Learning to lecture

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1900s, 1910s, 1920s, 1930s, 1940s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, classics, economics, education, English, French, geology, Higher Education Development Centre, history, medicine, philosophy, physics, psychology, teaching, technology

WR Morris lecturing in the ‘old anatomy lecture theatre’ – now the Gowland Lecture Theatre – in the Lindo Ferguson Building, 1949. Anatomical drawings and skeletons were popular visual aids from the medical school’s earliest classes onwards. Image courtesy of the Hocken Collections, University of Otago Medical School Alumnus Association archives, MS-1537/441, S17-550c.

The University of Otago’s founders followed Scottish precedent in their choice of curriculum and also in teaching methods: rather than the Oxbridge-style tutorial, teaching was based on the professorial lecture. That had the advantage of being economical and many subjects got by with just one staff member for the first few decades. The professor did all the teaching, except in the sciences, which were first to acquire assistants, necessary because of the laboratory classes which supplemented lectures. Humanities subjects had no tutorials until the 1940s, though in some cases the classes were small enough that professors became well acquainted with their students. As mentioned in a recent post about the history department, history professor John Elder told a young lecturer whose students showed marked progress after he introduced seminar discussions: ‘These young men like to hear themselves talk but you’re paid to lecture and you’ll therefore lecture. So long as I’m head of this department, there’ll be no discussions’.

Elder was not the only professor suspicious of tutorials. They eventually sneaked into arts subjects as the rehabilitation department funded tutorials for returned servicemen and women in the wake of World War II; they became standard additions to the lecture programme soon after that. Sometimes the impetus for this innovation came from students and sometimes from staff. In 1948 Frank Mitchell, the education professor, reported that ‘this year the Honours students on their own initiative organised tutorials for students taking Education I. I hope that it will soon be possible to conduct regular tutorials for all stages’. In the same year departing philosophy professor David Raphael noted that tutorials were ‘not just a desirable luxury’ in that subject, but ‘essential for adequate training. Philosophy is a way of doing things with one’s mind, not a set of facts to be learned, and consequently the student must be in a position to practise the accomplishment in question’. Tutorials required a bigger investment in staff, but the growing student roll justified that.

Academics of course varied greatly in their teaching styles. Founding classics professor George Sale, notorious for his disdain of students’ abilities, preferred the stick to the carrot. John Murdoch, in reminiscences of his own teaching career, wrote of meeting some of Sale’s honours students after a lecture in 1907: ‘They had just received their corrected Latin proses, and the most successful had gained a mark of “minus 300”. Sale deducted marks, 10, 50, 100 or more for a mistake, according to his estimate of its seriousness’. Murdoch had little respect for the methods of the early 20^th century professors: ‘Otago University as I knew it was in effect a glorified coaching school’. Although the academic staff were ‘capable and well-qualified’, suggested Murdoch, their teaching was determined by a system whereby courses were ‘set by regulations applying to all four [University of New Zealand] colleges, and the success of their efforts was gauged by examiners in England’. Such conditions made ‘inspirational teaching almost hopeless if not quite impossible’, at least in English, ‘a notoriously difficult subject to teach’. Future high school principal Muriel May, an Otago student of the 1910s and 1920s, recalled that Thomas Gilray, the English professor, ‘taught by dictating at a relentless pace to his benches of scribbling students in the Lower Oliver classroom …. at the prearranged dates we regurgitated. There were no seminars, no discussions, originality was not fostered nor were personal opinions encouraged’. There were always, of course, some inspiring teachers. May also recalled that George Thompson’s French lectures ‘were invariably stimulating and enjoyable. (Latin students made comparable claims for the classes of Professor Adams.)’ Lecturer Agnes Blackie was in love with physics, which she found ‘brimful of interest’. ‘I can’t imagine a better subject for a lecturer’, she wrote in her reminiscences. ‘Lectures can be illustrated with fascinating demonstrations which bring the subject to life for the students and are fun for the lecturer to operate’.

From the 1950s, with greater local control of the curriculum and the widespread use of tutorials in addition to the traditional lectures, labs, clinical teaching and field trips, academic staff had greater flexibility in teaching. Their adoption of new technologies varied. Visual aids did not have to be high-tech: the beautiful anatomical drawings of John Scott, who was a skilled artist as well as first dean of the medical school, were used at Otago for many decades. Others used glass slides and a ‘magic lantern’ projector to show images. John Mackie recounted its use by Noel Benson in 1929 first-year geology lectures; it was ‘a contraption on a tripod which stood behind the lecture bench. Believe it or not, this projector incorporated an arc-lamp which spluttered, fizzed and made other dangerous noises, although as a source of light it was quite spectacular’. The notoriously absent-minded professor occasionally tripped over its wires ‘and the whole contrivance would crash to the floor’; that happened also on the day he rushed to extinguish the light after discovering students had replaced his first slide with a full-frontal nude. Slides remained a popular teaching tool, though shown through a more compact slide projector from the mid-20^th century, with the slides themselves shifting from glass to film negative to digital format.

In 1940 the dean of arts and sciences, Robert Bell, reported that several departments took advantage of a new scheme for borrowing ‘sound-films’, finding them ‘an extremely valuable and effective addition’ to teaching methods. Not every academic liked new technology; John Howells, who retired from the economics department in the 1990s, commented ‘my major advancement in the technology area stopped with the biro pen’. The emergence of the Audio Visual Learning Centre (AVLC) in 1973 ‘was regarded with suspicion by some staff members who had visions of classes being handed over to various mechanical gadgets’, reported the staff newsletter in 1977. By then, the ‘prejudice’ was ‘disappearing’, with 30 departments already using the AVLC. Its use ranged from ‘tape/slide/workbook programmes’ for anatomy courses to a ‘film providing “evidence” for a simulated Supreme Court trial’ for law students. The impetus for the centre came from the medical school, which was concerned about how it would manage its larger intake of students; it provided space for AVLC academic director David Teather and his team, with a production centre in the Adams building and a study centre with library of audio visual resources in the Scott building.

By the time this photo was taken in 1983, medical school lectures had become much more relaxed and technology enabled the use of film and other audiovisual aids. Please get in touch if you can help identify the lecturer or class! Image courtesy of the Hocken Collections, University of Otago Photographic Unit archives, MS-4368/086, S17-550b.

Academics using the AVLC ‘face some adjustment of their teaching methods and their attitudes’, noted the staff newsletter in 1975. There was already wider consideration of teaching and learning methods in the university, which new technology helped accelerate. In 1971 the lecturers’ association ran a well-attended seminar on teaching methods and suggested the university set up a research centre on higher education. In 1973 Otago appointed Terry Crooks as a lecturer in the education department, with half of his time devoted to research and advice on university teaching. He, the lecturers’ association and AVLC ran occasional sessions on teaching methods; for instance, a 1976 session looked at the use of film in university teaching, with staff discussing Otago-made films they had used in anthropology, physical education and medicine. Psychology lecturer Louis Leland ‘introduced a film which demonstrated the training of laboratory rats’. He made ‘a similar film each year with rats trained by the current year’s students and uses this to demonstrate to the following year’s students that training rats is within their capability’. In 1976 senate established a higher education research and advisory centre (HERAC) committee. HERAC and the AVLC often worked together and in 1978 they merged under a new acronym, this time destined to last: HEDC, or the Higher Education Development Centre.

Although HEDC had few staff in its early years, it performed a significant role; ‘there was growing awareness of the need for stimulating teaching’ reported the director, David Teather, in 1983. A recent two-day seminar on ‘helping students succeed’ had attracted 140 staff and ‘there was now hardly a department which did not make regular use of the resources at HEDC’ for producing teaching aids. That was just as well, since students ‘now came from school expecting to make use of technology in their work’. Computers became a significant part of that technology, and in 1986 Graham Webb joined the HEDC team; his ‘major responsibility’ was ‘to advise staff members on the educational uses of computers on campus’. Otago’s computing services centre also developed a team with expertise in computer-aided learning and in the 1990s HEDC’s audio-visual production section joined them as part of information technology services. HEDC continued to research and disseminate information on tertiary teaching, provide advice and run courses, notably for new academic staff; from 1996 staff could obtain a formal qualification – a postgraduate diploma in tertiary teaching – taught by the centre. The centre also supported Otago staff from other departments working on teaching-related research and new innovations. To help ‘enhance’ learning and teaching, the university offered special grants for research and innovation in teaching.

HEDC assisted with course evaluations, which gave students an opportunity to provide feedback on their teachers and courses. Staff could use them to identify weaknesses in their teaching which required work, or as evidence of their skills when seeking promotion. In an era of growing emphasis on quality assurance, they helped ‘measure’ courses in departments which were up for review. With a growing body of research from staff and postgraduate students on many aspects of higher education, plus a range of courses and support services for academics wanting to make their teaching more effective, Otago had travelled a long way from the days of Sale scoring papers at ‘minus 200’ and Gilray ‘dictating at a relentless pace’.

A class underway in the late 1980s or early 1990s in the Castle Lecture Theatres. The overhead transparency was a popular teaching tool for many years, later largely overtaken by Powerpoint digital slides. Unfortunately, the resolution of this old negative isn’t good enough to read what’s on the screen – if you can identify the class, lecturer or year, please get in touch! Image courtesy of the Hocken Collections, University of Otago Photographic Unit archives, MS-4185/060, S17-550a.

The absent-minded professor

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1910s, 1920s, 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, anthropology, geology, history, home science

The absent-minded professor is not a mythical figure; numerous people have fitted this description through Otago’s history. I thought it would be fun to lighten the midwinter gloom with a few of the more entertaining stories of such characters. I must stress, however, that I have considerable sympathy for these people. It is all too easy for scholars to become caught up in the pursuit of their intellectual passions and lose track of the world around them!

Noel ‘Bennie’ Benson in characteristic pose, pointing out a feature of geological interest during a field trip in 1924. Image courtesy of the Hocken Collections, Department of Geology archives, MS-3195/132, S16-591b.

The most notorious absent-minded professor in Otago’s past is Noel Benson, who was geology professor from 1917 to 1950. Benson – known as ‘Bennie’ to generations of students – was an excellent geologist, who received one of the ultimate accolades in science, Fellowship of the Royal Society (London). He was a tall and somewhat shambling figure. John Mackie, a student of the 1920s and 1930s who went on to teach in the School of Mines and founded the surveying school, recalled that Benson ‘wore on all occasions an ancient, somewhat shapeless, dark tweed suit which bore the slightly green sheen of age’. At one point he acquired a new suit with two pairs of trousers, but it didn’t survive long. One day, as he assisted a student examining a map in a practical geology class, there was ‘a powerful smell of scorching’. The professor hadn’t noticed the heater under the table, and when he stepped back ‘the toasted fronts of his trouser legs fell out to reveal his pink long-johns’. A few weeks later, running late to meet a visiting scholar at the railway station, he tripped over the tram rails and fell, removing the knees from the second pair of pants. ‘Next day we saw a limping Bennie clad in the old familiar garb’.

Benson was not the best of lecturers, since he generally spoke with his eyes closed or facing the board, forgot to turn the lights on after showing slides or tripped over the projector cord, and often ran over time. As Mackie noted, ‘his thoughts were often far away on trilobites, or the structural features of the margin of Australasia, or the geology of eastern Otago, and if you spoke to him on such occasions he would reply automatically, “Yes – just so!”’. While he was courting his future wife – Helen Rawson, the home science professor – Benson became even more absent-minded than usual: as he lectured in the mining school he gazed ‘dreamily out the window to the home science building opposite’ and addressed ‘burly’ mining students as ‘my dear’, reported long-time physics lecturer Agnes Blackie. Helen Benson did her best to assist her husband in practical matters; for instance, she attached his compass, eraser and pencil to his button holes with string so he had less chance of losing them on field trips. But she couldn’t prevent some of his more famous lapses, such as the time he set off to work carrying his suitcase and the ashcan lid, carefully depositing his case at the front gate and taking the lid to the university.

Despite – or perhaps because of – his eccentricities, students regarded ‘Bennie’ with affection, and his knowledge and passion for geology inspired many. They were less fond of him when he drove them on field trips. John Mackie recalled ‘descending pale and shaken from his vehicle after being driven around winding roads in the bush, mostly on the wrong side, while he was peering at outcrops’.  Fred Fastier wrote that ‘One reason for an astonishing lack of collisions was that Benny kept his trafficator out “just in case” he might need to turn right. He would also get down to his lowest gear at least a mile away from the Mount Cargill Road lest he should forget to do so later on’.

Unfortunately, Benson was not the only absent-minded driver on the Otago staff. Another famous case was his contemporary Henry Devenish Skinner, the anthropology lecturer and museum director. Neil Howard recalled ‘one hair raising trip when driving out to Murdering Beach excavation site he went around the tortuous corners on the old Mt Cargill road on the wrong side, blowing the horn vigorously as he went. “Please excuse the horn,” says he, “you cannot be too careful”’. Another famous driving story relates to history professor William (‘Willie’) Morrell. His daughter Judith Nathan kindly shares the ‘best known story’ of the professor’s ‘legendary absentmindedness. He left my mother behind at the Vice Chancellor’s residence at St Leonard’s. He was taking the guest of honour home so the guest sat in the front and my mother in the back. As the back window was fogged up, she got out to clean it on the outside and he drove off. After a while the guest reportedly said: “Is your wife in the car?” to which my father is alleged to have replied: “Goodness me. I don’t believe she is.” At which point he turned the car around’. Despite such lapses, Morrell did pay attention to detail, as Neil Howard notes: ‘It was quite a performance when he would halt in a lecture, take out a propelling pencil, propel the lead, insert a comma in his lecture notes, ‘unpropel’ the pencil and replace it in his pocket then carry on’.

The future history professor during his own Otago student days, dressed as a schoolgirl for capping in 1920. From left: F.H. McDowall, G.A. Naylor, J.S. Adam, W.P. Morrell, L.S. Rogers and A.G. Crust. Image courtesy of Judith Morrell Nathan.

There were far fewer women academics back in the day and, since they had to overcome significant obstacles to achieve academic careers, they could not really afford to be absent-minded. Nevertheless, women professors stood out and eccentricity was not confined to the male of the species. Sticking to the transport theme, I don’t know if home science professor Ann Gilchrist Strong was a good driver, but her Model A Ford was a prized possession. 1920s student Sylvia Keane recalled that another of the professor’s prize possessions was her fox terrier Binkie, who had a basket in Strong’s office and ‘sported a bright scarlet coat in the winter’. It was ‘quite a memorable sight to see her sitting up beside Mrs Strong in the car’. The first home science professor, Winifred Boys-Smith, used a bicycle rather than a car. In contrast to the American Strong, Boys-Smith was ‘English to the backbone’, recalled Agnes Blackie, and ‘had a clear idea of the respect due to her position’. She was ‘a well-known figure as, clad in an ankle-length, black, caped waterproof coat and a broad-brimmed hat held securely in place with an enveloping motor-veil, she cycled from place to place round the university’.

Eccentricity and absent-mindedness do, of course, survive on campus to this day, but for obvious reasons I have confined these tales to people who have long since departed!

Among the brightest and the best

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Interim and permanent buildings

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The first four professors

Tags

1870s, 1880s, 1890s, 1900s, 1910s, chemistry, classics, English, geology, mathematics, philosophy, physics, psychology

The physically and intellectually imposing Professor George Sale, photographed around 1876. Image courtesy of the Alexander Turnbull Library, Rolleston album 2. Reference PA1-q-197-11-2.

You’d think it would be pretty tricky to recruit four good candidates to be the inaugural teaching staff of a tiny institution, located as far as it was possible to get from Europe, in a town which was the centre of a colony only a couple of decades old. But Otago managed to secure the services of four outstanding men as its first professors. All were young and presumably attracted to the idea of shaping a new university in a lively new colony; they must have had a considerable taste for adventure.

The oldest, George Sale (1831-1922), was just 39 years old when appointed Professor of Classics in 1870, while the youngest, Duncan Macgregor (1843-1906), was only 27 on his appointment as Professor of Mental and Moral Philosophy. Joining them on the foundation staff were John Shand (1834-1914), Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy, and James Gow Black (1835-1914), Professor of Natural Science.

Sale, a Cambridge graduate, had already spent some years in New Zealand. He migrated in 1860, partly for health reasons, but probably also to escape the conventions of the life of an English gentleman. He worked on a Canterbury sheep run, was first editor of the Christchurch Press, joined the Otago goldrush as a miner, and then returned to Canterbury to become Provincial Treasurer; he later held various official posts on the West Coast goldfields. The illness of his father, a master at Rugby School, prompted his return to England in 1869; there he was selected over 61 other applicants for the Otago chair of classics.

Sale’s three professorial colleagues were all Scots of humble backgrounds whose academic ability had served them well; all had more conventional CVs than the colourful Sale. Black came from a poor Perthshire crofting family and started teaching at 14 years of age; he eventually obtained three degrees from the University of Edinburgh, including in 1869 a doctorate, an unusual and elite qualification in those days. Shand hailed from Morayshire, where his father was a farm steward. Capable in many fields, he excelled particularly at mathematics and obtained a master’s degree from the University of Aberdeen. After that he taught in various Scottish academies and also in the military mathematics department of the Royal Academy in Gosport, England. Macgregor was a mason’s son and another Aberdeen graduate; like Black he came from Perthshire. After completing his MA at Aberdeen, where he excelled in mental and moral philosophy, he graduated in medicine from the University of Edinburgh in 1870.

Fortunately all four men had broad academic interests, because they had to teach a variety of subjects in Otago’s early years. Sale was responsible for teaching English as well as Latin and Greek until the appointment of the first Professor of English, John Mainwaring Brown, in 1880. Shand taught both mathematics and physics (then termed natural philosophy) until 1886, when he was appointed to a newly-created chair of natural philosophy and Frederick Gibbons became Professor of Mathematics. As Professor of Natural Science, Black was responsible for teaching both chemistry and geology until 1874, when Frederick Hutton, newly appointed Provincial Geologist, became lecturer in geology and zoology, allowing Black to concentrate on chemistry. Macgregor’s subject, mental and moral philosophy (sometimes known as mental science) incorporated both philosophy and psychology.

Macgregor left the University of Otago to become national Inspector of Lunatic Asylums, Hospitals and Charitable Institutions in 1886. His Otago career of 15 years may seem long, but it paled next to those of his early colleagues. Sale retired in 1908, Black in 1911, and Shand was eventually forced to leave due to failing eyesight in 1913 after 42 years as an Otago professor. These four remarkable men not only shaped New Zealand’s first university, but also played an active part in the local community and were well-known citizens of Dunedin.

What did the students make of these men? Reminscences written by early students for the university’s jubilee help bring the professors to life. David Renfrew White, who later became Otago’s first Professor of Education, recalled that Macgregor was unconventional, had “no professorial airs or restraint,” and was much loved by his students. His lectures were very interesting and challenging: “there was no drudgery and wearisomeness about this class; the hour was all too short.” He once lit a cigar while supervising a written exam, and “one at least of the students thought that if he, too, were allowed to smoke he would do a better examination paper.”

Shand was “patient with the dullest student, and of a quiet, philosophic temperament. He looked with clear common-sense on men and things,” commented White. Violet Greig, another early student, remembered Shand’s “radiant smile and glorious white hair … I can see him now looking over his spectacles as he stands with that metre rule in his hand waiting for the students to assemble, and I can hear him now dictating our ‘expiriments for tu-marra’ …” The kindly Shand was a “born teacher,” commented Thomas Pearce: “who will ever forget his blackboard performances, his cancellations and eliminations and reductions from complexity to simplicity.”

Black was energetic and genial and “always doing kindnesses to someone” remembered Greig; he was a popular president of the university’s football association. His classes could be exciting and sometimes literally explosive. Greig could “still hear the thud of the rock sulphur on that table as the doctor held it high and threw it noisily down to impress upon his students that it was one form of sulphur.” Pearce  commented on his “ebullient nature” and original turn of phrase; “students flocked to his classes not to learn chemistry, but to feel the magic force of his originality.”

Sale was a highly respected scholar who was “a splendid guide” to anybody with an interest in classics, recalled 1890s student John Callan. Unfortunately many Otago students did not have an interest in, or gift for, Latin, which was a compulsory subject: “our knowledge of classics must have been a source of continual torture to the professor,” wrote John O’Shea. Callan commented that, if Sale struggled to teach adequate Latin to “the rest of us, he at least kept us in order, partly by his gift of crushing sarcasm, but more just by being what he was, a silent, massive man, full of unutterable possibilities.” He was a keen athlete, who preceded Black as president of that all-important football association.

1890s student John O’Shea sums it all up well. “I have heard it said by older students that when Sale, Shand, Black, and Macgregor taught the University the students felt that they were led by giants. I knew the first three in their later days, and I can believe the statement.”

 

Some fine fellows

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1870s, 1920s, 1930s, 1940s, botany, geology, zoology

When it started out, the University of Otago was a tiny institution, located in a settler community established less than three decades earlier, and as far away as possible from the ancient centres of learning of Europe. Despite these obvious disadvantages, it attracted some remarkably talented scholars to its staff. The first four professors – John Shand (mathematics and natural philosophy), George Sale (classics and English), Duncan MacGregor (mental and moral philosophy) and James Gow Black (chemistry) – were all fine teachers and scholars. They were also young and energetic, and presumably motivated by the opportunity to stamp their mark on a new institution and a new country. Of course, like any large institution Otago has employed a few deadbeats and rogues over the years, but they have been well outnumbered by men and women following the high standards established by those early professors.

These days the university actively publicises the achievements of its staff and students, but it has not always been so diligent about this and some remarkable people passed largely unknown in the wider community, and even within the wider university. An example comes from a golden period in the science faculty in the 1930s and 1940s. There weren’t many students majoring in science then – numbers first hit a hundred in 1943 – though many of the staff were kept busy teaching students in the ‘special schools’ (medical students numbered several hundred each year, dental students over a hundred and home science students passed the hundred-mark in 1939). Recently I had the privilege of meeting Ann Wylie, who lectured in the Department of Botany for many years and remains very alert and active in her nineties. She started out as an Otago student in 1941 and recalls some of the outstanding scholars in the science faculty at that time. “I don’t think anyone else realised,” she comments, that the faculty “really had exceedingly famous people on its staff.”

John Holloway in the Department of Botany garden, c.1931. Image courtesy of the Department of Botany.

When Ann Wylie went to teach at the University of Manchester she discovered that people there knew all about John Holloway of Otago’s Department of Botany. Holloway, a New Zealander, was an Anglican priest with a passion for plants. After graduating from the University of Auckland he worked in various parishes around New Zealand and for a couple of years in England. He was lecturer in botany at Otago from 1924 to 1944, when ill health forced his retirement. Holloway was an active researcher who did pioneering work on ferns and their relatives. The significance of his scholarship was recognised in his election as a Fellow of the Royal Society (London) in 1937; he had been a Fellow of the New Zealand Institute (later renamed the Royal Society of New Zealand) since 1921 and served as its President in 1939 and 1940.

In both of these honours Holloway followed in the footsteps of one of his Otago colleagues, William Benham, Professor of Biology. Benham was President of the New Zealand Institute 1916-1917 and elected a Fellow of London’s Royal Society in 1907. A graduate of University College, London, he taught at Bedford College for Women and at Oxford before arriving in Otago as professor in 1898. He retired in 1937 but remained an active presence in the university well into the 1940s. Benham was a highly-regarded zoologist who researched and published widely but had a particular interest in earthworms.

In 1941, yet another Otago science faculty member of this period joined the list of Fellows of the Royal Society: Noel Benson, Professor of Geology from 1917 to 1950. Benson was born in England but grew up in Tasmania; he was educated in Australia and at Cambridge. Benson carried out pioneering work in petrology in various parts of Australia before arriving at Otago in 1917; he then expanded his work to include the rocks of New Zealand. He was a tireless researcher and his obituary from the Royal Society commented that “his output and range of published research was amazingly large and though his geological outlook was wide he was a master of detail.”

The achievements of these three men are all the more remarkable when we take into account the special challenges they faced in what was then a small remote institution. They had very wide responsibilities. Benham had to teach botany as well as zoology until 1920, when Winifred Betts became the first Otago staff member dedicated to botany. When Holloway took over from her in 1924 he was the Department of Botany, as Benson was the Department of Geology in his early years at Otago. Holloway’s room in the basement of Otago Museum served as the botany lecture room, office and laboratory for many years and he did all the teaching, administration and lab preparation, as well as running the botany garden. Benson, likewise, did all the teaching and administration for geology, along with the menial chores of the department. Perhaps more irksome than this, though, was the academic isolation – lacking colleagues in their own field, they could only communicate with scholars of similar interests by mail or after a long journey.

As we celebrate the achievements of Otago staff of the twenty-first century, let’s also spare a thought for their remarkable predecessors of the early twentieth century!