WHERE STUDENTS LIVE

New Zealand Listener, Volume 30, Issue 758, 29 January 1954, Page 13

WHERE STUDENTS LIVE

HALLS OF RESIDENCE, bY H. W. Turner; New Zealand Council for Educational Research, 18/6. "HIS book, the outcome of investigations begun in 1944 and sponsored by the New Zealand Council for Educational Research, opens with a survey of student housing in New Zealand, followed by a .chapter on the educational value of halls of residence. Together these chapters make up nearly half the book, and together they will inform the reader how far our University falls short of the English conception of a university, as succinctly expressed in the definition given by a writer about Cam-bridge-"Cambridge is a place where young men live for three years." Of course, it is not only in the old universities that the importance of residence is emphasised. Consider, as an illustration, the small provincial university college of Leicester. In 1946 it had only 100 full-time students; in 1953 it had 750-500 nien and 250 women. Of these, 220 men and 140 women were in residences provided by adapting large private mansions or by new construction. As a type, Beaumont Hall comprises a new dining room, ancillary services provided by adapting a private house, and four and a half blocks of newly-con-structed study-bedrooms. Each block, planned on a modification of the "staircase" principle, accommodates 17 students and includes a_ kitchenette. Beaumont House, complete, cost about £150,000. Leicester also had a Biology Block finished in 1951 costing £105,000 and a Library Extension finished in 1952 costing £56,000, and it is still spending £50,000 a year on further development of residential accommodation. All this money has been found, through the University Grants Committee, by a Government that has been facing unprecedented budgetary difficulties. The remaining chapters of Mr. Turner’s book, dealing with costs, equipment and organisation, are addressed particularly to those directly concerned with financing, building and general management of halls, and to those others who are concerned with internal control. They contain not only general information Mr. Turner has collected during his thorough investigation, but also the wisdom he has acquired from many years’ experience as student or as’ warden in various halls. They will be read with profit by all concerned. Mr. Turner says little about what is generally called the "Ashby" plan, perhaps because he thinks "the good is the

enemy of the best.

L.J.

W.