Preparing for the health professions

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1870s, 1880s, 1900s, 1940s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, anthropology, biochemistry, biology, chemistry, dentistry, English, mathematics, medical laboratory science, medicine, pharmacy, physics, physiotherapy

A familiar sight to HSFY students of recent years – popular teacher Tony Zaharic of the biochemistry department. Image courtesy of University of Otago Marketing and Communications.

Health Sciences First Year (HSFY) is a term very familiar to anybody who has been around the university over the past couple of decades. Students aiming to enter one of Otago’s undergraduate health science degrees – dentistry, medical laboratory science, medicine, pharmacy and physiotherapy – complete this shared course in their first year of university study. Entry to the professional degrees is also available to some graduates, but most come via the HSFY course, which brings a large number of students to Otago. The course has undergone a few changes since it first appeared under this guise in 1998 and it was built on a much older tradition of the ‘intermediate’ year; I thought it would be interesting to look back over the long history of first year health science courses.

When the medical school started out in the 1870s it could only offer the first two years of a medical course and students headed overseas – most often to Edinburgh – to complete their training. Prospective doctors had to register as medical students, which required them to pass a ‘preliminary examination in general education’. Once registered, medical students started out on their two-year course in chemistry, biology, anatomy, physiology, surgery and clinical instruction at the hospital. From 1885 students could complete their entire medical course at Otago. To obtain a New Zealand medical degree, they needed to pass an intermediate exam, followed by three professional exams. The intermediate exam covered a general university science prospectus of biology, physics and chemistry.

The dental school opened in 1907, offering a four-year degree, later extended to five years. Students had to formally register for the course and this required passing the same preliminary exam as medical students. Also like medical students, they took the standard first-year courses in physics and chemistry, but added to the biology requirement was a course in dental anatomy. There was little rest for dental and medical students, for as soon as their first-year exams were over they commenced their specialist courses with a ‘summer term’. For many years there was, however, no competition for places: anybody who could pay the fees, complete the courses and pass the exams could qualify as a doctor or dentist.

In 1941, faced with rising student numbers and significant overcrowding, the Otago medical school for the first time limited entry to its second-year classes, initially to 100 students. Some places were reserved for graduates and people repeating second year, but for most students entry came through obtaining the best exam marks in the intermediate course. No intermediate medical student could afford to rest on their laurels now: competition for entry to medical school varied from year to year but was generally tough. Some of those who did not gain entry to the medical course instead enrolled for dentistry. From 1945 the specialist dental course disappeared from first year and prospective dentists took exactly the same intermediate course as prospective doctors, that is, first-year chemistry, physics and biology (zoology and botany). Unsurprisingly, the dental course then became crowded, exacerbated by an influx of returned servicemen to university. From 1947 entry to second-year classes in the dental school was also limited, initially to 50 places.

Dental students working in the prosthetics lab in 1949. Before reaching this stage they had to overcome the hurdle of a competitive intermediate year. From left: Brian Arkinstall, Jim Armour, Reece Baker, Clive Bayley, Rod Beattie and Nick Bebich. Image courtesy of Elaine Donaldson.

The medical school began offering a Bachelor of Pharmacy degree in the 1960s, though most New Zealand pharmacists trained through a technical institute diploma course until 1991, when Otago’s newly independent school of pharmacy became the country’s sole training programme for pharmacists. The intermediate year for pharmacy was the same as that for medicine or dentistry – chemistry, biology and physics.

The intermediate health science courses remained essentially unchanged for many years, though there were of course some changes to the content of the basic science courses, reflecting new scientific developments. Over time, though, questions arose about the suitability of the criteria for entry to health science courses: did New Zealanders want their doctors and dentists selected purely through their ability to obtain top marks in science exams? Academic ability and scientific understanding were clearly important, but the best health professionals also needed some sympathetic understanding of the human condition and good communication skills. Extensive changes to the medical curriculum in the 1970s included modifications to the long-standing biology/chemistry/physics requirement of the intermediate course. From 1973 students took four subjects in their intermediate year: chemistry, biology and any two subjects of their choice from the arts or sciences (those who hadn’t got 50% or more in either maths or physics at bursary level had to include one of those among the two options). While some students stuck with the sciences, others branched out, with anthropology a popular choice. From 1981 students without an arts background were forced to think more laterally, as those without 50% or more in an arts subject at bursary level had to include an arts paper in their medical intermediate programme. The dentistry intermediate also added a fourth subject, taken in any of the arts and sciences, in 1980. Pharmacy retained a more scientific focus for longer. It added a statistics paper to its biology, chemistry and physics intermediate year from 1975. It was not until 1988 that pharmacy intermediates had a wider choice: they could then choose between physics and statistics, freeing them up to take their fourth course from any within the science, arts or commerce offerings.

Concerns remained about the communication skills of the medical profession. In 1993 the English department introduced a new paper primarily designed for health science students (though also open to others): ‘language, style and communication’, an ‘introduction to the fundamentals of effective speaking and writing’. This became a compulsory part of the intermediate years for medicine and pharmacy, unless a student had a good pass in bursary English; dental students were also advised to take an approved English paper from 1995.

1998 brought the biggest change yet to intermediate courses, with a completely revamped programme named Health Sciences First Year. Controversially, the course had to be taken in Dunedin; previously students had been able to complete their intermediate year at any university. Cynics noted that this increased Otago’s student numbers and thereby its funding. This was undoubtedly true, but there were also sound academic reasons behind the change. First, it was difficult to make fair comparisons between applicants who had obtained their grades in intermediate subjects at a variety of institutions. Second, and more important, Otago could now tailor its Stage 1 courses more closely to the needs of the health sciences and transfer some of the overcrowded specialist curriculum into first year. The course included two brand new compulsory papers – foundations of biochemistry, and chemistry: molecular reactivity – together with the biology of cells and biology for health sciences. Students without exemptions also needed to complete introductory physics, introductory biostatistics and the English language, style and communication paper. Students needed a total of 8 papers, leaving them to choose between 1 and 4 other subjects. This course became the common intermediate year for medicine, dentistry, pharmacy, medical laboratory science and physiotherapy degrees. The change was most radical for physiotherapy, which previously had a tightly-structured first year programme with papers specifically designed for the profession (the Bachelor of Physiotherapy degree was jointly taught by the university and Otago Polytechnic from 1991, with the university taking sole responsibility from 1996).

HSFY was modified over the years to cater for changing health priorities and learning needs. Biostatistics morphed into epidemiology, a specialist biological physics paper was added, the compulsory English paper was dropped (except for those who failed a diagnostic test) and in 2007 a new acronym – HUBS – entered the Otago lexicon. ‘Human body systems’ replaced the former biology papers; it was a significant modification aimed at improving students’ self-directed learning skills. Throughout, the HSFY course attracted many enrolments and competition for entry to second-year classes in the professional degrees remained intense. Debate continued – and will probably never end – over selection methods. Grades remain the number one criterion, but some courses now also require prospective students to pass a psychometric test, the Undergraduate Medicine and Health Sciences Admission Test (UMAT), a widely-used tool devised in Australia. At Otago UMAT became part of the admission process for medicine in 2003, for dentistry in 2005 and for medical laboratory science in 2007; the dental school also interviewed prospective students from 2005. For some decades a number of places have been reserved for the best Maori and Pasifika applicants, because New Zealand needs more Pacific Island and Maori health professionals, while more recently the medical and dental programmes have also targeted students from rural backgrounds with a commitment to rural practice, to help overcome serious shortages of rural health practitioners.

Are you a survivor of HSFY or one of the older intermediate courses? Do you have any memories to share?

Early Chinese students

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1920s, 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, Aquinas, Asia, Chinese, dentistry, graduation, law, medicine

Dr Kathleen Pih, photographed by J.J. Webster, Dunedin, c.1930. Image courtesy of Presbyterian Research Centre, P-A154.19-59.

Chinese students have a long history at Otago. I’ve posted before about the big impact that Colombo Plan students from Asia had on the university from the 1950s to 1970s – many of them were Chinese Malaysians. As the Colombo Plan wound back and private international students grew in number, Malaysians remained an important presence on campus. The late 1990s also saw the beginnings of an influx of international students directly from China – their numbers peaked at 700 in 2005 and remain substantial today. But there is, of course, a long history of Chinese migration to New Zealand and the earliest Chinese students at Otago were homegrown – people who had been born or raised here.

I recently had the privilege of talking with two well-known members of Dunedin’s Kiwi Chinese community – James Ng, medical doctor and historian of the Chinese in New Zealand, and Peter Chin, lawyer, singer, and former mayor of Dunedin. Both have fond memories of their Otago student days and generously shared some insights into the Chinese community at the university. James Ng came from Ashburton to Otago to study medicine in 1954 – he describes himself as being at the tail end of the first wave of New Zealand Chinese university students. That wave resulted from the changing demographics of the Chinese community. For many decades immigration policy prevented the settlement of Chinese women in New Zealand, so many Chinese men here remained single or left families behind in China. When restrictions were reduced during World War II more women and families arrived in New Zealand. Peter Chin, who started his law degree at Otago in 1959, was born in Dunedin as part of the “baby boom” resulting from the influx of Chinese women to this country in the 1940s.

While some pioneering Otago Chinese trained in professions such as dentistry and law before these became university courses, and Norman Lo Keong graduated in engineering from Canterbury, the University of Otago’s first Chinese graduates were in medicine. The honour of being first goes to Kathleen Pih (Pih Zhen-Wah). Born in 1902 in Antung, China, she came to New Zealand in 1908 with her foster mother, a Dunedinite who had been working with the China Inland Mission. Special permission was required from the Governor-General for Kathleen to gain entry to New Zealand. She went to primary school in Waimate and had her secondary schooling at Otago Girls’ High School, enrolling as a university student in 1921. After graduating in medicine in 1929, she returned to China as a missionary for some years. She later completed specialist training in ophthalmology in London and married anatomy professor Francis Chang of Shanghai.They worked in China, Singapore and Hong Kong before retiring to New Zealand in 1969.

The next Chinese student at Otago was Roy Ting Shang Law, who commenced his medical course in 1937. He finally graduated in 1947 – this was a period when many students took extra years to complete their course, and the fact he had to work to support himself and his wife obviously didn’t help the progression of his studies. Dr Law established a very successful general practice in Wellington and this had quite an impact on New Zealand’s Chinese community. Once they saw how acceptable a Chinese doctor could be to wider society, they were happy to encourage their children to study medicine. James Ng’s parents were initially reluctant for him to undertake tertiary study, thinking business offered better opportunities, but Dr Law’s success swayed them to allow their son to come to Otago, albeit not to study in the field which originally interested him – geology!

The health sciences remained the most popular Otago courses for Chinese students, attracting people from all over New Zealand. Douglas Ngan Kee of Whanganui became the first Chinese dental graduate in 1950. The specialist courses in mining and home science also brought Chinese students to Otago, while arts and law attracted a smaller number, most of them southerners. By the 1950s Otago was also enrolling students from Fiji’s Chinese community, while the Colombo Plan brought Chinese students from elsewhere, notably Malaysia.

Jocelyn Wong, an arts student from Masterton, and Peter Chin, a law student from Dunedin, are at centre front of this group of students at a St Margaret’s College ball in the early 1960s. Image courtesy of Peter Chin.

There was no special club or society for Otago’s Chinese students, though many took part in activities of the local Dunedin Chinese Association. Some also participated in the International Club, which was mostly run by European women students. Other than this, they took part in activities according to their personal interests – for instance, James Ng joined the tramping club. Like many out-of-town students he also mixed widely with others by living in a residential college, thriving at Aquinas, where he was one of the founding residents.

The biggest priority for Chinese students was their studies – their reputation for diligence is a long-standing one. Extra-curricular activities came second to work, and Peter Chin notes that he was an exception in his generation for the extent of his involvement in campus activities. His first year was “a disaster” academically but a great success socially thanks to his talent for singing. Along with a few school friends he auditioned for the capping chorus, and as a result was asked to audition for the sextet. Becoming part of this elite group provided him with an instant introduction into student society. He sang with the sextet for 3 of his 5 years at Otago, and also became capping chorus master. In his final year he served on the OUSA executive, having been selected as their business manager, a role traditionally held by a law student.

Peter Chin (right) with the sextet c.1962. Image courtesy of Peter Chin.

In the 94 years since the remarkable Kathleen Pih first became an Otago student, many of New Zealand’s Chinese community have followed in her footsteps. My thanks to James Ng and Peter Chin for sharing memories and photographs of Otago student life in the 1950s and 1960s, along with some stories of their predecessors!

Water of Leith – friend or foe?

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1920s, dentistry, floods, grounds

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Off to war

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Evolution of an old building

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

 

 

How Otago almost had a veterinary school

Tags

1900s, 1910s, dentistry, veterinary, war

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

 

 

The oldest alumnus?

Tags

1920s, 1930s, dentistry, graduation

Ian Chirnside, photographed by Ali Clarke in April 2014.

Ian Chirnside, who is now 106 years old, has a pretty good claim to be Otago’s oldest surviving graduate! Certainly it’s unlikely that there are any earlier university staff members out there, because he started working on campus when he was just 14 years old, in 1922. I recently had the great privilege of meeting Ian. He has an impressive memory and enjoyed chatting about life at Otago in the 1920s and 1930s.

Ian grew up in Dunedin, the sixth in a family of eight children. Like most working class children of that generation, they all left school young to earn a living and help support the household. Ian and one of his brothers tossed a coin to select between two job possibilities. The brother took the foundry job, and Ian’s future was sealed when he became “the boy” – the lowliest technical assistant – at the Dental School. He had a wide range of tasks. There was plenty of cleaning, including scraping the wax off the students’ benches. Other tasks were more exciting: some of the students were frightened of the blow torch used to melt gold for fillings, so Ian dealt with it for them. He also learned to develop photographs. When the School was short of suitable specimens, it used photos for teaching and one of Ian’s tasks was to print a set of copies for each student. He became interested in photography and had his own box brownie camera. This was swept away in the big Leith flood of 1923, when water covered the roads and the Dental School (the building which is now the Staff Club) was left overhanging the river. The dental students clubbed together to buy Ian a replacement camera.

Dental School staff and students in 1922 or 1923. Ian Chirnside is the young boy third from the right in the second row from the front. He had been sent away to exchange his usual brown jacket for a white one, so he wouldn’t spoil the photo! Photograph courtesy of Ian Chirnside and Annabel Rayner.

Another of Ian’s duties was to serve as messenger boy for the Dean, H.P. Pickerill: “at the time I thought something of it,” he recalls. Pickerill was a major figure, and not only in dentistry. He was one of the pioneers of plastic surgery during World War I, bringing some of the badly wounded men he treated back to Dunedin after the war for further treatment. But it seems he could also be a little absent-minded, because Ian regularly biked out to the Pickerill home in Ravensbourne to collect something the Dean had forgotten, such as appropriate clothing for a formal dinner at which he was to be guest of honour. One interesting duty he carried out for Pickerill was to turn on and off the wall switch of an electric knife used during surgery!

Ian Chirnside, aged 16 (left), and his brother Alan, aged 14, as technicians at the Dental School. Photograph courtesy of Ian Chirnside and Annabel Rayner.

Ian loved working at the Dental School, finding the students and staff very friendly. When he was promoted his younger brother, Alan Chirnside, became “boy” in his place. The brothers decided they would like to train in dentistry themselves, but as they had no secondary schooling they first had to study to obtain matriculation (entry to university). After work, they would run home to Maori Hill for tea and then run down to the King Edward Technical School night classes, often arriving late. Their determination and hard work paid off in the end, with Alan graduating in dentistry in 1938 and Ian in 1940. Ian has fond memories of his student years, especially of capping. The government, town council and taxi drivers (especially Red Band Taxis) always got “a bit of a rip” from the students. One year he drove an old-fashioned buggy in the capping procession. He borrowed the buggy from the Oval, one draught horse from his father (who worked with horses) and another from the grocer who lived nextdoor. Ian and another dental student dressed up as “hayseeds” for the occasion. They managed to get caught in the tram rails, which were the same width as the wheels on their buggy. Later they parked outside Arthur Barnett’s store “for the sake of the girls,” putting down a piece of grass turf to try and prevent the horses from wandering off!

After graduating, Ian spent a few years away from the Dental School, including some time spent in military service with the Dental Corps in the Pacific. In 1945 he returned as a lecturer to the place he loved so well, remaining until his retirement in the early 1970s. By that time he had evolved from the junior lackey without any secondary schooling to an associate professor, complete with doctoral degree. He saw many changes over his long career, the most significant technical development being the arrival of the fast-cutting drill. Ian continues to take an interest in the world of dentistry. His eyesight is not too good these days, but his daughter reads him articles about new developments. He is especially intrigued by the use of robotics in teaching!

 

New blood in the 1980s

Tags

1980s, 1990s, computer science, dentistry, gender studies, Maori, medicine, psychology, women's studies

In the late 1980s, the powers that be decided it was time to inject a little new blood into the university – some new young scholars working in emerging fields. The general stability of the existing academic staff meant there were few opportunities to appoint new people and the increasing age of staff was a matter of concern. In 1988 the Academic Staffing Committee, which controlled all academic appointments, decided to appoint three “new blood” lecturers, inspired by an Oxbridge model. The posts would be funded from a special Development Fund rather than usual faculty budgets for a three year period. The committee invited the various faculties to propose areas of scholarship for the new blood posts. Priority was to be given to new areas of scholarship or areas seen to be of strategic importance, to the appointment of “women and any other groups under-represented on the academic staff” and to outstanding young scholars for whom there was no current post.

After a few weeks of campaigning and investigation, the three posts were awarded to the fields of artificial intelligence, Maori health and women’s studies. Others which came close to making the cut were bio-organic chemistry and family policy. Intriguingly, all of these fields had a strong interdisciplinary component. That was particularly the case for women’s studies, whose working party attracted support from staff in English, history, classics, Maori studies, German, theology, religious studies, law, education, drama, social and preventive medicine, surgery, psychology, physical education and consumer and applied science. As the proposal pointed out, Otago would soon be the only New Zealand university without a women’s studies programme, and risked losing students to other institutions, including a new extramural course from Massey.

Anna Smith, Otago’s first lecturer in women’s studies. From the University of Otago Newsletter, August 1989.

The three new lecturers were appointed in 1989. Anna Smith, a doctoral student in English at Canterbury and critical editor of Landfall, became Otago’s first lecturer in women’s studies. She established a Stage 2 paper in feminist theory and coordinated an interdisciplinary Stage 2 programme in women’s studies. The programme slowly built up and in 1994 it became possible to major in women’s studies for a BA. By then Smith had left (she now teaches English at Canterbury). Annabel Cooper, an Otago English PhD graduate who had been tutoring in women’s studies from the beginning, became a lecturer in women’s studies in 1993, together with American scholar Sarah Williams. The Otago programme may have been slow off the starting blocks, but it proved to have more staying power than others and is today the strongest in New Zealand. It gradually evolved from “women’s studies” into “gender studies”. After being part of various administrative structures, including the Department of English, the School of Liberal Arts and the Department of Anthropology, it now forms part of the Department of Sociology, Gender and Social Work.

The other new blood lecturers remain at Otago to this day, and both are now professors. John Broughton, of Ngati Kahungunu and Kai Tahu, became lecturer in Maori health in 1989. He was an Otago dental graduate who had been working in private practice, as well as teaching part time at the dental and medical schools for some years. He was also a well-known playwright and chair of Dunedin’s Te Araiteuru Marae. Thanks to funding from the National Heart Foundation, Otago was also able to appoint Paparangi Reid as a half-time lecturer in Maori Health at the Wellington School of Medicine in the same year (she now teaches at Auckland). Not all 1990s medical students shared the University of Otago’s growing concern for Maori health issues, especially when a dentist rather than a doctor was doing the teaching, but Broughton became a respected educator in the field. In dentistry, he developed an innovative and popular programme of clinics run by students for Maori communities, both in the Dunedin school and far afield. This proved significant in developing the university’s links with various iwi, several of which now have formal memoranda of understanding with Otago; it was also a highly signficant experience for the students. Thanks to his links with mana whenua, Broughton has been frequently called on to consult and advise on things Maori for the university, particularly before the Office of Maori Development was established in 2007. He has been a professor since 2012 and his inaugural professorial lecture, “A Bro-fessor in the Whare,” can be viewed on iTunesU.

John Broughton (right) with Greg Seymour, Dean of Dentistry (left) and John Ward, University of Otago Chancellor, at Waitangi after signing a Memorandum of Agreement with Ngati Hine Health in 2011. Photograph courtesy of John Broughton.

The new blood post in artificial intelligence went to Anthony Robins, a Canterbury psychology graduate who had recently completed a doctorate in cognitive science at the University of Sussex, where he studied computational models of categorical structure. His appointment meant Otago could expand into the rapidly emerging field of cognitive science, offering this as a MSc programme from 1990. Robins’ appointment was a joint one between the Departments of Computer Science and Psychology for his first three years; after that he was based in computer science. This was a real interdisciplinary project and the cognitive science course also had papers from philosophy, anatomy, anthropology and information science. It was New Zealand’s first foray into this field. Robins, who was promoted to professor in 2013, continues to teach and research in the field of cognitive science, where his particular interest is in neural networks as a tool for modeling aspects of memory and forgetting. But he also teaches introductory computer programming and has developed a special interest in researching computer science education. He has been involved in the wonderful Robocup and other robotics programmes which introduce school pupils to the exciting world of robots, helping recruit the next generation of programmers. His inaugural professorial lecture – “Teaching, Learning and the Music of Memory” – is available on iTunesU.

Anthony Robins teaching in the robotics lab in 2012 with Otago student Louis Lepper (left) and Philip Anderson of Kings’ High School (right). They are training for the Robocup soccer event. Photograph courtesy of Anthony Robins.

The three new lectureships were clearly very successful in bringing “new blood” to Otago and their impact has been long-lasting. They allowed Otago to catch up in the emerging fields of Maori health and women’s studies, and to become the New Zealand pioneer of cognitive science. Not least, they brought some fine young scholars to the university, with two of them remaining for many years to become leading researchers and teachers who are also notable for their community engagement. All credit to the Academic Staffing Committee of 1988!

Students kidding around

Tags

1930s, 1960s, dentistry, Knox, pranks

An uninvited guest at the official opening of the Dental School, 4 March 1961. Minister of Education Blair Tennent is speaking, with University Chancellor Hubert Ryburn seated at left. Photograph courtesy of Peter Innes (originally published in the ODT, 6 March 1961).

When Blair Tennent, Minister of Education, visited Dunedin to open the new Dental School building in 1961, he probably wasn’t especially surprised to receive a lively welcome from local students. Tennent was once an Otago student himself – he graduated in dentistry in 1922 – and a recent ten years on the council of Massey Agricultural College had no doubt kept him aware of student hi-jinks.

A group of about 150 students dressed as Arabs prostrated themselves on the ground before the ministerial car as it attempted to drive through the Octagon. They then carried a laughing Tennent shoulder high on a litter to the Dental School. The procession was led by a goat, which normally resided in a student flat. As the New Zealand Dental Journal wrote, its “well timed bleats later punctuated the formal addresses in a highly amusing manner.”

High spirits could perhaps be forgiven, for it was a great relief to dental staff and students to have new accommodation. The Dental School opened in 1907 in what is now the Staff Club, but moved to what is now the Marples Building (Zoology) in 1926. By the 1940s this was becoming cramped and John Walsh, Dean of Dentistry, began campaigning for a new building. After numerous delays due to competing demands for government funding, shortages of labour and materials, and changes of government, construction finally got underway in 1956. Problems with the foundations led to further delays, prompting use of a prefab school building to relieve congestion temporarily.

The building – renamed the Walsh Building in 2001 in honour of the former dean – has since undergone various renovations and extensions. It was designed in the Government Architect’s office by Ian Reynolds, supervised by Gordon Wilson, and is now recognised as an outstanding example of modernist architecture. The New Zealand Historic Places Trust registered it as a Category 1 historic building in 2005.

Tennent was not the first VIP visitor to the university to be greeted by livestock. In a famous 1934 incident at Knox College, Lord Bledisloe, then Governor General, encountered a pen of pigs just outside the grand front entrance. Bledisloe, known to be a pig fancier, took this in good part, inspecting the pigs and noting they were very good ones. Later, as the master led Lord and Lady Bledisloe downstairs from the college tower, the official party encountered another ‘Lord and Lady Bledisloe’ – two students dressed up for the occasion – coming up the stairs. A resident recalled that “the two Bledisloe pairs bowed at one another and passed on … I heard that old Bledisloe could hardly hold his laughter.”

Do you know of any other pranks involving distinguished visitors to Otago?

Name that dentist

Tags

1950s, dentistry

This is the first post in a new category – mystery photographs. From time to time I will put up an image in the hope that somebody out there can help identify further details.

This week I had the pleasure of meeting Elaine Donaldson, who kindly shared some wonderful photographs from her own collection. She graduated in dentistry in 1951 (the only woman in her class), taught in the Dental School, worked in Dunedin Hospital and in dental practice, raised a family, then returned to the university to teach in the anatomy department from 1974 to 1994.

This photograph, first published in the Evening Star in 1952, shows Elaine Harrison (as she was then) second from left, teaching in the Dental School. The students include Lorna Patrick on the left, and Lionel Renolds on the far right. They graduated at the end of 1953 (sadly, Lorna Patrick died just after completing her course). Do you know who the other two students are?

An update – 7 June 2013

Thanks to some excellent networking by Elaine, who forwarded this post to some members of the 1953 graduating class, everyone is now identified. My sincere thanks to all concerned. Let’s hope this bodes well for the identification of future posts in this series!

The people in the photo are, from left to right – Lorna Patrick, Elaine Harrison, Maurice Potter, George Ryan, Snow Renolds.