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.

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.

50 years of psychology

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1880s, 1960s, 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, 2010s, mental science, philosophy, psychology, technology

The Department of Psychology neuroscience lab in the 1980s. From the University of Otago Handbook for Intending Students – Science & Surveying, 1989.

One of the university’s significant milestones this year is the 50th anniversary of one of its largest departments, psychology. In 1964 Stephen Griew arrived from Bristol to become Otago’s first Professor of Psychology and in the following year, assisted by two lecturers, began teaching papers which would enable students to major in psychology for a BSc or BA degree and go on to postgraduate study.

Psychology had been taught at Otago for many years prior to the foundation of the department, but it was part of the philosophy programme. The roots of the discipline are reflected in one of its early names, experimental philosophy. At Otago it formed part of the subject known as mental science, or mental and moral philosophy. In 1882 the course in mental science covered three areas: psychology, ethics and logic. The psychology lectures examined “Outlines of the physiology of the nervous system; Instinct; the senses and the intellect; Abstraction, with outlines of the Realistic Controversy; Perception, with outlines of the chief ancient and modern theories.” Though courses in psychology expanded over the years, they remained part of the philosophy programme and it wasn’t possible to study psychology at an advanced level without majoring in philosophy. Students completing a science degree could complete a psychology paper without also studying philosophy, but had to do more laboratory work than arts majors, and had no options for more advanced study.

The introduction of the full degree programme for psychology in the 1960s reflected a growing demand for this field of study and about 90 students completed the first-year course – described in the calendar as “a synoptic introduction to the experimental study of behaviour” – in 1965. Otago was certainly not ahead of the times: Victoria, Canterbury and Auckland universities had all separated their philosophy and psychology departments in the 1950s. The department’s first PhD graduate, in 1968, was Michael Davison, who came to Otago from Bristol to study with Griew; he went on to a distinguished career at the University of Auckland. Another early PhD graduate was Geoff White, who had been one of those pioneering first-year students in 1965. After some years teaching at Victoria University of Wellington, he returned to Otago in 1985, becoming professor and head of department in 1988; his success in developing the research culture of the department resulted in his later appointment as the university’s Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research). His successor as DVC was another professor from the department, Harlene Hayne, who is now Otago’s Vice-Chancellor. The department takes pride in its ranking as New Zealand’s top academic unit for research, across all disciplines, achieved in the 2012 Performance-Based Research Fund assessment.

In 1986 the department set up a new first-year laboratory course using a new microcomputer network, developed using the staff’s DIY skills. This proved very popular and some of the experiments are still used in courses nearly thirty years later. By the mid-1990s there were over 1000 first-year students; fortunately there were also numerous PhD students who could serve as demonstrators. The rapidly growing department put a strain on resources, especially buildings. For many years it was scattered around various old houses and prefabs, and parts of the department are still there today. The Goddard Laboratories were purpose-built in 1989 to cater for the growing undergraduate classes. They are named after Professor Graham Goddard, the head of department who tragically drowned in a flash flood while tramping in 1987. In 2000 another new building meant the animal laboratories finally had adequate housing, rather than a leaky Nissen Hut. The William James Building, opened in 2012, provided a large purpose-built space with facilities for teaching, research and staff offices.

Do you have any memories to share from the early years of the Department of Psychology? Do you recall performing experiments using the 1980s computer network, or in the neuroscience lab (pictured above)?

A tale of two departments

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Computing, 1960s and 1970s style

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1960s, 1970s, computers, registry, technology, timetables

No, this is not the control room of a retro spaceship:meet the IBM 360/30, installed at the University of Otago in 1966. It could store a massive 16KB of data! By 1971 it had been expanded and, according to the university calendar, had “32K bytes of storage, a 400 cards-per-minute card-reader, a 240 lines-per minute lineprinter and two disk drives. The computer is available for use by any University department and as one of the disk drives may be used for replaceable disk packs, large amounts of information can be stored.”

University administrators caught on to the new technology and installed their own computer in the registry slightly earlier. Retired Registrar Tim Gray, who worked in the Otago registry for 40 years, remembers its arrival: it took up most of a room. Staff entered data using punch cards, and any new program required a computer expert and extensive wiring of boards. First to be computerised were enrolment data and student records, and the computer also produced bursary cheques. Gradually computer programs took over more and more of the most laborious administrative tasks, such as figuring out the exam timetable. Mr Gray first learned the art of manual exam timetabling from long-serving Academic Registrar Jean Riley. The two of them spent three weeks in August shuffling pieces of graph paper around Miss Riley’s lounge floor, until they had devised a scheme where no student had two exams on the same day!

Then, as now, computers also brought their own problems, as an “Important newsflash to all users” from 1976 reveals (printed, of course, for there was no email in those days). On 23 December disaster had struck: “the whole of the disk storage was corrupted by the writing of ‘PROCES’ in every word. This destroyed all holdfiles, all then current userfiles, the current job file, the log, and the editor tankfile.” This was, the newsflash noted, “quite a Christmas present from System 205!”

Advances in technology are perhaps the greatest change that has come to the university over recent decades. Today computers and other digital devices abound and the libraries are full of students tapping away on laptops. The University of Otago now has one of the largest IT operations in New Zealand (in 2010 only the University of Auckland and Fonterra were bigger). Some of the same rules still apply: don’t forget to back up your data! Do you remember using the early Otago computers?