THE UNIVERSITY’S PART

Evening Star, Issue 23376, 20 September 1939, Page 5

THE UNIVERSITY’S PART

MOTION EXPRESSING LOYALTY ASSURANCE TO STUDENTS AND STAFF At the meeting of the Council of the University of Otago yesterday afternoon tho Chancellor (Mr W. J. Morrell) said it was fitting that the council should lake note of the serious way in which the Dominion and the Empire had been affected by the outbreak of war. It would be remembered, said the Chancellor, how, during the last war, the University had achieved a high and noble record, and he believed that this would be repeated on the present occasion,' when honour and justice and freedom were bound up in the cause of Britain and her Allies. The Chancellor then moved “ That the Council of the University of Otago at this, its first, .meeting since the outbreak of war pledges its devoted loyalty to the King and to the British Commonwealth of Nations, and tenders to the Government of New Zealand every assistance which the University and its scientific departments or otherwise may be able to render. It also gives the assurance that the welfare of any member of the University staff or the students’ body, who may be called up for service, will, so far as lies in the council’s power, bo duly safeguarded.” Mr J. Robertson, in seconding the motion, said the council had the experience of the past to go upon, and it was just as well to set out the position from the beginning. The motion showed where the svmpathv of the council lay. and made it clear that nothing would bo done to block the way of any student or member of the staff who offered his or her services. They had in the University, said Mr Robertson, some of the most highly-trained scientists in the Dominion, and tho war was goinor to be carried on by the highest schnitific principles. The motion was carried.