PROPOSALS BY ARTS FACULTY

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 33068, 8 November 1972, Page 19

PROPOSALS BY ARTS FACULTY

(By our education reporter)

The University of Canterbury’s faculty of arts has proposed for the period 1975-1980 the development of several new departments, including a research centre of international studies. In submissions which may be considered later by the University Grants Committee the faculty has given the highest priority to teaching, research and the library — which, the faculty suggests, must take precedence over the establishment of new courses and teaching units. Increased staffing ratios are urged to offset the impersonality of large Stage I and Stage II classes and it is also recommended that improved technical services available in teaching be encouraged by the provision of equipment and technical staff. PRIORITY ORDER

In order of priority the new developments foreseen by the faculty are: a guidance, remedial education and child-development centre; a diploma in social work; a drama production course; a department of linguistics; a department of Maori; a research centre of international studies.

The purpose of the guidance and child-development centre is to offer training courses for school counsellors, vocational guidance officers, visiting teachers, and school psychologists.

The University of Canterbury’s Education Department has already been requested to undertake this type of work. The proposed centre would be a major laboratory for both teaching and research. A case for such a centre was accepted in 1969 but no special finance was made available for staffing and equipment. CLINICAL PROPOSALS I “It is now clear that the i limited facilities available for I clinical purposes in the new ! education building at Ham will be quite inadequate in the light of recent development. The matter is now urgent and once again the centre is given highest priority for Ute next quinquennium.” The proposed diploma in social work is put forward in response to a request from the New Zealand Associated Association of Social Workers. The course would include psychology, sociology, criminology, psychiatry, medicine and social administration, law, economics and practical work. It would initially be an undergraduate diploma requiring two years full time study. The suggested course in drama production would be run by the English department with all departments of language and literature contributing to it. “The faculty of arts needs some strikingly new and imaginative innovation such as this to counterbalance expected developments in the sciences.”

The proposed department of linguistics is suggested as a means of co-ordinating teaching and research in this area under a new professor and a lecturer in addition to existing staff drawn from the language departments. The proposed centre would posed department of Maori is to raise the already approved lectureship in Maori to the status of a separate department with a professor and at least one other member of a staff.

“It is envisaged that one member should be a specialist in the language, lore and literature, the other in the historical and sociological aspects of Maori life. The

proposed increase would correspond to the expected demand for both language and general courses.” Special provision by the University Grants Committee or some "other body is considered necessary for the proposed research centre of international studies. This centre, it is suggested, would have a permanent director with professorial status, with a staff initially of six to eight teaching fellows.

A library establishment grant of $30,000 and annual operating costs of more than $150,000 are foreseen for the centre.