FIRST FULL-TIME PRINCIPAL

New Zealand Listener, Volume 17, Issue 434, 17 October 1947, Page 18

FIRST FULL-TIME PRINCIPAL

‘Victoria College Looks to the Future

ICTORIA University College is the first of the constituent Colleges of the University of New Zealand to have a full-time _principal, and it is expected that the others wil} follow suit in course of time, thus simplifying the problems of administration which face them at present. Sir Thomas Hunter, K.B.E., M.A., M.Sc., whose appointment to this position was recently announced, has been acting as principal in a part-time capacity since 1938, in addition to carrying out his professorial duties. He now expects to relinquish the Chair of Philosophy and Psychology and take up his new duties es from January 1, 1948. "This is one of the most important steps in the process of co-ordinating the work of University education in New Zealand,’ Sir Thomas expiained to The Listener. Many factors had contributed to its being taken. The chief of these was the greatly increased number of students (they had increased from 200 to 2,300 during his association with the College), and the consequent expansion of teaching departments, involving a much greater amount of administrative work than ever before. The problem of obtaining funds from the Government and making arrangements for additional buildings, staff, or equipment, required the services of a body of fulltime administrators who were not handicapped by teaching duties and who could, if necessary, travel the country in order to decide the relative urgency of requests from the individual Colleges. At present the annual University Conference was held at which such matters were discussed, but it was not a

complete success. Each College considered its own needs the most pressing, and there were no competent independent observers who could arbitrate on such matters. Sir Thomas said there was now a possibility that there might be a higher body appointed to take the place of the Conference, a body which could advise the Senate on administrative problems and on matters of policy -for instance, on the proposal to form a new forestry school. There had not in the past been such administrative officers, and it was expected that the effect of this on university administration would be extensive end beneficial. "Is the appointment connected with the desire on the part of the constituent colleges for complete autonomy?" "Yes. Before such a step can be taken we must be able to have some guarantee that the standard of degrees granted by individual colleges will remain at an equally high level. There will be a need for an independent body to give advice on such academic matters." Besides the responsibility of his duties as College Principal and as Chairman of the local Professorial Board, Sir Thomas explained, he would be a member of the Academic Board-the national body -and also a member of the University Senate. Hitherto the principals of con-; stituent colleges have not been members of the Senate. When asked what his plans were for the future of Victoria University College, Sir Thomas said it was difficult to make-a statement on such a matter at present when things were in a state of flux, but he envisaged a time when the present College-as the University of Wellington-would meet all the higher educational needs of the capital.