Active, acting principal

Press, 20 January 1984, Page 9

Active, acting principal

Professor Reinhart Langer this month began his 15-month tenure as interim principal of Lincoln College. Professor Langer, who has been vice principal since 1978, is also professor of Plant Science.

He is acting principal for the year between the retirement of Professor Sir James Stewart and the return to New Zealand of Professor Bruce Ross, who has been appointed principal but is at present beginning the second year of a two-year post in Paris with the Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development. Professor Langer came to Lincoln College as Professor of Plant Science in 1959 from Grasslands Research

Institute at Hurley, in the United Kingdom, where he was in charge of plant physiology. He has developed a very strong research programme in plant science at the college. He has many scientific publications to his credit and has written and edited several books on agriculture, including “Pastures and pasture plants” published in 1972. Last year he was elected a Fellow of the New Zealand Institute of Agricultural Science. He has had a long involvement with many committees, including the Australian and New Zealand Association for the Advancement of Science Coun-

cil, the Royal Society of New Zealand Council, Lincoln College Council, the International Grasslands Congress, the New Zealand Grassland Association and the University Grants Committee. He was public creator at the college centenary celebrations in 1978. Upon taking up the position of acting principal, Professor Langer said that “acting” meant to be “active” and for him to just keep things steady and defer important matters until the new principal arrived would be untenable and damaging to the college. “I have been most fortunate in taking over the college from Sir James Stewart as a healthy and thriving institution, and it

will be my ambition to pass it to Professor Ross in at least as good a condition,” he said. He said that 1984 would

be a more-than-normally critical year because the quinquennial grant negotiations would determine the fiscal dimensions of the college.

The college would continue to examine itself critically and would perhaps need to be even more discriminating in deciding what ventures to undertake.

“Fortunately our communications with the industries we serve are so good that we are well aware of what is expected of us and where the needs occur,” he said.