Closer relations with college

Press, 7 May 1987, Page 17

Closer relations with college

It seems likely that Scott would have sailed about Lyttelton with his first cousin, Robert Falcon Scott, while the latter was preparing for his Antarctic expeditions. On Scott’s retirement in 1923, the school become more closely integrated with Canterbury College. A faculty was established with three departments — civil, mechanical and electrical engineering — and three professors. Chemical and agricultural engineering came later. The years between the wars have been characterised as the universities’ Augustan age of repose, and the school showed little dynamism or innovative zeal in that time. The economic depression exacted its toll; the school’s prestige began to slide. In 1941, “Canta,” the student newspaper, said there was no research, the school was poorly housed and staff were ashamed to show their

quarters to visiting engineers. The profession, too, was concerned. There was even a proposal for separating the school from the university. New horizons opened with the decisions to move the whole university to Ham and make engineering the first faculty to move there.

But a serious dispute erupted between the Rector, Henry Hulme, and the engineers over the size of the school. A compromise resulted in a school for 450 students, which was too small when it opened , in 1961. Extensions costing nearly as much as the original buildings were required to accommodate some 700 students. Today, the roll is 920 and further extensions are required.

If the Government was reluctant to build for the future, more laboratory equipment became available as the technological revolution hit New Zealand, and more and better qualified staff were employed to cater for the rising roll. They, in turn, began to undertake significant research.

On the city site, research was almost impossible, partly because of the teaching load and partly because of inadequate buildings, laboratories, equipment and literature.

The most publicised activity was the first New Zealand transmission of television from the electrical laboratory off Worcester Street to amateur-built receivers in Linwood, Riccarton and deeper Fendalton. At Ham, research has taken many forms, and has much en-. hanced the school’s international reputation. The work of Professors Bob Park and Tom Paulay in discovering how reinforced concrete structures can be built to withstand severe earthquakes is widely known, as is the startling work of Professor Richard Bates and his colleagues in electronics, especially image processing, or the pioneering research of Dr John Andreae on artificial intelligence. , The Ministry of Energy has just awarded Professor Josu Arrillaga $BOO,OOO for research on an interactive power system

analysis package to Incorporate national requirements. The National Roads Board recently handed over a $394,000 test track at Harewood for research into the durability of various road surfaces. Those examples are the tip of the research iceberg. All the academic staff are fruitfully engaged in research. Last year they published 112 research publications, and there were 33 Ph.D and M.E. theses by students. The school combined in fruitful research into alternative energy sources, especially liquid fuels, after the first oil price rises of the 19705, and won the close interest of the Government