SECRETARY FOR NEW GRANTS COMMITTEE

Press, Volume C, Issue 29427, 1 February 1961, Page 12

SECRETARY FOR NEW GRANTS COMMITTEE

Mr Ross Gordon Rowley, officer for higher education in the Education Department, has been appointed secretary of the new University Grants Committee. His acceptance was announced yesterday by the chairman of the committee (Dr. F. J. LleweUyn). Mr Rowley, who is 40 and married, was educated at Wellington College and the Victoria University College, where he took the degrees of bachelor of arts and master of commerce with first-class honours in economics and economic history.

Joining the Public Service in 1938, Mr Rowley served in a number of departments, including working for nearly four years as a research assistant in the war histories branch of the Department of Internal Affairs.

For the last 11 years he has been in the Department of Education and has been offi-

cer for higher education since the death of Mr A. B. Thomson. In this post he has been largely responsible for liaison between the Government, the department, and the universities.

In 1959 Mr Rowley was one of the New Zealand delegates for the Commonwealth Education Conference at Oxford After that he was joint secretary of the Parry Committee which reported on the financial requirements and administrative organisation of New Zealand universities. The setting up of the new University Grants Committee was a major recommendation of the Parry Committee. Mr Rowley will take up his appointment, and the University Grants Committee will establish its offices in Wellington at a date still to be arranged. Miss Margaret Swarbrick, private secretary to Dr. Llewellyn during his five years as Vice-Chancellor of the University of Canterbury and before that secretary to the registrar, will go to Wellington as private secretary to the chairman of the Grants Committee. She has become exceptionally well known to all callers at Canterbury University, and has a knowledge of its affairs matched only by the most senior officers.