THE SCHOOL OF AGRICULTURE

Press, Volume LXXXVII, Issue 26506, 22 August 1951, Page 6

THE SCHOOL OF AGRICULTURE

ABOLITION APPROVED BY SENATE Abolition of the School of Agriculture was approved by the Senate of the University of New Zealand in Christchurch yesterday. The University Grants Committee has now assumed much of the responsibility for assessing and distributing financial requirements of the agricultural colleges and academic consultations will now be arranged by conference. The committee investigating this 'question recommended the establishment of a council of agricultural education to fulfil largely the functions of a faculty of agriculture, but the interested parties did not previously approve. A late letter from Canterbury Agricultural College, Lincoln, supported this idea if the School of Agriculture was abolished.

Each of the two colleges will now have a member on the Senate. The School of Agriculture, representing both, had only one. This change was opposed by the University of Otago, for whom Dr. R. S. Aitken said that the Medical School and Dental School had no special representation whereas the agricultural colleges (no longer combined in a school) would have two.

There is now proposed: (a) an annual conference of agricultural colleges to which Massey and Lincoln will each send three members of the board of governors, the academic head, and two members of the academic staff, with the chancellor Or his nominee as chairman; (b) a conference of agricultural professorial boards attended by the academic head and three members nominated by the professorial board of each college, two members appointed by the Academic Board of the University, and the vicechancellor as chairman.