UNIVERSITY REFORM THE SENATE FROM WITHIN

Evening Post, Volume LXXXV, Issue 27, 25 February 1913, Page 3

UNIVERSITY REFORM THE SENATE FROM WITHIN

! (Contributed by Professor T,A. Hunter.) The newspaper reports of the proceed ings of the annualineeting of the Senate give no idea of the mass of business — 'important and trivial — that tho Senate vainly attempts to, consider in the brief space of less than a fortnight. This year .the Chancellor's address, including the addendum, ran to over forty pages. In addition to the Chancellor's address itself— which was mainly a peevish attack on the Professorial Conference," whose sole offence was that it had failed .to fulfil the Chancellor's prophecy that the professors could not agree— this bulky document contained 67 other matters for the consideration of the Senate. These were the problems of tke yearj and were of all degrees of importance. One of them was the report of the Professorial Conference, dealing with tho .remodelling of the B.A. and B.Sc. courses for degrees, the method of examination, research, scholarships, etc., etc. ; another asked the Senate to decide whether a candidate who had passed in history and constitutional history, and repeated the subject of history only, was entitled to a pass. ■In the past, such questions as this continually arose, but the Senate had no machinery for dealing •with these matters, 'which, therefore, stood over for the full-dress consideration of the annual meeting of Senate. To this mass of business was added, at the meeting, the consideration of 49 notices of motion, and* the reports of 14 or 15 committees that had to sit and report during the brief period of the session, of the ' Senate. - All this in less than a. fortnight! and then members and the public express surprise that things are. done hastily and require to bo-re-considered at the next meeting, A body that attempts such a task raises the question of its sanity. This procedure has not been adopted in ignoraneo, for some members, especially Professor Ohilton and Mr. Hogben, have exerted themselves in season and out* of season to prevent hasty and ill-considered action by the Senate. An inevitable result of attempting so much at one short moot* ing is that there is either hasty legisla* tion or no legislation ; the Senate rejects carefully-considered proposals, and then accepts anything that is offered in place thereof only to induce subsequent dis* ! order, and to stand in need of treatment ,at its next annual meeting. One or two I examples of this ,ir responsible. inffEliod of legislation suggest themselves. ThY recommendations of the Professorial Conference on the method of examination were the result of a careful consideration of the whole question by representa» tives of the teaching etaffs of the four i colleges. The Senate rejected these sug« I gestions, but immediately agreed* to Professor Benham's proposal to have reports by the teachers sent to the Eng* lish examiners in arts and science. Why not to the examiners in law both in New Zealand and in England? Why 'restrict it to arts and science? Why should the professors of English },« called upon to report upon those, of their students who are candidates for B.A. or B.Sc. and not upon those who are candidates for LL.B. ? It is simply a result of panic legislation; this plan has tiever'been considered by the teachers, and simply bristles with difficulties : it involves four different kinds of re- I ports from the four colleges ; it raises the question of reports on candidates for senior scholarships and for honours ; it places 'the exempted students at a great disadvantage ; and,. in many cases, Will put the English examiner in the awkward position of either disregarding the report of tlid tfacher of the student or of treating his own. examination less' seriously. Thus the one great weakness , of our University^— the lack of responsibility—is increased. At the present time the English examiner is responsible for the standard of examination and for tho passes ; in, future, if he sT> wishes, ho can throw the responsibility on to the teachers, who, however, will have no i*eal authority. A commercial business man on these lines would be wrecked in a week. Of course, the, method will -meet- the wishes of -'some members of the Senate! it,' definitely .provides that .the English examiner is -to act as an ' inspector of the i work of the New Zealand professors. No other University . places 'its professors in this position, so we may still get what consolation we can out, of the fact that our system remains unique.. The same sweet spirit of ' irresponsibility was shown when the' Senate decided to set up a, committee to hold an enquiry with' a view to finding. out w.hat 'alterations should be made in the constitution of the University. • The Senate solemnly adopted the same method as it used in its attempt to remodel the B.A. degree, and which in five years produced no result. The Senate now virtually drops this needed reform, and ' proposes to tackle, a much bigger task with the same inadequate machinery.' Having ' spent five years in finding out that the machine is unequal t» the task of lifting a hundredweight, ( the ' Senate now pro- i poses to. spend time and money to see if, by some happy chance, the machine cannot bo persuaded to lift a ton. That this proposal^ for reform should be supported by those members who have paraded' the perfection .of the Senate and fys methods and have hurled reproaches and innuendoes^ at those who have dared to suggest that improvement was possible, ' must be gratifying to the but the Senate cannot stay the executioner's axe by merely proposing to' shave itself. No one noed bo surprised, therefore, to Snd such a body setting up an annual conference 'one year and abolishing ib the next. • Even with a. conservative body such as the Senate, one does not expect to find ' the old evil of plural voting firmly ohtrenched in its constitution. At the recent ' meeting men who had not heard the discussion voted this way or that by means of a, proxy, and in no case voted against the views of the proxyholder. In some cases the views of the absent members were known, and the possibility of change ot opinion slight, but in other cases no one could have foreseen how the absentee would? vote, especially in the case of a new member of the Senate, who was unable to attend. It is true that on certain unimportant matters these votes Were not exercised, but this Only threw into stronger relief the use of them on important issues. The age of plural voting is long past; we had thought that in these enlightened days " blin& voting" had ceased to exist. The progress of reason has obviously been over-estimated, for some men_ appear t© be willing to hand over their, reason to another with less compunction than they would hand over their cheque-book. The proxy system should be abolished and the rights of absent members protected by tho introduction of tho Parliamentary practice of . "pairing." Is it any wonder that a Senate that tolerates plural voting is not prepared to abolish what has been a disgrace -not only to our academic but to our moral life — the proxy system as We know it in convocation elections? Consistency is supposed to be the virtue of small minds : the attitude of the Senate reminds one of the fact that the simple converse of is not true. In regard to the msthod of cxamina- j •tion, the Senate put aside the recommendation of the Professorial Conference ; affirmed the principle of external examination i and rejected the scheme of . examiniofl bo&rda dl the teaclicra in tht .

four colleges — that is, the Senate affirmed the principle that at> least one of the 1 examiners in any subject must be drawn from outside' the - body of university teachers. In practice, however, t not to be guilty of the stnallness of consistency, the same body (I.) Appointed the tutor or "coach" in medicine to act with the teacher of medicine in the examination of that subject. (II.) For each subject of_ the intermediate' medical examination appointed one of the teachers to examine his own fetudents as well as | those of the 'other colleges.' UII.) In medical examinations arranged so that, only thr.ee out of the nine assessor's .ife^ not university teachers. (IV.) Jn the dental examinations arranged so that not' more than four out of the nine assessors arc outside the body of university fteacheis. and in one subject—dental anatomy — the teacher is the sole examiner. (V.) In the .examinations for home sciences 'arranged so that' every one of the examiners" is^a teacher in the university. Could hypocrisy go" further? Yes, thft reductio ad a,bsurdum was reached when, on a committee, an advocate of the external system, which is supposed to exist to maintain a high standard, objected to the appointment of a certain professor as an examiner for the intermediate medical because, forsooth, he might be too hard on the poor medical students! It is surely obvious that the Senate is now called upon to explain or to justify the great difference between its ■theory and 'its practice. No doubt the public is by this time fully alive to the tact that its interests cannot be adequately protected at any enquiry unless it is open to the press and conducted by a disinterested tribunal. _