£25,000 Public Appeal For Students’ Union

Press, Volume C, Issue 29526, 30 May 1961, Page 15

£25,000 Public Appeal For Students’ Union

This week the University of Canterbury is asking the people of the area >

it serves to contribute £25,000 toward the cost of a students’ union building on the flam campus which is estimated to cost more than £250.000. Mr W. 8. Mac Gibbon has given £250 as an opening contribution. The Students’ Association expects to offer £75.000 by 1965. The rest is expected from Government subsidy.

Last evening the Chancellor (Mr C. H. Perkins) told business leaders, who will be personally approaching 500 firms, that they could do a “hard sell” because the business community benefited greatly from the university’s general expenditure of £750,000 a year in the city, its building programme (£2.500,000 on the forthcoming science blocks), the living needs of its 1000 staff and of its 3600 students. But more than that. Mr Perkins said, the community asked for graduates with a well-rounded education rather than just a ticket of qualification. That was achieved to a large degree in the students’ union. By 1965 the roll would be 6000 and the new union must be opened by then. Otago University and Victoria University of Wellington had their new ones. Canterbury's need on a new campus was greater. Already the university’ council considered the students’ union would need common rooms, club and committee rooms, a cafeteria, reading and recreation rooms, a gymnasium and a theatre, said Mr Perkins. The scope depended on the money. Visitors The Vice-Chancellor (Dr. L. L. Pownall) said that he personally envisaged a students’ union where, besides council and staff, students could meet all manner of graduates and friends of the university. When he was in Wisconsin, such visitors outnumbered students by five to one and had a profound effect on young minds. That stu-

dents' union had symphony concerts, a radio station, a bowling alley, and a cinema in addition to more common amenities.

The university was addressin„ this appeal by mail to its 4200 graduates and 1200 business houses (of whom the 500 would be approached directly) and talks would be given to interested organisations, Dr. Pownall said. The union would be the only building where students of fine arts, engineering, and the sciences could meet at Ham in 1965.

The president of the Students’ Association (Mr A. D. L. Hooper) described the union as “the focal point of student life.” Already Canterbury students lacked a really corporate life because accommodation had been outgrown. Mingling of minds was education in its true sense. The students knew this and were contributing £1 of their association fee annually to the fund. With £l5OO in hand, it was expected the total offered in 1965 would be £75.000 as it was hoped that this year’s £2OOO profit on the capping magazine and the revue could also be salted away annually. The broad concept of the new university at Ilam was described by the Assistant Government Architect (Mr J, R Blake-Kelly) who came from Wellington to support the appeal. (Details of the plan w’ere published last year.) The whole plan centred on a students’ union, great hall, and refectory midway between the academic and residential areas. Mr Blake-Kelly showed slides of students’ unions in many parts of the world. All had magnificent provisions of the scope envisaged here, he said. “Personally I am convinced that the students’ union is of the utmost importance in any university,” he said. The Rt. Rev. A K. Warren also spoke of student unions elsewhere. His main point was urgency. “Moscow and Canterbury Universities chose their new sites at .the same time.” he said. “Moscow now has 25.000 students in their new buildings."