 1930s might be dismissed as foreign by many New Zealanders, but its dramatic progress caught up several people from these distant shores. The involvement of people connected with Otago reflected the international influences – and standing – of this university. There were an international student from Canada whose politics drove him to his death in a fight against fascism, and two New Zealanders – a Cromwell-born doctor and a Palmerston North-born journalist – who took the skills developed at Otago and further honed in England to make their own contributions during that brutal war. Last, but by no means least, came the cultured German scientists whose fortunes became caught up in that war; it was one of the events which led them to eventually settle and make an important contribution in this more peaceful corner of the world.

I am grateful to Wellington historians Simon Nathan and Mark Derby for sharing information about Alexander Maclure. I highly recommend to anybody interested in learning more the book edited by Mark Derby, Kiwi Compañeros: New Zealand and the Spanish Civil War. Mark tells me discussions are underway about a possible memorial to Doug Jolly in his home town, Cromwell.

An update (18 July 2016) – somebody who knew the Bielschowskys has kindly been in touch to alert me that the photo labelled as being of Franz is not actually him! She suggests it may be of Leopold Kirschner. If you recognise this gentleman, I’d love to hear from you.

A further update (20 July 2016) – a couple more people have confirmed that the man in the laboratory photograph is not Franz Bielschowsky, but Leopold (‘Poldi’) Kirschner. Kirschner was a microbiologist and worked in the Medical Research Council’s Microbiology Research Unit. He was another of Europe’s Jewish diaspora.Originally from Austria, he did important work on leptospirosis in Indonesia, but was interned there during the war. He continued the work on leptospirosis at Otago. My sincere thanks to those who helped correct the photo identification. The identity of the woman in the photo remains a mystery – suggestions are welcome!

The cost of an education

Tags

1880s, 1890s, 1900s, 1910s, 1920s, 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, 2010s, allowances, bursaries, fees, loans, scholarships

Students protest about the rising costs of education, 28 September 1993. Image courtesy of the Hocken Collections, OUSA archives, AG-540/011, S15-500b.

How much did you pay for your degree? This year marks the 25^th anniversary of the introduction of the ‘user pays’ philosophy into New Zealand tertiary education, so I thought it would be interesting to look back over university fees through Otago’s history. Comparing costs over a long period is not straightforward, but fortunately the Reserve Bank’s inflation calculator at least allows us to take inflation into account. In the graph below, I have calculated the total compulsory annual fees for the cheapest degree, a Bachelor of Arts, at every tenth year – these include tuition fees, exam fees (a substantial additional cost until the 1960s), various administration fees and students’ association fees. I adjusted these totals according to the Consumer Price Index to 2015 equivalent values, giving a rough idea of the changing ‘real’ costs over the years.

Otago students made a substantial financial contribution towards the cost of their education in early years, but fees remained unchanged for long periods and with inflation their real costs declined. In 1920 tuition fees were much the same as they had been in 1880, at three guineas (£3 3s) for each ‘standard’ course (an arts subject, for instance) plus an administration fee of one guinea (£1 1s). Examination fees – payable to the University of New Zealand – added costs of a guinea per subject (and there were also additional one-off charges for the award of a degree, not included here). From 1890 there were also students’ association fees to take into account: in 1920 these amounted to 10s 6d for men and 7s 6d for women (the gender differential disappeared soon afterwards).

Specialist degrees cost more. The 1920 calendar advised that the total tuition, administration, OUSA and University of New Zealand fees for a five-year medical degree came to £177 9s ($15,728 in 2015 values), provided it was completed in the minimum time; for the many who repeated years it would cost more. At the same time a four-year dentistry degree would set a student back £120 15s ($10,702 in 2015 values) and a four-year home science degree cost around 55 guineas ($5119 in 2015 values).

Fees were relatively high again in 1930 and 1940, but declined steadily in real terms through the 1950s before jumping significantly in the mid-1960s; by 1968 they had reached their highest level to date. The 1970s and 1980s were decades of high inflation. While OUSA fees crept up as a consequence, tuition fees remained unchanged from 1968 to 1981, meaning a very significant decline in real costs; small rises through the 1980s were well below the rate of inflation and by 1989 compulsory annual fees were at their lowest ever level: tuition fees cost $288, OUSA fees were $101.20 and the welfare service fee $26.40, making a total of $415.60, equivalent to $754 in 2015 values.

In 1990 tuition fees jumped due to major government reforms, part of the neoliberal revolution of that era. Tertiary education, once seen as a public good, was redefined as a private benefit to which students should make a more significant financial contribution: ‘user pays’ was the mantra of the age. OUSA campaigned vigorously against the change. In 1989 over 5000 members joined a protest march, over 4000 signed a petition and over 3000 wrote to banks opposing a proposed loans scheme. Other than a delay to the loans scheme, such protests (which took place all over the country) were to no avail and Otago’s tuition fees quadrupled overnight, from $288 in 1989 to $1250 in 1990. Worse was to come as the new National government came to power in 1990 and continued the reforms commenced by the Fourth Labour Government. The government steadily reduced the level of funding per student, leaving universities no choice but to increase their fees; by 2000 tuition costs to students had doubled again and they continued to rise steadily through the twenty-first century. One rationale behind the reduction in government funding per student was to offer more places and make tertiary education more widely available; that was achieved, as student numbers grew, but it came at a heavy cost to students.

Of course, fees do not tell the whole story; they don’t even account for the entire cost of study. All students had to purchase text books and many had extra expenses for field trips, equipment and so on. These could be considerable. To take just one example, 1920 dental students (mentioned above) could expect to pay about £8 for books and £36 for instruments (a total of $3900 in 2015 values), increasing their course costs by more than a third. Though they could use these items once they had graduated, or sell them on, they still had to come up with the funds to begin with. Accommodation and living costs were another considerable financial burden for students. Unlike fees, these tended to keep pace with inflation, meaning their real costs did not fluctuate so dramatically through the years.

On the other side of the ledger was student income. There were always scholarships – funded by the government, the university or benefactors – for the most gifted students, but what of the average student? In Otago’s early decades few people from working class backgrounds made it to university; it was simply beyond their financial means and many did not even attend secondary school. Some wealthy university students were supported by their parents, but others generally had to work while studying part-time. Many classes were held in the evenings to cater for the large number of students who worked full-time, frequently as teachers, and Otago was sometimes known as ‘the night school on the Leith’.

In 1907 the government introduced bursaries which covered tuition fees for those who obtained credit in the scholarship exam, but were not among the handful eligible for a scholarship. This still provided for only the top echelon of students. Over the next fifty years new provisions evolved and by 1959 – the year of the Parry Report on New Zealand universities – there was an array of schemes offering assistance to about 60% of New Zealand students. The level of support, however, was low – many received only the cost of all or part of tuition fees, with no living allowance. Meanwhile, generous grants, covering both tuition and living costs, were paid to those on teacher studentships, though this bonded recipients to government service after graduation. The report suggested ‘more generous general bursaries are required in order to induce more young people to forgo immediate earning power and undertake full-time university study.’

From 1962 a more generous scheme essentially paid the tuition fees of all students eligible for entrance to university. In addition, full-time students with Higher School Certificate, plus those without HSC who had passed a first-year course, received a bursary. With the addition of vacation earnings, most students could survive on this bursary and full-time study became more accessible (particularly to men, who could earn more in holiday work than women). With various modifications this bursary scheme remained in place until 1989, although payments did not always keep pace with inflation and holiday work was not always readily available. The economic reforms of the late 20^th century spelled the end of this bursary scheme, and from 1989 students received a less generous student allowance, means-tested according to parental income (or their own income if 25 years or older). In 1992 the student loan scheme began and students, who now had to pay for rapidly increasing tuition fees, could borrow from the government to fund their study. Student loans initially charged interest from the time they were drawn down. From 2001 interest was not charged until a student had left education, and interest was abolished in 2006 for those who remained living in New Zealand. Over time, access to allowances tightened up and more and more students needed to borrow to cover living costs as well as fees, with increasing complaints of the inadequacy of student allowances; many students accumulated large debts.

Ready access to a full-time Otago education is no longer limited to the well-off or the very clever, as it was in the university’s early decades. But the broadening of participation has been accompanied by higher fees and lower allowances, with government loans becoming the means to tertiary education for those without privileged backgrounds. Scholarships are now more important than ever for those who want to graduate without a large burden of debt, and the University of Otago recognises this: a recent announcement of new and improved entrance scholarships will be welcome news for some.

Another photograph of the Otago student protest against rising fees, 28 September 1993. Image courtesy of the Hocken Collections, OUSA archives, AG-540/011, S15-500a.

The lives of presidents

Tags

1890s, 1900s, 1910s, 1920s, 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, 2010s, international students, Maori, sports, women

A gathering of former OUSA presidents at the association’s centenary in 1990. Image courtesy of Hocken Collections, OUSA archives, MS-4225/306, S15-500e.

This year the Otago University Students’ Association celebrates 125 years of existence. To mark the occasion, I thought it would be interesting to look back at 125 years of student presidents. On 20 May 1890 a general meeting of Otago students decided to form an association and at a second meeting on 30 May it was formally established, with William Edward Spencer as the first president. Spencer, a 26-year-old postgraduate science student, was an “able and energetic” president. There was “no man who was more enthusiastic at [the association’s] inception than Mr Spencer,” commented his successor, Alexander Hendry. Like many students of his era, Spencer had a career in teaching. He had already worked as a pupil teacher for some years before starting university study in the mid-1880s and may well have continued to teach while completing his degrees in arts and science. After completing a year as OUSA president he became a school inspector. He later worked in senior positions for the Department of Education in Wellington, including 11 years as editor of the School Journal.

Many “able and energetic” young men and women have followed in Spencer’s footsteps as president, though of course there has been the occasional rogue among them. I’ve heard stories that one 1990s president, who shall remain nameless, could always be detected approaching by the perfume of marijuana. Others have made dubious financial decisions. Most, though, have been upstanding characters in a very demanding role as chair of the association and public spokesperson for Otago students. In some years there was stiff competition for the role, and winning the election required considerable charm, ambition and political nous.

As the photo of presidents gathered for the 1990 centenary suggests, the presidency was pretty much a male Pakeha preserve until the 1980s. There were some notable exceptions, one being the most famous former president, Peter Buck, also known as Te Rangi Hiroa, after whom an Otago residential college is now named. He was OUSA president in 1903 while completing his medical studies. He became a key figure in the Maori renaissance of the early twentieth century, represented Northern Maori in parliament, and was later a distinguished anthropologist. Another trailblazer was 1971 president Ebraima Manneh, the first international student in the role. He led OUSA during a turbulent year of student protest over the university’s discipline regulations. He later became a senior public servant in the Gambia, his home country.

For many years women served on the OUSA as “lady vice-president” – a role popularly abbreviated to “lady vice”. In 2006 the OUSA, which bestowed life membership on its former presidents, extended the privilege to Nola Holmes (nee Ross) as a representative of “all of the women who served OUSA on the executive and in assisting roles since our beginnings whose contributions, before the 1980s, were largely unacknowledged.” Ross, the lady vice-president in 1947, was remembered for holding the association together when the University Council forced president John Child to resign after he made controversial speeches about sexual and religious freedom. Finally, in 1983, Phyllis Comerford served as OUSA’s first female president and she was succeeded by another woman, Robyn Gray. Since they broke the barrier, a third of the presidents have been female. They include the only person to serve two terms in recent times, Harriet Geoghegan, who was president in 2010 and 2011.

Quite a few people served two terms as president in the association’s earlier decades, but only one has served for three years – the gloriously named Philippe Sidney de Quetteville Cabot (best known as Sid). Cabot was president in the mid-1920s; he had previously been president of the Teachers’ College Students’ Association. He was also one of the instigators of the national organisation, the National Union of Students, serving as its founding president. Cabot completed several degrees at Otago and overseas, eventually becoming a clinical psychologist. He was very good at sport, playing a game for the All Blacks in 1921. Other presidents known for their sporting prowess include Colin Gilray (1907 president) and Frank Green (1936) in rugby and Bill Hawksworth (1934) in cricket. 1988 president Jon Doig, the first from the School of Physical Education, became Chief Executive of the Commonwealth Games Council for Scotland.

Unsurprisingly, several presidents continued in politics beyond their student days. Besides Te Rangi Hiroa, the best known is Grant Robertson, OUSA president in 1993, who is now member of parliament for Wellington Central and a highly-ranked member of the Labour caucus. Those who have worked long-term for the association remember him as one of the most capable presidents. A few others from recent decades have directed their political skills towards the public service, with several working for Foreign Affairs and Trade: David Payton (1974 president), Kirsty Graham (1992), Chris Tozer (1996) and Renee Heal (2007). From an earlier generation, Doug Kennedy, 1937 president, renowned for his pranks and radical politics, became Director General of Health for New Zealand. Until the 1960s many presidents were, like Kennedy, medical students (though few of them shared his radical politics). After that medical presidents became rare, and in recent decades law and/or politics students have been prevalent among presidents.

Some presidents went on to mark their mark in the academic world. Alexander “Swotty” Aitken, the 1919 and 1920 president, was a famous mathematician. Others had distinguished academic careers in demography (Mick Borrie, 1938), physics (Jack Dodd, 1946), economics (Frank Holmes, 1947) and medicine (Jack Stallworthy, 1930-1931; Ken North, 1953; Murray Brennan, 1964). Many became well-known doctors or lawyers, and 1968 president Bruce Robertson was a Court of Appeal judge. Some, like 2001 president Ayesha Verrall, are at earlier stages of careers which hold much promise.

Congratulations to OUSA on reaching its 125th anniversary! Do you have any stories to share of former presidents? And I’d love to get in touch with Phyllis Comerford or Ebraima Manneh if you’re out there! (my email is ali.clarke at the university).

2014 OUSA president Ruby Sycamore-Smith was the 12th woman to take on the role. She is pictured during art week. Image courtesy of OUSA.

Castle Flats and Union Court

Tags

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.

Eating at the union

Tags

1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, food, University Union

The current Student Union building in the 1960s, before another storey was added. Photograph courtesy of Arthur Campbell.

Anyone for curried lamb (80c) or sausages and chips (55c)? Or perhaps you’d prefer to splash out and spend $1.50 on a steak? If money is short this week you could go for a filled roll at 18c, or a pie in a bag at 22c. If your tastes are a little more exotic you might prefer chicken chow mein at 80c or Hungarian goulash at 90c. Those were the most adventurous options on a fascinating document I discovered recently – the University Union price list for 1976.

The Union, jointly managed by the university and the students’ association, prides itself on supplying a range of cheap food options for students. When the current Union Building first opened in 1960 it had just one food supply, the cafeteria, offering “an attractive, reasonably-priced three-course lunch” and also morning and afternoon tea. As the student roll and the building expanded new options were added, including three meals a day in the main cafeteria, a coffee bar in the basement and the Terrace Dining Room, located on the top floor. The latter was promoted by the 1975 student handbook as “one (or several) grade(s) above the Cafeteria in the quality of meals provided at lunchtime. Prices are correspondingly higher.” The 1987 handbook noted the popularity of carvery lunches at the Terrace Dining Room (“a different ‘joint’ carved daily”) and also the “omelettes made to order.”

Looking down on the Union Building around 1973. The top floor, added in 1969, allowed the addition of the ‘superior’ Terrace Dining Room. Image courtesy of Arthur Campbell.

The Union food was always cheap and readily available; quality was another matter. The 1980 student handbook commented grumpily that “meals in the cafeteria have come in for a lot of criticism in the past, but the food could be a lot worse, as many hostel students will testify, and for $1.40, what sort of banquet do you expect?” The 1987 handbook made a better effort at putting a positive spin on the food: “Nourishing, hot and heaps!!!! The only way to describe the very reasonably priced ‘Meal of the Day’ available from the Cafe at lunchtime and during the ‘Tea Hour’. You just haven’t lived until you’ve tasted Union bangers with chips and lashings of GRAVY!!! Wizard!”

The cover of a 1988 brochure advertising the Union’s function services. The image of sophisticated eating is somewhat ruined by the presence of the cheap bubbly Chardon! Image courtesy of the Hocken Collections, OUSA archives, MS-4240/294.

As well as its everyday food service, the Union provided catering for functions. With various rooms and a commercial kitchen on hand, it could offer a range of services, seating 600 people in the Union Hall for a formal dinner, and serving over 1000 at one dinner function. Outside catering was an important source of revenue which helped subsidise student services. In 1978, for example, the turnover from regular student meals was $177,000, but an additional $191,000 came in from special catering.

A 1988 brochure promoted the University Union as a function centre, especially for weddings, Christmas functions and 21st birthdays. Food suggestions reflected New Zealand culinary tastes in the late 1980s: “How about Veal Suecloise as a main – that’s escalopes of veal served with a capsicum, mushroom and brandy cream sauce? Or perhaps you’d prefer Scotch Fillet Cordon Bleu with Chicken Liver Mousse? Or then again, perhaps something simpler, like Roast Leg of Beef with Yorkshire Pudding, garden fresh vegetables and potatoes? Or for something a little less formal, how about Sliced Ham, tossed salad, French Dressing and Hot Garlic Bread?”

The Union cafeteria and its menu have been renovated many times in the decades since. A major facelift in 1995 turned the old cafeteria into a “food court”, featuring the Wok Factory, Lunch Pail, Burger Inc. and the Coffee Mill. I recall in 1999 and 2000 part was branded “Y2K” (“so last year,” quipped Critic in 2001). Other options for eating have also emerged on the central Dunedin campus: there are now various food suppliers in the Link (between the Union and the Library) and a cafe in the St David building. And just down the road, in the University Plaza Building (next to the stadium), is the attractive Plaza Cafe, while health science students can enjoy the cafe at the Hunter Centre.

Do you have any memories (good or bad!) to share of Union food?

The Link, located between the Union Building (left) and Library (right), photographed in 2007. It hosts various food suppliers. Image courtesy of University of Otago Marketing and Communications.

 

 

 

Exam time

Tags

1870s, 1890s, 1920s, 1940s, 1950s, 1970s, 1990s, 2000s, examinations

Home science students Nona Collis and Sadie Robinson swotting in the Studholme gardens, 1950. Image courtesy of Sadie Andrews (nee Robinson).

It’s that time of year when a sunny day brings students outdoors with their books (or perhaps their laptops). Many a pleasant spot around the north end of town will feature somebody relaxing in the sun while supposedly studying for exams. End of year exams are a big feature of university life to this day, but they are not the be all and end all that they once were. Students’ grades no longer completely depend on that one test at the end of the year, and they no longer have to worry about their exam scripts being lost en route to Britain for marking!

From 1874 to 1961 Otago was one of the constituent colleges of the University of New Zealand, which was this country’s sole degree-awarding institution. It set all the regulations for degrees, including those around exams. The issue of how students were examined was controversial from the very beginning. Should university professors grade the exams of their own students? Should they set the exams themselves? Theoretically, as the curriculum was set at a national level, students throughout the country should be studying the same material and could sit the same exam.

To ensure its degrees had high academic creditibility, the University of New Zealand decided to appoint examiners in Britain. For several decades, New Zealand university exam scripts in the arts and sciences travelled by ship to England, to be graded by examiners who knew nothing of the students’ circumstances. One disadvantage of this system was the inevitable delay. 1870s students did not learn their exam results until the middle of the year; later on results were sent by cable, meaning they might find out how they had done by the end of February. The hard work of students sitting exams in 1897 went to waste when their scripts were all lost in the wreck of the cargo steamship Mataura on its way to England. The external system retained many supporters despite this disaster. The Otago Daily Times commented in the aftermath that the system of marking by eminent British scholars “gives the New Zealand degree distinct and special value, and the New Zealand University is the only one outside Britain that subjects its students to this severe test.”

As time went on, more and more people felt the external exam system was unnecessary, but agreeing on any change proved very difficult for the University of New Zealand Senate. From the mid-1920s Stage I and II BA and BSc exams were set and marked in New Zealand, with professors taking turns in acting as examiners for the whole country (they did this in pairs rather than individually). But only World War II, with its high risk to shipping, finally ended the University of New Zealand practice of sending advanced exam scripts to Britain.

The next step for reformers was to get exams localised to each institution. From as early as the 1890s, medical school professors had examined their own students, with an external examiner acting as quality controller – this was known as the “external-internal” system. Arts and science professors wanted this privilege as well, so they could fit exams better to local adaptations of the national curriculum. The change happened in gradual steps, but by 1949 all arts and science exams were “external-internal”. This was part of a bigger devolution of powers to each institution, and in the 1950s the university colleges earned the right to set their own courses as well as their own exams (though these still had to be approved by the University of New Zealand’s curriculum committee).

The next big change to exams came after pressure from students, who were concerned about the enormous burden of the final exam, which accounted for 100% of their course grade. Students had to complete “terms” in order to sit exams, meaning they had to reach a minimum standard in their course work, but other than that their year’s work counted for nothing. After a campaign for change from OUSA, in 1973 the arts faculty introduced internal assessment – at least 15% of students’ final grades now came from their work through the year. Internal assessment quickly became general, and the coursework component of final marks gradually increased.

OUSA soon regretted the introduction of internal assessment. While it helped people who were bright and worked hard but didn’t cope well with exams, everybody else now had added pressure. No longer could anybody “slack off” during the year, but still pass their course with some last minute cramming before final exams. Students now had to work hard on assignments and tests throughout the year, and final exams still mattered enough to be stressful. There was less freedom to indulge in all the other activities of student life.

The other big change to exam practice came with the reorganisation of the academic year into semesters in 1994. “Final” exams now took place twice a year, which was another blow to the time available for non-academic pursuits. From 2001, the arrival of summer school meant some students faced three sets of exams. We should spare a thought for the academics, too, for they now have two or three spells a year of setting and marking exams.

Exams have come a long way since the 1870s. For Otago’s first century, they counted for everything. For better or worse, internal assessment came to stay in the 1970s, but exams remain an important feature of student life. They may be stressful, but they also provide a chance to shine – my best wishes to all of you who are sitting exams this month!

Sadie Robinson hits the books on the verandah of St Helens Hostel in Regent Road, 1951. Image courtesy of Sadie Andrews (nee Robinson).

 

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?

 

 

The venerable Critic

Tags

1920s, 1950s, 2000s, 2010s, Critic, design, publications

The first issue of Critic, 2 April 1925. Reproduced with the kind permission of Critic.

Perhaps venerable isn’t quite the right description, but the Otago student newspaper/magazine Critic Te Arohi has been around for a long time now – 89 years, to be exact. In 1925 medical student Francis Bennett, who edited the annual student publication The Review, suggested a new student newspaper and the OUSA approved. This would replace the 4-page newsletter Te Korero, which Bennett later described as “a dismal rag which [Dan Aitken] and I usually filled up with imaginative froth a few hours before it went to press.” As editor Archibald Campbell explained in the first issue, Critic would include plenty of news, but it would also be a place where “criticism may be brought into the open.” If it lived up to its name, the new arrival would “suffer no word or deed to go unquestioned within the four walls of Otago University.”

In the succeeding nine decades, Critic has lived up those initial hopes. While its quality and style has varied through the years, it has always included a lively mixture of campus news, humour and commentary on the issues of the day. It has frequently, though not always, been radical, and sometimes it pushes the boundaries. In 2013 the New Zealand Press Council noted that student magazines “are a particular genre, with a long history of provocation and even offensiveness. They are also usually noted for their edgy and ironic tone.” On that occasion the Press Council was dismissing a complaint against Critic, but the publication has not always got off so lightly. In 2010 the council upheld a complaint about a Critic article on some well-known Dunedin “vagrants” with mental health problems. Getting the tone of an article wrong also led Critic into trouble in 2005, when a piece designed to highlight the problem of date rape worried numerous people. It was referred by police to the censor and the issue was eventually banned, though by then several months had passed and it had been widely distributed. It was politics which caused the trouble on a much earlier occasion. In 1952 the Otago Daily Times, which printed Critic under contract to the OUSA, refused to print a front page article “U.S. Germ Warfare in Korea?” The article had already appeared in the Canterbury student newspaper, Canta, but the ODT took objection to its “Communist point of view” (it was a condensed version of a People’s China piece). After taking legal advice, Critic agreed to publish it in the next edition, but accompanied with an article “giving the opposing point of view.” The relationship with the ODT has been an interesting one, as editor Holly Walker noted in a 2005 article celebrating Critic‘s 80th anniversary: “As far as I can tell, Critic has always been, and will always be, dominated by sex, funny stories about freshers, stupid letters to the editor, apathy about student elections, and antagonism for the ODT. Long may it continue.”

Holly Walker, now a Green MP, is one of various Critic editors and staff who have gone on to prominent careers in New Zealand public life. For some, such as radio and TV broadcaster Jim Mora and political commentator Chris Trotter, Critic has been the start of a life in media. Geoffrey Cox, joint-editor in 1930, went on to a significant career in journalism in the UK. Others have made their mark in other fields, like 1952 editor Paul Oestreicher, an Anglican priest known for his work for peace.

Critic covers have come a long way. The 10 March 2014 issue. Reproduced with the kind permission of Critic.

It isn’t only writing and editing skills that have been developed at Critic; designers have also earned their stripes on the student publication. What was once a rather plain magazine, and later a broadsheet newspaper, has now become a skillfully-designed full colour production, available both in hard copy and online. The covers created by design studies major Andrew Jacombs for Critic in 2011 won him plaudits from international design industry blog Coverjunkie. When a June 2012 cover also featured on Coverjunkie, it caught the eye of the staff of US magazine Newsweek. Critic team members Joe Stockman, Sam Stuchbury and Sam Clark adapted their design for the cover of the US giant, which boasts a readership of 14 million.

The design of Critic is clearly much more sophisticated in the twenty-first century than it was in the twentieth, but not everything is more “advanced”: the letters to the editor are as infantile as ever! Do you have any memories to share of this longstanding feature of student life?

 

Another recent issue, from 17 March 2014. Reproduced with the kind permission of Critic.