Reporting Of University Council Meetings

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31753, 9 August 1968, Page 12

Reporting Of University Council Meetings

New Zealand was out of step with the world in allowing the proceedings of its university councils to be reported “but this may be a good thing for all I know,” Dr F. J. Llewellyn, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Exeter, former chairman of the New Zealand University Grants Committee and former Vice. Chancellor of the University of Canterbury, said yesterday in an interview in Christchurch.

Dr Llewellyn had been asked to comment on the tendency for university councils here to hold most discussions in private meeting and simply report decisions. The New Zealand and British universities had entirely different situations, he said. New Zealand had largely re gional universities, attended by students from the local area, and the community took a close paternal-maternal interest. New Zealand was, of course, also much smaller.

Britain had no regional universities, and there was little person-to-person inter-action between British universities and their communities. The universities’ outlet for information was the University Grants Committee and the Vice-Chancellors’ Committee, which were now gearing themselves to make their problems better known. “Our problem is to persuade the newspapers to publish what we think is important and not just give headlines to the student who throws a pot of paint the wrong way,” said Dr Llewel. lyn. New Zealand’s system had advantages so long as the public “does not get into the universities’ hair to the extent of politics affecting standards,” he said.

No British university councils were open to the press. But there the governing body was the Court of Convocation which might number 600 and which delegated a watchdog role to a council, 70 per cent of which would be academics.

“The real seat of authority is the senate or professorial board and New Zealand professorial boards are not open to the press,” said Dr Llewellyn. Asked whether, in view of the taxpayers’ huge stake in universities, proceedings should not be more open to public scrutiny. Dr Llewellyn

said: “I see no more reason than for the board of any nationalised industry.”