Lecture Boycott Not Supported

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32350, 16 July 1970, Page 14

Lecture Boycott Not Supported

Students at the University of Canterbury were urged by the university’s National Club to ignore the Students’ Association’s call to boycott lectures tomorrow, the deputy chairman of the club (Mr S. Mortlock) said last evening.

“The boycott serves no useful purpose, and is a waste of our time and the taxpayers’ money,” he said. It was reported yesterday that the Students’ Association had called for the boycott as a protest against foreign military intervention in the war in Vietnam, and that allday seminars would be held at both the Ham and town sites.

Lincoln College students would not boycott lectures, said the president (Mr J. Hayes) last evening. Mr Hayes said that the Vietnam war and the general South-East Asian situation were discussed on campus. “Students are stimulated to think on these issues by way of forums, films and student newspapers—apart from the daily barrage from the mass media.

“The way to provoke discussion and to draw attention to the Indo-China conflict is not by the disruptive action of boycotting lectures, as the only people affected are the students themselves,” he said. Mr Hayes condemned the Canterbury University Student Representative Council for calling for the boycott. He said that the action would

probably be as unsuccessful as the boycott of lectures called to protest against the United States invasion of Cambodia and the Kent University killings. This boycott failed throughout the universities of New Zealand, he said.