UNIVERSITY AGENT

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVII, Issue 16, 20 January 1944, Page 6

UNIVERSITY AGENT

DR. HARROP'S RESIGNATION P.A. CHRISTCHURCH, January 19. A report prepared by a committee, of which Mr. H. F. O'Leary, K.C., Wellington, was convener, with reference to the resignation of Dr. A. J. Harrop as agent for the University of New Zealand in London was adopted by the Senate in Christchurch today. The reason for the delay in its presentation, said Mr. O'Leary, was that members had to await the arrival of the official file from Wellington. Mr. A. H. Johnstone, K.C., Auckland, had been unable to take part in the deliberations of the committee, he added, and for | that reason he could not ask him to foe associated with the report. It was his hope that the report would be adopted without discussion, as he did not consider any further discussion desirable. The. report was adopted on his motion, Colonel G. J. Smith seconding. The committee, it was stated, accepted Dr.. Harrop's statement that during his years of office he had performed work and made contacts of value to the university and to New Zealand, but much of Dr. Harrop's report contained assertions and comment, in the opinion of the committee, which, if made while still an officer of the university, would have called for action. In the circumstances, however,, they might be ignored, except that as his reference to another university official might lead to an inference that the agent's sole employment was with the New Zealand University, it was pointed out that Dr. Harrop had other well-paid work to which he had been able to give much attention and time. | As Dr. Harrop had, in effect, tendered his resignation, the university was not strictly called on to justify any action that had been taken by its executive committee prior to: that resignation being accepted, but as Dr. Harrop had seen fit to discuss the matter in the Press, it was considered that the following facts should be made known: —By last year the work of the London office, as a result mainly of the cessation of examining for the university in England, had so diminished that in the opinion of members of the executive the salary then paid (£350) was not justified and should be reduced. Details supplied by the registrar of comparative quantities of recorded work made that abundantly clear, even though prisoner-of-war and I soldier work had to some extent taken the place of the ordinary peacetime work and the work entailed by overseas examinations.