Building a medical campus

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1910s, 1920s, 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, anatomy, biochemistry, library, medicine, microbiology, obstetrics and gynaecology, pharmacology, pharmacy, physiology, preventive and social medicine, surgery

An aerial view showing the medical school and hospital buildings, c.1970. The low-rise 1950s building replaced by the Sayers building can be seen between the Wellcome and Ferguson buildings, with cars parked in front. At the hospital, the clinical services building, opened in 1968, can be seen, but construction is yet to begin on the ward block, which opened in 1980. Several of the buildings in the block east of the hospital are now part of the university: the original Queen Mary maternity hospital now houses the surveying school and marine science department; the 2nd Queen Mary hospital is Hayward College, and the old nurses’ homes are Cumberland College. Image courtesy of the Hocken Collections, University of Otago Medical School Alumnus Association records, MS-1537/806, S17-517b.

There’s a significant university anniversary this year: it’s a century since the medical school opened its first Great King Street building. Otago medical classes started out in the university’s original building in Princes Street, but soon moved to the purpose-built anatomy and chemistry block (now the geology building) on the new site near the Leith. Opened in 1878, the new premises incorporated a lecture room, dissection room, preparation room, morgue, laboratory, anatomy room and professor’s office for the medical school. The facilities weren’t large – they were designed to cater for classes of a dozen or so – and the building was extended in 1883 and again in 1905, to provide for the expanding school and its first physiology professor. As medical student numbers continued to expand, from 80 in 1905 to 155 in 1914, space became desperately short and the medical faculty won government approval for further extensions to the anatomy and physiology departments, plus a new building to house the pathology and bacteriology (microbiology) departments, along with other subjects being taught in far from ideal conditions in the crowded hospital.

The site of the new building – in Great King Street, opposite the hospital – was controversial. Some university council members wanted all new developments to be on the existing campus, but medical academics wanted to be closer to the hospital, and the chancellor, Andrew Cameron, was on their side. Sydney Champtaloup, professor of public health and bacteriology, revealed the thinking behind the move during the 1914 public appeal for funds for the new building. After completing their studies in anatomy and physiology, which would still be taught at the university, said Champtaloup, ‘students are intimately associated with the Hospital. At present students attend some classes at the University, and have then to proceed to the Hospital for others, and to return to the University later. This involves a great waste of time and energy. All lectures and practical classes for senior students should be held in a suitable building near the Hospital’. He also pointed out that the hospital and university both required bacteriology and pathology labs, and ‘a combination of these requirements in one building makes for efficiency and economy, but that building to meet Hospital requirements must be either in the Hospital grounds or in its close proximity’. Although he didn’t mention it, Champtaloup would have to waste considerable time and energy himself if the new building wasn’t close to the hospital, since he was in charge of its bacteriology services.

The bacteriology and pathology building, later known as the Scott building, which opened in 1917. Image courtesy of the Hocken Collections, University of Otago Medical School Alumnus Assocation records, MS-1537/636, S17-517a.

The public appeal raised the goodly sum of £8000 (over $1 million in 2017 values), which included £2000 from William Dawson (a brewer who made a fortune as one of the founders of Speight’s) and £1000 from members of the medical faculty. It was matched by the government, though the project ran considerably over budget thanks to ‘the presence of subterranean water, later found to characterise the whole area’, along with rising prices due to war conditions. The new building, designed by Mason and Wales and built by Fletcher Brothers, opened in 1917. Of brick with Oamaru stone facings, its neoclassical style seemed quite plain to contemporaries; the Evening Star noted some ‘pretty stained glass’ in the entrance hall was ‘one of the few ornamentations’. The building was large and well-lit, with a lecture theatre able to ‘seat 150 students and give everyone plenty of elbow room’ and other smaller lecture rooms; they incorporated facilities for the latest technology, the lantern slide. The pathology department was on the first floor and the bacteriology department on the second floor; there were also rooms dedicated to medical jurisprudence and materia medica (pharmacology), the library, specimen museum and an assortment of staff and student facilities. ‘The roof is used for store rooms, etc.’, reported the Star with some delicacy; that was where animals and food stores were housed.

The new building was just the beginning. Medical dean Lindo Ferguson had ambitious plans; he imagined the school expanding to take up the entire side of the Great King Street block facing the hospital, replacing its collection of old cottages and shops. Not everybody approved, and there was another battle over the new anatomy and physiology building. In 1919 university council members decided that further extensions to those departments should be on the main university campus, provoking a determined – and successful – campaign by the medical faculty, medical association and ODT to have them change their minds and instead construct a large new building adjoining the 1917 one. Physiology professor John Malcolm countered one of the main objections to the Great King Street site: ‘It had been said that the social life of the university was cut in two through the existing arrangements; and if that were so how about the scientific life of the university? Was it not cut in two as well? The most important was the human life’. After considerable delays in raising funds, in 1927 a splendid new building – ‘one of Dunedin’s most handsome’, declared the ODT – was opened. Designed by Edmund Anscombe in brick and stone facings to complement its neighbour, it provided accommodation for not just anatomy and physiology, but also the ‘sub-departments’ of histology, biochemistry and pharmacology. It had the ‘necessary classrooms, laboratories, and research rooms for a school averaging an annual class of 50 students’.

At the opening of the new block, Ferguson joked that ‘if a dean were content he was not fit to hold his position. No one knew the shortcomings of a school better than the dean, and if the dean thought that enough had been done he should be pole-axed’. He continued to dream of further expansion, and had already foiled suggestions the new dental school building should be immediately next to the medical school; instead its new 1926 building (now the Marples building) was constructed on the next block. Ferguson’s successors took up his scheme and in the midst of World War II work began on yet another large building. It had the prosaic name of ‘the south block’, but later the various buildings were named after the medical deans, according to their chronology, and it became the Hercus building, after third dean Charles Hercus; the earlier buildings were named for the first two deans, John Halliday Scott and Lindo Ferguson.

The Ferguson building (opened 1927), with the Scott building (1917) and Hercus building (1948) in the distance. Image courtesy of the Hocken Collections, University of Otago Medical School Alumnus Association records, MS-1537/637, S17-517c.

The south block was in brick and of similar scale to its neighbours, but the similarities ended there; it was a striking example of art deco, designed by Miller White and Dunn. Hercus recounted how the Minister of Education, Rex Mason, ‘turned down our original severely utilitarian plan with the statement, “This is not a factory, but a national building of great importance, and it must bear the marks of its function”’. The new design incorporated various artworks, most notably a sculptured marble panel by Richard Gross above the main Hanover Street entrance; there were also plaster murals inside. Building was a challenge because of wartime labour and supply shortages; four Dunedin building firms – Love, Naylor, Mitchells and McLellans – formed the Associated Builders consortium to complete the project. Some students obtained holiday work helping with the demolition and ground works for the foundations, which were dug down 15 metres, but the foreman ‘had to keep his eye on them because many would jump the fence and be off’. The building opened in 1948 and boasted 210 rooms; it became a new home for the preventive medicine, pathology and bacteriology departments and had two dedicated research floors, one of them for animals.

The new south block (Hercus building) under construction in the 1940s, looking east along Hanover Street. Image courtesy of the Hocken Collections, University of Otago Medical School Alumnus Association, MS-1537/631, S15-619f.

The next building development was less imposing and not destined to last for long: a single-storey brick building, completed in 1956 next to the Ferguson building, provided a space for the surgery and obstetrics and gynaecology departments. Next to it, on the corner of Frederick and Great King Streets, appeared in 1963 the Wellcome Research Institute. Funded entirely by the Wellcome Trust, which was created from a pharmaceutical fortune, the new building was a tribute to the important research on hypertension by Otago medical professor Horace Smirk, and provided a space for various research teams. It soon developed the nickname ‘Hori’s whare’, while the dental school was ‘Jack’s shack’ after dental dean John Walsh and the pharmacology department in the old Knox Sunday school was ‘Fred’s shed’ after its professor, Fred Fastier. The Wellcome building was designed by Niel Wales, the latest generation in old Dunedin firm Mason and Wales, which had also been responsible for the Scott building; the new building’s international style, with its simple forms and lack of ornamentation, reflected the architectural fashion of the period.

The next buildings took the medical campus further into the realms of new architecture. In 1972 the medical library acquired a new home in the Sayers building, named for the fourth dean, Ted Sayers. The building, which replaced the 1950s surgery and O & G construction, also included accommodation for the medical school administration. A year later the multi-storey Adams building (Bill Adams was the fifth dean) emerged behind it, with an entrance from Frederick Street; it provided new space for the preventive and social medicine, pharmacology, pharmacy and surgery departments, along with the university’s higher education development centre. The Sayers building was designed by Alan Neil of Fraser Oakley Pinfold. A 1994 exhibition on University of Otago architecture suggested his ‘use of fair-faced concrete is an essay in Brutalism’. The Adams building was designed by Miller White and Dunn and the design was recycled in the microbiology building, opened in 1974 on Cumberland Street. The 1994 exhibition noted its utilitarian architecture: it ‘appears to have been designed from the inside out’ and ‘no thought appears to have been given to the external appearance .… Built in the tradition of tower blocks in a park-way, it does not invite inspection of detailing’.

The new Sayers (front) and Adams buildings in the 1970s. Image courtesy of the Hocken Collections, University of Otago Medical School Alumnus Association records, MS-1537/665, S17-517d.

With the 1970s buildings completed, Lindo Ferguson’s 1910s vision of a medical school encompassing the length of the block was fulfilled. Indeed, the school was already spreading much further afield, with microbiology and biochemistry buildings on the new science campus in Cumberland Street and new developments in Christchurch and Wellington. At its Great King Street home base, the school was a showcase of 20^th century architecture, from neoclassicism and art deco to international style and brutalism. Across the street, Dunedin Hospital, whose presence had drawn the medical school to this location, also went through multiple developments. That, however, is a whole other story.

Photo mysteries

Tags

1930s, 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, capping, Christchurch, food science, Helensburgh, languages, Maori, medicine, microbiology, physical education, recreation, St Margaret's

This is a plea for help! Today’s post is rather different from previous ones. I’m posting some photographs I’d like to know more about. Some have appeared on the blog previously, while others are new. They’re all interesting images that I’m thinking of including in the University of Otago history book, and it would be great to have more details before they appear in print. Do you recognise any of the people or places or activities, or can you help with missing dates? If so, I’d love to hear from you, either by a comment on this post, or by email or letter (the ‘about’ page has a link to my university staff page with contact details).

I’ve gathered lots of images from archival, personal and departmental collections over the last few years, but I’m still short in some areas. In particular, I’m keen to locate photos relating to activities involving the commerce division/school of business and the humanities division (though I have a good supply of photos for the languages departments). Zoology, maths and psychology are other departments I’d like to find more images for. Where more general images of student life are concerned, I’d love to find a few photos relating to life in student flats and to lodgings and landladies. I have plenty of capping parade photos, but some other photos of student activities would be great. Overall, the 1980s are a bit of a gap in my lists of potential illustrations, so I’m on the lookout especially for anything from that decade, and to a lesser extent the 1960s, 1970s and 1990s. Another major gap is for images relating to the Christchurch, Wellington and Invercargill campuses. If you have any interesting photos you would be willing to lend to the project, please do get in touch!

Now, on with the mystery photos …

1. Gentlemen dining

Image courtesy of the Hocken Collections, Irvine family papers, MS-4207/006, S16-669a.

These gentlemen, about to indulge in a little fine dining at the Christchurch Club, have connections to the early years of the Christchurch Clinical School (now the University of Otago, Christchurch). Those I have identified so far were either senior Christchurch medical men or Otago administrators and members of the Christchurch Clinical School Council. That council was organised in 1971 and met for the first time in 1972. Max Panckhurst, an Otago chemistry professor who was on the council, died in 1976, so the photo must date from before that, and since it also features Robin Williams, who completed his term as Otago Vice-Chancellor in 1973, it probably comes from the early 1970s. Do you know the exact occasion or year?

The men I have identified are, starting from Max Panckhurst, who is closest to the camera with fair curly hair, and working clockwise: LM Berry, Carl Perkins, George Rolleston, Robin Williams, Leslie Averill, Alan Burdekin (Christchurch Club manager,standing), Bill Adams, LA Bennett, Robin Irvine, unknown, unknown, Pat Cotter (partly obscured), D Horne, Don Beaven, unknown, Fred Shannon, Athol Mann, JL Laurenson. Do you recognise anybody else? Or have I got any of these wrong? Some other potential candidates, who were also on the Clinical School Council, are EA Crothall, DP Girvan, TC Grigg and CF Whitty.

2. Burgers

Were you a Burger? After I published a story about Helensburgh House, a student hall of residence in the former Wakari nurses’ home, I met up with Glenys Roome, who had been its warden. She kindly shared some photos, including these three. Helensburgh House ran from 1984 to 1991 – I’d love to identify which year these were taken, and perhaps some names!

 

3. The missing singer

Photo courtesy of Michael Shackleton.

All but one of the members of the 1952 sextet in this photo are identified – can you help with the full name of the young man third from left? His first name was John. The lineup was, from left: Linley Ellis, Richard Bush, John ?, Keith Monagan, Michael Shackleton, Brian McMahon. The story of the sextet featured in an earlier post.

4. On the rocks

Image courtesy of the Hocken Collections, Otago University Tramping Club records, 96-063/036, S15-592b.

This is one of my favourite photos – it’s already featured on the blog a couple of times and is sure to end up in the book! In the original tramping club album it is identified as being at Mihiwaka, but somebody kindly pointed out when I posted about the tramping club that this is most likely taken from Mount Cargill. Do you recognise this spot? And can you identify any of the 1946 trampers?

5. Phys-eders

The School of Physical Education, Sport and Exercise Sciences has kindly shared some of their photo collection. The photograph on the beams was taken in the 1970s – were you there, and do you know the exact year? How about the others – any ideas where and when they were taken, or who the people are? I published a post about the early years of the phys ed school in an earlier post, and there are photos on that I’d love to have more information about too, so please take a look!

6. Te Huka Mātauraka

Photo courtesy of the Māori Centre

This photo was taken outside the Māori Centre, Te Huka Mātauraka, in 2002 and featured in a post about the centre. Can you identify anybody?

7. Microbiologists

Image courtesy of the Hocken Collections, Department of Physiology records, r.6681, S16-521c.

This photograph is a good example of the value of this blog. In the original, the man is identified as Franz Bielschowsky, of the cancer research laboratory. When I included it in a story featuring Bielschowsky, people informed me that the man here is actually Leopold Kirschner, a microbiologist working in the Medical Research Council Microbiology Unit. It was probably taken in 1949. Typically for that period, the female assistant is not named – do you know who she is? What, exactly, are they doing? I suspect health and safety procedures have changed since then!

Image courtesy of the Hocken Collections, University of Otago Photographic Unit records, MS-4185/042, S15-500d.

Here’s another microbiology-related photo, taken during the first hands-on science camp in 1990 – it featured in an earlier post about hands-on science. Can you identify any of these high school students? I’m curious to know if any of them ended up as University of Otago students!

8. The St Margaret’s ball

Image courtesy of Peter Chin.

This photograph, taken at an early 1960s St Margaret’s ball, featured in a story about Chinese students at Otago. At centre front are Jocelyn Wong and Peter Chin – can you identify anybody else? Exactly which year was it?

9. Picnickers

 

Image courtesy of Alexander Turnbull Library, Ref: 1/2-166716-F. http://natlib.govt.nz/records/22884184

The Latin picnic was a popular event in the early twentieth century. This photo was taken at Whare Flat in 1932 – it featured in an earlier post about writers at the university. People identified so far include Dan Davin, on the far right, with Angus Ross in front of him and Christopher Johnson to Davin’s right. Other students include Frank Hall (back left), Winnie McQuilkan (centre front) and Ida Lawson (in dark jacket behind her). The Classics staff, Prof Thomas Dagger Adams and Mary Turnbull, are at front left. Can you identify anybody else?

10. In the food science lab

I featured these mystery photos quite some time ago on the blog, and people have identified Rachel Noble, a 1980s student, as the woman in the centre of the bottom image. The food scientists tell me these students were in the yellow lab, possibly working on an experimental foods course or the product development course run by Richard Beyer. Can you help with the date, or identify any of the other students?

Images courtesy of the Hocken Collections, from the archives of the Association of Home Science Alumnae of NZ, MS-1516/082, S13-556b (above) and S13-556c (below).

 

I have quite a few other photograph puzzles, but will save those for future posts!

Update

Thanks very much to those of you who have identified some of the mystery people already – yay! And thanks for the kind offers of further photographs. For those with photographs, here are a few instructions. If they’re already digital, that’s great. If you are scanning them, it would help if you make them high resolution (say 300dpi), preferably in TIFF format, but JPEGs are okay. If they are hard copy, I’m happy to scan them for you if you’re willing to lend them to me – I promise to return them promptly. I can pick up items if you’re in Dunedin, otherwise you can post them to me (it’s probably easiest if you send them to Ali Clarke, c/o Hocken Collections, University of Otago, PO Box 56, Dunedin 9054). Remember if you’re sending images that you need to be willing for them to appear, potentially, in the new university history book (due out 2019) or on this blog! I’ll send you a form to sign granting permission for their use in university publications. Any published photos will be attributed to you; do let me know if there’s a photographer I should clear copyright with as well. Thanks 🙂

 

Scientific women

Tags

1910s, 1920s, 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, botany, chemistry, home science, marine science, microbiology, physics, psychology, women, zoology

Winifred Betts, Otago’s first specialist botany lecturer. Image courtesy of the Hocken Collections, Botany Department archives,  r.6461, S14-586a.

There’s been a fair bit of discussion recently about sexism in science. This has inspired me to write about some of the women academics who led the way for women in the sciences at Otago. Their path was not always easy, and for many decades the university was more willing to employ gifted women than to promote them, but they made important contributions to teaching and research and deserve better attention. Some have already appeared on this blog: marine biologist Betty Batham here; and Muriel Bell, Elizabeth Gregory and Marion Robinson all feature on this post about nutrition research. Today’s story, therefore, concentrates on some of Otago’s other women scientists.

Winifred (Winnie) Betts was Otago’s first botany lecturer, though it is telling that botany officially dated its beginning as an independent department from 1924, when her male successor, John Holloway, commenced as lecturer. Botany classes were taught from the university’s early years by the professor of natural science, later the professor of biology, but these men specialised in zoology rather than botany, and it was irksome having to teach both subjects to the growing student body. Recent zoology honours graduate Winifred Farnie was assistant lecturer in biology in 1917 and 1918, but in 1919, after some years of trying, biology professor William Benham managed to persuade the university council that it was time that botany had its own lecturer. Winnie Betts was just 25 years old when she commenced this new position at the beginning of 1920. Born in Moteuka, she was educated at Nelson College for Girls and the University of Otago, graduating BSc in 1916 and MSc in 1917. She then received a National Research Scholarship – one was awarded at each university each year. This provided her with an income of £100 a year along with lab expenses so she could carry out independent research. In 1919, at a lecture to an admittedly partisan audience in Nelson, distinguished botanist Leonard Cockayne described Betts as ‘the most brilliant woman scientist in New Zealand’. In December 1920 Winnie Betts married another brilliant Otago graduate, the mathematician Alexander Aitken. Aitken, whose studies were interrupted by war service (he was badly wounded at the Somme), was by then teaching at Otago Boys’ High School. This was an era when most women left paid employment when they married, so it is intriguing that Winnie Aitken continued working as botany lecturer for some years. That came to an end in December 1923, when the Aitkens moved to Scotland to further Alexander’s academic career (he eventually became professor of mathematics at the University of Edinburgh).

Several other women were appointed to the biological sciences between the wars; all had started out at Otago as outstanding students. Marion Fyfe became a zoology lecturer in 1921 and when Beryl Brewin joined her in 1936 women thereby accounted for two-thirds of the zoology academic staff! They remained to teach generations of Otago students: Fyfe retired in 1957 and ‘live wire’ Brewin in 1963. Both were by then senior lecturers and Fyfe, described as ‘the backbone’ of the zoology department, had acted as its head on some occasions. Ella Campbell became assistant lecturer in botany in 1937, leaving to become the first woman academic at Massey University in 1945. An expert on liverworts, she was made a Dame in 1997 for her contribution as ‘a pioneer in the field of university botanic research’. When Campbell left, Brenda Slade (later Brenda Shore) became assistant lecturer in botany; she had just finished a BSc in the department. She later took leave to complete a PhD at Cambridge in her specialist field of leaf development, then returned to Otago, eventually retiring as associate professor in 1982. Two other biology students of that generation returned to Otago after overseas study and research. One was the aforementioned Betty Batham, who returned with a Cambridge PhD in 1950 to become first director of the Portobello Marine Biology Station, newly taken over by the university. Another was Ann Wylie, recruited back to Otago’s botany department in 1961 to take responsibility for teaching in the rapidly-developing field of cytology and genetics. Like her colleague Brenda Shore, with whom she had first taught in the botany department in 1945 when lecturer John Holloway became ill, Wylie eventually rose to the status of associate professor, retiring in 1987. I have had the pleasure of interviewing Ann Wylie, who is still active and sharp-witted in her nineties. She recalls that women were well accepted in zoology and botany and she did not experience prejudice, though she also notes that women lecturers behaved as ‘honorary men’; it was they who had to adapt rather than the men. There was a strong sense of collegiality between women academics from various departments and they often socialised together.

Agnes Blackie, photographed around the 1960s, at the end of her long career as a physics lecturer. Image courtesy of the Hocken Collections, c/nE5302/11A, S16-521e.

The physical sciences weren’t so welcoming of women staff in this period. The school of mines and departments of geology, mathematics and chemistry remained resolutely male until later in the twentieth century. Indeed, the only woman academic in the physical sciences at Otago for many decades was Agnes Blackie in physics. She was appointed assistant lecturer in the department in 1919, eventually retiring as senior lecturer in 1958, though she continued teaching part-time for some years after that. The petite Blackie, who fell in love with physics as an Otago undergraduate, stood out in this largely male domain. Long-serving physics technician Stan Hughes, who started in the mid-1920s, recalled: ‘In the distance I saw this schoolgirl who later turned out to be Miss Agnes Blackie …. Agnes was very quiet with very thin features and my first impression was that a couple of mutton pies would do her the world of good’. In her early years, working with students sometimes older than herself (including returned servicemen), she had to endure considerable teasing, but was a gifted teacher who earned the affection and respect of generations of students, especially those who struggled with physics. She taught a range of students in addition to those specialising in physics, such as physiotherapy students learning about electricity and radiation, music students studying acoustics and home science students learning about household electricity and appliances, energy and calories, ventilation and humidity. Many a future doctor or dentist only made it through their compulsory physics course thanks to Blackie’s helpful teaching.

Not all of Otago’s pioneering women scientists were home-grown. Englishwomen Winifred Boys-Smith and Helen Rawson were the founding staff of the new home science school, whose courses commenced in 1911. Both had completed the natural science tripos at Cambridge but were unable to obtain degrees because they were women. Boys-Smith was Otago’s – and New Zealand’s – first female professor and Rawson succeeded her in the chair of home science. Otago chemistry professor James Black, by then in his seventies, had his doubts about these women’s scientific abilities. The first two home science degree students later recalled that when they progressed ‘from Professor Black’s Chemistry to take Applied Chemistry under Miss Rawson, they were informed in no indefinite words as to his grave doubts of Miss Rawson’s knowledge of things chemical. “A fine lassie, but is she sound on the soda-ammonia process? I’ll put it down on paper for her,” said the dear old man’. Rawson’s ‘brilliant career’ at Cambridge and London evidently counted for nothing to him. Home science did, to some extent, segregate capable women from the ‘pure’ science courses, but it also offered them opportunities. The degree students took advanced courses in chemistry, and many went on to become school teachers in the pure sciences as well as home economics. Some became highly-regarded researchers and academics, either overseas (Neige Todhunter is a good example) or in New Zealand (such as Elizabeth Gregory and Marion Robinson, mentioned above).

Helen Thomson (centre back) teaching a laboratory class on the chemistry of the household at the School of Home Science in 1936. Thomson was one of numerous women who made an academic career in science through the school. After completing undergraduate and master’s degrees there, she was appointed lecturer in 1931 and remained on staff for 30 years, taking leave for overseas research. She graduated with a PhD in textile chemistry from Leeds University in 1947. Image courtesy of the Hocken Collections, Consumer and Applied Science records, 97-081/4, S16-521a.

Another English import was Betty Bernardelli, who arrived at Otago in 1948 and took charge of the psychology laboratory (then part of the philosophy department). She had qualifications from Oxford and Cambridge, and had been officer in charge of psychological testing in the vocational advice service of the Royal Air Force during the war. She came to New Zealand with her husband Harro Bernadelli, who became lecturer in the economics department; in 1961 they left Otago for posts at the University of Auckland. The appointment of Bernardelli, a married woman, represented progress; an earlier generation of women academics had been single on appointment and mostly resigned if they married (a notable Otago example was home science professor Helen Rawson, whose academic career ended on her marriage to geology professor Noel Benson in 1923). It would be many years, however, before most people welcomed the advent of married women on the academic staff. Margaret Loutit came from Australia to Otago in 1956, when her husband John Loutit was appointed lecturer in the microbiology department. Already armed with an MSc, she obtained part-time work as a botany demonstrator and then microbiology lecturer while working on a PhD. As the working mother of young children she experienced considerable criticism, often from other women (notably the wives of other academic staff). Her salary was mostly absorbed in paying for private childcare; there were no crèche facilities at that time. However, her hard work was rewarded with the completion of her PhD in 1966 and in the following year she became a full-time staff member. Margaret Loutit was a gifted teacher and productive researcher in soil and water microbiology; she also made important contributions to university administration. She was promoted to a personal chair in 1981. John Loutit had become a professor in 1970, so they had the then rare status of ‘professorial spouses’.

There were other scientific women who held academic posts in the medical school: noted researchers Marianne Bielschowsky and Barbara Heslop, for example. However, there isn’t room to do justice to their achievements here, so I’ll have to save those for another time …

Otago’s pioneering women scientists – some of whom ended their careers not so very long ago – achieved remarkable things in the face of considerable difficulties. In proving the capability of women in the academic world of science they made things a little easier for those who followed and I am delighted to be able to pay tribute to them here. Do you have any stories to share of women in science at Otago?

Building the sciences

Tags

1970s, 2010s, biochemistry, chemistry, human nutrition, mathematics, microbiology, physics

Construction underway on the Science I and biochemistry buildings, around 1970. Image courtesy of Arthur Campbell.

With work now underway on a major redevelopment of the Science I building, it seems a good time to look back at the beginnings of this and the four large science buildings which neighbour it: Science II (like Science I, occupied by chemistry and human nutrition), Science III (physics, maths and statistics and the science library), the biochemistry building and the microbiology building.

These buildings were part of a major expansion of the university campus during the 1960s and 1970s, necessary to cater for rapidly rising student numbers. Growth was particularly evident in the science departments, which were straining at the seams in their original locations (now known as the registry and geology buildings). The Interim Science Building (discussed in an earlier blog post), provided some extra space from 1965, but much more was needed. In 1960 there were 300 students studying in the science faculty, by 1970 there were 1420 and by 1977, when the last of the five buildings was completed, there were 1663 science students. Meanwhile, moving microbiology and biochemistry into new buildings provided more space in the medical school, which also had to cater for a growing roll.

Development began with the demolition of existing buildings in the block bounded by Cumberland, St David, Castle and Union streets, which once accommodated around 100 low-cost dwellings, crowded together along little alleyways. In late 1968 construction commenced on the first new building, then known as the chemistry phase I building, with the department moving in early in 1971. Science I, as it is now called, was designed by Ministry of Works architects in light and dark tones of grey to ‘blend in’ with the older university buildings. Next out of the ground was the biochemistry building, designed by Allingham, Harrison and Partners as a home for this rapidly growing department, previously squeezed into the Lindo Ferguson Building with much of the medical school. Next was the chemistry research building (Science II), which adjoined the first two buildings on the east, along Castle Street. Designed by John Aimers of Mason and Wales, this ten-storey building towered over the campus; it was occupied in 1973.

Special attention was paid to the appearance of the fourth building in the complex, the microbiology building, designed by architectural firm Miller, White and Dunn. ‘We are taking particular care with the external treatment of the façade and the over-all form of the building’, explained E.A. Dews, the head of university works and services. ‘We want it to look a particularly attractive building since it is to be the focal point for the approach to the university’. There was a plan at the time to make a road from this point of Cumberland Street to the clock tower, which would make the building the ‘front door’ of the campus. The project was brought forward to cater for an increase in medical student numbers; like biochemistry, microbiology had previously been squeezed into the medical school buildings. Construction started late in 1972 and was competed in 1974. In the same year work started on the final building in the science complex, Science III. The design for this large building was a joint-project of the Ministry of Works and Allingham, Harris and Partners; its foundations required ‘one of the largest single [concrete] pours to be laid on a Dunedin site’, noted the Evening Star newspaper. It opened in 1977 to house the physics department and science library, with mathematics moving in a little later.

All of this building was a great boon to local trades firms. Fletcher Construction Ltd, which had grown into a building powerhouse since its small beginnings in Dunedin early in the century, was main contractor for the first three science buildings. The next two contracts went to another large firm, Naylor Love Construction Ltd. Building seems to have gone reasonably smoothly, but there was one major exception. In 1971, as a crane was lifted from one floor to another of the partially-completed Science II building, a wire rope broke and the crane fell 15 feet, landing on two young workers. One of them, Kenneth Copland, was killed.

The new science buildings feature at top right of this late-1970s aerial view of the central Dunedin campus. See this earlier blog post for further discussion of this image. Photograph courtesy of the Hocken Collections, S12-192J.

Opinions varied on the design of these buildings. Where space was concerned, they were a great improvement for the sciences. Chemistry researchers, for instance, had previously squeezed into the attics and basements of what is now the geology building, in conditions considered unsafe even in those less safety-conscious days; now they had two large purpose-designed buildings. The buildings were also well equipped. New biochemistry professor George Petersen put many hours into his application for the grant to equip the new building, accounting for every last rubber bung together with the expensive new machines needed for the best teaching and research. The department eventually obtained a government grant for over six million dollars in today’s values to equip the biochemistry building; it was, recalls Petersen, as well equipped as any biochemistry department he had seen and helped attract good staff to Otago.

All that concrete architecture took some getting used to, though. Stan Hughes, who had been a technician in the physics department since the 1920s, found the design of the Science III building ‘rather severe’. He preferred the old building (the south end of what is now the registry), which was ‘marvellous – every floor was different’. It was ‘pleasant to walk around’ and also ‘so variable that it is adaptable’. Four decades later, opinions of the architectural style of the 1970s science precinct remain mixed. The 2010 campus master plan noted that the science buildings were ‘from an architectural period that was not renowned for the subtlety of its aesthetics’, with somebody once describing Science II as ‘being designed by Stalin’s personal architect’. Part of the current project to redevelop Science I involves a new exterior design ‘to play down the concrete box appearance in favour of softened architectural lines’. The need to re-clad concrete buildings of this era for technical reasons – 1960s and 70s construction techniques have not stood the test of time, with surfaces crumbling – has already provided an opportunity for a little restyling. Recladding of the microbiology building was completed in 2010, though not everybody approves of its new look – a friend now calls it the Joan Rivers building, in honour of its ‘garish’ recladding!

Whatever you think of its style, the science precinct has been highly significant in the university’s history. Generations of students have learned all about science in its laboratories and lecture rooms and much exciting research has emerged from these buildings. Do you have any memories to share of the science complex?

The newly-refurbished microbiology building in 2010. Photograph courtesy of University of Otago Marketing and Communications.

PhDs by the thousand

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1920s, 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, accounting, biochemistry, botany, chemistry, economics, history, medicine, microbiology, PhD, physiology, postgraduates, research

A PhD is well worth celebrating! Graduates on 13 December 2014. Photo by Michael Thomas, courtesy of University of Otago Marketing and Communications.

In 2007 the University of Otago reached a milestone so significant it held a gala ball at Larnach Castle. A large group of postgraduate students gathered for a convivial evening, celebrating the enrolment of over 1000 PhD students at Otago that year. Students of a century earlier could not have imagined such an event. They would have been shocked at the numbers, for a start, but many would also have no idea what a PhD was. The growth of the premier research degree is one of the significant changes in university life over recent decades.

PhDs are a fairly recent phenomenon in the British and colonial world. The PhD as a higher research degree had its origins in Berlin in the early 1800s and was adopted in the USA from the 1860s. Oxford did not pick up the baton until 1917 but by 1919 it was in all British universities. The University of New Zealand – the federal authority which set the syllabus, conducted exams and awarded degrees for all universities here until 1961 – introduced the PhD degree in 1922, but the programme quickly ran into problems thanks to a requirement for full-time study. That made it less flexible than existing higher degrees, which had been around since the 19^th century. By 1900 three Otago students had earned a Doctor of Science degree, three were Doctors of Laws and four Doctors of Medicine. For those degrees students presented a thesis or publication, completed without any supervision from the university. Settling on a uniform standard for the PhD was another difficulty and, in the face of few enrolments, in 1926 the University of New Zealand abolished the PhD degree.

By the time existing students had completed, there were just nine graduates from the University of New Zealand’s first experiment with the PhD. Three were from Otago, and it’s nice that they were distributed around three of the current four academic divisions: sciences, humanities and commerce. The honour of being the first Otago student to graduate PhD, in 1927, goes to Rudolf Penseler, whose thesis was ‘Experiments on the Synthesis of Apofenchocamphoric Acid’, completed in the chemistry department. He later did further research in England and Germany before returning to a varied career in New Zealand. Following Penseler, James Salmond graduated with a PhD in history in 1928 and Walter Boraman in economics in 1929. Boraman became a secondary teacher and school inspector, while Salmond became a minister, educator and leader in the Presbyterian Church (Salmond College is named for him and his sister).

Arthur Campbell teaching in the first-year chemistry lab in the early 1950s. He was lecturing during the day and working on his own research at night. Image courtesy of Arthur Campbell.

After World War Two, as the country came to value increasingly the research work being done in universities, the PhD degree was re-introduced, this time to stay. Otago’s first post-war PhD graduate was Richard (Dick) Batt, a chemist, in 1948. Like quite a few of that generation of PhD graduates he went on to a distinguished academic career, in his case at Massey University, where he became a noted alcohol researcher. The next made his career closer to home. Arthur Campbell, who was once Batt’s flatmate, graduated PhD in 1953. With the regulations now more flexible, he was able to complete his research part-time while working as an assistant lecturer; in fact he did most of his work late at night in the laboratory. After completing he spent some time researching in Glasgow before returning to the Otago chemistry department, where he later became professor. He eventually retired in 1987, noted as ‘an analytical chemist without peer’. A second 1953 graduate – Lyle Fastier, based in the medical school – completed ‘an experimental study of the mouse encephalomyelitis group of viruses’. The following year Margaret Di Menna became Otago’s – and New Zealand’s – first female PhD graduate, with her microbiology thesis on ‘Yeasts of the human body: their nature and relationships’.

By the end of the 1950s another ten PhD graduates had been added to Otago’s credit, all of them in chemistry and biochemistry with one exception, which was in botany. Through the 1960s the Otago PhD slowly grew in popularity, though it took a while before the prejudice against ‘colonial’ degrees was lost and the best scholars no longer felt compelled to travel overseas for doctoral work. The colonial cringe is now long gone, with candidates coming from all over the world to study here. Good Otago staff attracted good research students, with the medical school a particularly important draw for researchers. Though fields of study broadened through the 1960s and 1970s, a very large proportion of Otago PhDs in those decades were in biochemistry, physiology and microbiology, together with chemistry. Funding was significant in attracting students too. After the devolution of scholarships, once run nationally by the University Grants Committee, Otago committed heavily to providing support for PhD students. In 1995 it boasted of being the New Zealand leader in postgraduate support, granting 97 scholarships (paying full fees plus $12,000) to PhD candidates, plus 89 awards to masters students. Scholarships assumed ever greater significance as the government reduced the duration of its financial support to students.

In 1995 Otago had just under 500 PhD candidates in a wide variety of fields, with 38% in the sciences, 34% in health sciences, 19% in humanities and 9% in commerce. The following year Paul Theivananthampillai became the 1000^th person to graduate with an Otago PhD (the count began in 1962, following the abolition of the University of New Zealand). Like many before him the 1000^th graduate was already an Otago staff member; he completed his study on ‘the coalignment of strategic control systems’ while lecturing in the Department of Accountancy. The next 1000 Otago PhD graduates took just nine years to produce. Now (June 2015), the University of Otago boasts 3514 PhD graduates, together with 25 who graduated under the old federal system. Their research represents a pretty significant contribution to the sum of human knowledge! Some of that knowledge can now be accessed freely on the Otago University Research Archive, which has digital versions of many Otago PhDs – happy reading!

PhD graduates during the 25 August 2012 ceremony. Image courtesy of University of Otago Marketing and Communications.

Recruiting scientists

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1980s, 1990s, 2000s, 2010s, anatomy, chemistry, computer science, mathematics, microbiology, neuroscience, physical education

Looking at bacteria on an agar model of a set of teeth during the microbiology project at the first Hands-on science camp, 1990. Image courtesy of the Hocken Collections, University of Otago Photographic Unit records, MS-4185/042, S15-500d.

Recruiting good students is a priority for every university department. Everybody wants to attract the brightest and the best, but there is no shortage of competition from other subjects and other universities. Attracting interest early is essential, for once students have dropped a subject in school, they are unlikely to consider it as an option for tertiary study. In 1987 Donald McGregor, Dean of Otago’s Faculty of Science, noted “grave and widespread concerns over science and mathematics education in New Zealand”. Students were less well prepared than a few years earlier, many were turning away from science at an early age, and a much smaller proportion of the brightest students were enrolling in tertiary science courses.

Some individual science departments had already established programmes to promote their subjects in schools – for example, in 1985 the Department of Mathematics and Statistics started a junior maths competition and, together with the Department of Computer Science, organised a national computer art competition. Now the Science Faculty set up a Science-Link Committee to foster links with schools and promote science in the community, and also a Science Education Forum for concerned educators to support one another in advancing science and maths education at all levels in Otago. University scientists took part in a wide variety of activities to promote science in schools, ranging from more competitions and science fairs to an adopt-a-scientist programme and a junior chemistry club (for intermediate school children).

One of the boldest new schemes of the Science Education Forum had a national reach and included all of the sciences. Hands-on science brought a group of secondary students of ‘exceptional’ ability to Otago in January 1990 for a week of science activities – Gerry Carrington, convenor of the organising committee, described it as an “outward bound school for scientists”. The first science camp was an enormous success, setting a pattern which has continued ever since. In the mornings students worked in small groups on a challenging project designed by one of the university departments and guided by staff and tutors. The afternoons were taken up by a more relaxed recreation programme, allowing them to explore the Dunedin environs. Participants from out of town – about 100 of the 140 involved that first year – stayed in one of the residential colleges, and organisers arranged sponsorship for those who could not afford the expenses.

Some intense work underway during the anatomy project at Hands-on science, 2015. Image courtesy of Hands-on science.

After that first year, described by students as “exciting and inspiring”, Hands-on science became a fixture on the university calendar every January, attracting more applications each year. Eventually the roll settled at around 240, with many turned away (there were 520 applicants for this year’s course). As well as their research projects, students listened to inspiring lectures. A programme of “science snacks”, allowing participants to get a briefer taste of a wide variety of science activities, was later added to the afternoon schedule, though there were still a few purely recreational activities on offer, including quizzes, discos and outdoor challenges.

It’s not all serious! Students demonstrate the ascent of humanity during Campus Capers, a treasure hunt to familiarise students with the campus, 2013. Image courtesy of Hands-on science.

In its first 26 years Hands-on science has proved an effective recruitment tool for the sciences and, more specifically, for the sciences at Otago – around 40% of those attending end up as Otago students. More than half the participants some years are female, so it has helped encourage women into science careers. In more recent years there has also been increasing interest in the programme from Maori, who have been, traditionally, much under-represented in the sciences. Hands-on science has also proved particularly valuable for young people from small towns, giving them an opportunity to meet others with an interest in science.

Unsurprisingly for a programme designed for exceptional students, there have been some remarkable individuals attending Hands-on science. Perhaps the best-known to date is Chris Butcher, one of the engineers who created the Halo computer games. For some, the programme has determined their entire career. Christopher Lind, a 16-year-old from Rangiora, was inspired by Otago’s Brian Hyland, who explained the science of studying the brain and its functions. “I knew right then I wanted to be a neurosurgeon… I thought the brain sounded interesting and brain surgery was a frontier science”, he commented to the Otago Daily Times when he returned to Dunedin for a conference in 2009. Lind graduated in medicine from Otago and is now a neurosurgical professor in Perth, Australia.

With stories like this it is no wonder the people behind Hands-on science felt reason to celebrate last year when they held the 25th programme! Do you have any stories to share of Hands-on science? And can you help identify any of the participants in the photographs?

The physical education project at a recent Hands-on science course. Image courtesy of Hands-on science.