TOWER TURMOIL Characters & Controversies at the University of Otago

TOWER TURMOIL Characters & Controversies at the University of Otago The Time Keepers Department of History, University of Otago Published by the Department of History University of Otago P. O. Box 56 Dunedin, New Zealand Fax: 64 3 479 8429 Email: [email protected] First Published 2005 Introduction © Martin Fisher “About This Book” © Robert Fitzgerald Individual essays © Individual authors as listed in the Contents 2005 ISBN 1 877139 84 x Cover Design & Layout © Mark Galvin Clock Tower/Clock Face Illustrations © Kim Sullivan Cover Photograph © Sarah Churcher ii Contents Acknowledgements v About this Book vi Introduction ix Here or There? The Founding of the University of Otago 13 Mark Galvin Divinity, Darwinism and the Curse of the Chair 29 Kim Sullivan The Curious Case of Professor Pringle 51 Matthew Littlewood John Harris, Librarian and Alien Anarchist 65 Dave Robertson Students or Soldiers? Conscientious Objection during World War II 81 Srinjoy Bose Child of Controversy: The Expulsion of the OUSA President 95 Emily Churcher Halls of Residence in the 1960s: Curfews, Couples and Controversy 111 Catherine McLeod No Mixing By Students 127 Debby Foster What’s in a Name: The Burning of Falus 141 Robbie Fitzgerald A Cover and Cliques 155 Ben Hutchison Dangerous Dependency: Military Funding of Academic Research 175 Martin Fisher Strip Mining: The Fight for a Faculty 189 Karin Warnaar List of Contributors 207 iii iv Acknowledgements Our thanks go out to the following institutions: the Alumni and Development Office at the University of Otago, the British Library, Critic Te Arohi, the Department of English at the University of Otago, the Department of History at the University of Otago, the Dunedin Public Library, the London School of Economics, the Otago Daily Times, the staff at the Hocken Collections Uare Taoka o Häkena, the University of Birmingham, and the University of Glasgow. Special thanks are due to the many individuals who helped, including Michael Buckenham, Shirley Child, Crissy Comerford, Phyllis Comerford, Hans Ditmarsch, Richard Dowden, Sam Elworthy, Jan Flood, Jim Flynn, Helen Frizzel, Hilary Halba, Maurice Halder, Wendy Harrex, Mike Greenslade, Pennie Hunt, Lorraine Isaacs, Anne Jackman, Joe Manickavasagam, Clive Matthewson, Peter Norris, Dot Page, Jean Strachan, Stuart Strachan, Dean Tobin, Noel Waite, Yvonne Wilkie, Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand Archives (Knox College), and Steve Williams at the Otago University Printery. And thanks especially to Dr. Shef Rogers and Professor Barbara Brookes, without whom this course would not have been possible. v About this Book This book was created as part of a combined History and English paper, Engl404, Writing for Publication. The paper’s purpose was to introduce fourth-year students in the History and English disciplines to all aspects required in creating a book. The course coordinators, Barbara Brookes (from the History Department) and Shef Rogers (from the English Department) chose the topic, “Controversies at the University of Otago,” and the students were able to choose a subtopic from a list. Many of our readers may have lived through the events discussed in some of the chapters. Our work is based on the University Archives held at the Hocken Collections/Uare Taoka o Häkena and those records form the basis of our interpretations. We are confident that others may have alternative readings of the events discussed here. If so, please send them to the History of the University Website at http://ouhistory.otago.ac.nz/. This is by all means a disclaimer. As well as writing their individual articles, the students were delegated tasks incorporating the various factors of publication, including: cover design, the textual layout of the book, its dimensions, obtaining permissions, organising the book launch, promotion, editing and many other taxing and at times seemingly menial tasks. The book was created to a deadline of a single semester (a period of around four months), so the students were under a tremendous amount of pressure to produce a well-researched article, as well as perform their various publishing tasks. This put not only the students, but the course coordinators Shef and Barbara in a stressful situation. The class met for a three-hour marathon session every Monday morning in which guest lecturers would speak on topics with relevance to both the writing, research and publication aspects of the course. Following the guest lectures, and then a tea break, the students would discuss issues regarding the final product (of vi the book) in a democratic “boardroom” manner. This served to reinforce the fact that book production was a group effort rather than an individual task, and enabled the students to engage in (sometimes heated) debate on the issues that were pertinent to production efforts. It also forced them to recognise that compromise was necessary in order to reach a decision. But do not worry yourself reader! The very existence of the pages you are reading is evidence enough to suggest that all hope was not lost. Indeed, when faced with certain intellectual breakdown, the students subconsciously reacted to produce, and to produce well. The students were able to take their own initiatives in their individual work, and to work well as a team, even in disagreement! vii viii Introduction A university is traditionally defined as a place of “higher learning” or a “diverse institution,” but these bland classifications exude none of the life of the actual controversies that result from the diversity of views within an academic institution. This book brings together some of the stories, heated debates and even broadsheet burnings that have made the University of Otago what it is today. These controversies often had at their centre the Otago University Students’ Association (OUSA), the student newspaper, Critic, or the University Senate and Council. The opinions of the non-academic community were also frequently represented in the pages of Dunedin’s newspapers at the Otago Daily Times (ODT) and Evening Star. Debates related to freedom of speech as well as the rights and responsibilities of both individuals and institutions have been commonplace from the University’s inception to its most recent past. While the University of Otago has evolved into a progressive institution, this certainly has not led to any less controversy. The birth of the University of Otago itself was shrouded in debate as settlers decided whether or not to establish the first university in New Zealand. Only half a dozen years after it had been decided that a local university would provide a greater social benefit to the community, corporate bodies and the Church began to disagree over ecclesiastical power at the University of Otago. While Otago did eventually eschew the Church’s influence, the controversies continued as students objected to the restrictive role which Halls of Residence, influenced by the Church’s moral principles, placed upon women but not men. By the 1960s students ix charged that the University had no right to regulate any of their out-of-school behaviour. This was firmly connected to the debate over freedom of speech at Otago in which students as well as staff declared their free will to not only do as they please but also to say and write. Whether in support of pacifists or radical and obscene literature, defenders of free speech have been kept busy at the University of Otago. In the 1930s the University was criticized for appointing a librarian who held communist views. An alternative student newspaper, Falus, incurred the wrath of the Student Council and of Critic in the 1960s because of its scathing and at times vulgar commentary on the University. As late as the 1980s the issue still lingered, when an offensive capping magazine, Thrust, broke taboos and challenged the University’s limits on free speech. During World War II the University Council, Senate and Critic unanimously denounced conscientious objectors and pacifists. Although many staff, students and members of the public endorsed these denunciations, controversy surrounded the University’s role as judge and jury. Freedom also entails responsibility within the community, however, and numerous individuals as well as institutions were criticized for playing outside, and at times not playing up to, their roles. The first Professor of Economics evaded his responsibilities at Otago and ran for the House of Commons in England in the 1930s. In 1947 OUSA President John Child was expelled from Otago by the Council for delivering an audacious and controversial speech. But was his responsibility to the Council or to the students, who fully supported him through the ordeal? Later in the dying years of the Vietnam War, Professor Flynn led a move to regulate military funding for academic research. More recently, issues of university autonomy were raised when a central government decision forced the transfer of the Department of Mineral Technology to Auckland University. The department, created from the former Otago School of Mines, was eventually moved north, but not without a fight. These controversies mark steps along a path of transformation which the University of Otago has undergone over its 140 years of x existence. While the historical change that has taken place in the University has mirrored the changes occurring in society at large, at times the University has led the way. This pioneering has largely occurred because the University has remained as a place where no topic was, or hopefully ever will be, taboo. Only in such an open atmosphere can the University of Otago remain what is has been since its inception, an institution in which the free expression of ideas inevitably leads to controversy. xi xii Here or There? The Founding of the University of Otago Mark Galvin That in the opinion of this meeting, the time has now come, when decided steps should be taken for the founding of a New Zealand University or College, and that the Assembly be strongly urged to do so immediately.

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