News

The University Council unanimously endorsed a strategic document as well as a flatting standards bill, and engaged in light-hearted banter at its meeting last Tuesday.

Council Member Michael Sidey clapped when Vice-Chancellor Professor Harlene Hayne told the meeting that her two-year anniversary as Vice-Chancellor was coming up. The enthusiastic Sidey was also full of praise for the University’s “Strategic Direction to 2020” statement, calling it “an outstanding document.”

The Vice-Chancellor told the meeting that “this document makes … the application of that research knowledge for the public good and commercial outcomes.” She also spoke of the need for universities to diversify their income streams. A financial report revealed that externally-funded research has fallen in recent years. $41 million of external funding was received this year, 1.5 per cent less than budgeted for, and down from a peak of over $45 million in 2011.

The University appears unlikely to engage in substantial use of online courses in the short term. The document states that the University intends to encourage the use of technology in teaching, but that “Otago will remain a predominantly campus-based university” until at least 2020.

With regards to “the Otago experience,” the document stated that the University will “use a mix of education and regulatory measures” to “nurture healthy and sustainable lifestyles” over the following seven years. The University has previously supported the notion of a liquor ban in North Dunedin, stricter rules at the Hyde Street Keg Party, and is currently funding OUSA’s “It’s Your Call” anti-peer pressure campaign. There was no mention of whether the University would continue to provide Toroa College students’ dinners through the Student Union food court, which Critic sincerely doubts is healthy.

A financial report revealed that the University has 17,894 equivalent full-time students, down 2.4 per cent from the same time last year. In the year to date, 31.6 per cent of the University’s tuition costs come from tuition, with the rest being met by government funding.

A property report showed that the University’s rates-free property portfolio continues to expand. It has now completed its purchase of “LivingSpace” on 192 Castle Street. The apartment building will likely become the home of the Humanities Division when the Burns Building is demolished. The University has also bought its records services building on Hanover Street.

OUSA President Francisco Hernandez spoke in favour of the local bill, which would allow the Dunedin City Council to set minimum standards for heating, insulation, indoor temperatures, ventilation, draft stopping and drainage on rental properties. He told the University Council that poor housing had long been a problem for students. He quoted a 1973 Critic editorial, which stated that “if nothing positive is done soon in the field of student accommodation, future generations of students at this University will be forced still further into the clutches of unscrupulous landlords and forced to live in conditions far worse than any that those in positions of authority in the University and the city would permit their own children to live in.”

Speaking after the meeting, Hernandez told Critic “I’m pretty confident that rents won’t rise to the extent that students find it harder to meet the cost of living.” He believed that an oversupply of rental housing, council assistance to landlords to install some insulation and the high rate of return he claimed that landlords received from their properties would limit any increase in the rents that students paid for their flats.

University Council member Judge Oke Blaikie, who had been shocked by the state of Dunedin’s worst flat when he saw it on Campbell Live, suggested to the Council that the number of couch fires in North Dunedin might be reduced if flatting standards were improved. The Vice-Chancellor agreed that better accommodation was indeed associated with “more positive behaviour.”

Following this bizarre exchange, the Council unanimously approved Hernandez’s motions, which were seconded by Associate Professor of Zoology Liz Slooten. After the vote, the public was excluded from the meeting to consider a number of confidential issues.