German Lecturer Arrives At University

Press, Volume C, Issue 29517, 19 May 1961, Page 13

German Lecturer Arrives At University

When Dr. Renate Munz arrived in Christchurch yesterday to be the first German-born lecturer in German at the University of Canterbury, she brought an unusual variety of assets. She has passed the "staatsexan” (an advanced teaching test) and also taken a doctorate in German; she comes from the University of Munich, one of Europe’s oldest and one where the tradition of academic freedom places responsibility for progress almost entirely on the student; and she is a pianist (“though badly out of practice”) and has brought with her a guitar and a set of flutes. ’’Staatsexan’’ graduates usually went teaching and doctors of German usually became publishing-firm or other special advisers. Dr. Munz said. She had chosen to extend her experience about as far from Germany as she could get on the advice of her professor (Dr. H. Kuhn), who visited Christchurch last year. He had been deeply impressed with the enthusiasm for developing German studies here. It would be a big change to teach formal classes which students were obliged to attend at set levels, Dr. Munz said. In Munich there was no grouping of students into classes, no set stages of study, no obligation to attend lectures. and students presented themselves for examination when they thought they were ready. Fees were paid on enrolment, and after that the student attended whatever lectures he thought would help him toward his degree. Compulsory attendance was required only at seminars where students were taught how to study and how research should be undertaken. In spite of this seemingly haphazard system, the University of Munich (Germany’s largest, with 20.000 students in arts, law, economics. science, medicine and theology alone) achieved high results,- Dr. Munz said. This arose probably from the quality of the teaching and the fact that teachers were expected always to

have research work in hand. The system also created its own natural selection in that only students willing to work survived. The University of Munich is a medieval foundation and Dr. Munz’s specialty is medieval German although she has lately done intensive work on modern German drama.

Dr. Munz is interested in the progress made with German in Canterbury since the appointment in 1949 of Mr T. E. Carter as senior lecturer in German in the modern languages department. With New Zealand’s great distance from Germany and the problems in obtaining German books and photostats, it was surprising, she said, that this year there were 30 Canterbury students of German at stage I, more than a dozen at stage 11, six at stage 111. and two taking honours. She was interested, too, to learn that another 70 students were taking science German. Already she had learned of the demand for German teachers in New Zealand post-primary schools but she could understand the hesitation of these schools in introducing this language unless there were two teachers of German on the staff. That was a prudent safeguard against being left in the lurch if one left. Dr. Munz has a contract to teach in Christchurch for two years. Afterwards she plans to return to Germany.