WOMEN STUDENTS

Evening Post, Issue 47, 23 August 1935, Page 13

WOMEN STUDENTS

PROVISION OF HOSTEL

"A MISUNDERSTANDING"

In a letter to the Victoria College Council recently, the Hon. R. McCallum, M.L.C., expressed the hope that a hostel for women ..on the lines of Weir House for men might be established in the.future. He also said that until the college secured a hostel for women students college equipment would remain rather lopsided as well as inefficient in that direction.

At last night's meeting of the College Council, \a letter was received from the Women Students'. Hostel Society, taking exception to Mi*. McCallum's letter. Miss E. M. Baber, president of the society, wrote as follows:—

"We, the council of the Women Students' Hostel Society, wish to draw your attention to the erroneous impression given to ■ , the public by Mr. McCallum's statement' in his letter to your council. It is his reference to the lack of hostel accommodation for women students to which we take exception. For over 25 years the Women Students' Hostel Society, .a joint Society of the Anglican and Presbyterian Churches, has had a hostel for women students. It is managed by a council of ten women appointed jointly by the Bishop of Wellington and the Presbytery, and is advised by three trustees;' There is. accommodation for 22 students. Before the depression and when there was a. training college in Wellington, we had another hostel in Kelburn. Always we have in view the building of a hostel worthy of our women students, and to that end are slowly accumulating funds. We feel that after our many years' work with ■jand for University women students it should be possible for bur hostel to be recognised as part of the Univer--1 sity life."

Professor T. A. Hunter said That Mr. McCallum's statement applied to a hostel like Weir House. "It is merely a misunderstanding," he said. "I don't think for a moment Mr. McCallum was not conscious of the great debt we owe to these, women's hostels."