University chancellor leaves on high note
DUNEDIN’S close towngown relationships mean a ‘‘winwin’’ for the city and the university, but there is no room for complacency about the university’s continuing success.
University chancellor John Ward, of Invercargill, made that point in an interview this week, reflecting on the university, its future, and his long involvement as a member of the University Council and as chancellor.
After nine years in the role, Mr Ward, a chartered accountant, ends his term as chancellor at the end of this month, but he will retain his home in Invercargill and will also maintain strong university links.
He will continue to chair the University of Otago Foundation Trust, a charitable body that receives and administers about $200 million in donations, bequests and sponsorship monies for the university.
He will also continue to chair Otago Innovation Ltd, the university’s intellectual property commercialisation arm.
Mr Ward said the university remained highly successful, educating more than 17,000 fulltime equivalent students, with an annual turnover of more than $600 million, and its buildings and similar assets amounting to more than $1.6 billion.
Asked about challenges the university faced, Mr Ward said he was aware of the costly and damaging ‘‘negative influence’’ the university had faced from earlier earthquake damage at its Christchurch campus.
Apart from natural disasters, the university also faced risks from technological forms of disruption.
Other potential challenges emerging in recent years including the possible development of rival internettaught Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC), and a proposed third Medical School, based at Waikato University.
Mr Ward remained confident and positive about the future, including of the Otago Medical School.
And he said the allround experience of studying at Otago University, with its strong cultural and sporting mix, offered chances for learning that far exceeded anything that could be gained simply by studying a mass course by computer.
Dunedin and the university enjoyed a close, positive relationship which helped attract more students to the city, benefiting everyone, and the university enjoyed ‘‘a very good relationship with the city leadership’’.
The university benefited greatly from Dunedin and he believed Dunedin would be ‘‘a much smaller city’’ without the university’s presence.
Otago University was not only ‘‘critically important’’ in Dunedin but in its wider national role.
Growing numbers of Maori and Pacific Island student graduates from Otago were a positive development.
Mr Ward is believed to be the first chancellor appointed from outside Dunedin in the university’s 148year history.
‘‘To serve nine years in this role is an experience I never dreamt of, and for which I will be forever grateful.’’
He had earlier been raised and educated in Invercargill and gained a BCom at Otago.
As the first chancellor from outside Otago, he had travelled from his home in Southland to work, along with presiding over 103 graduation ceremonies and capping more than 30,000 graduates.
Earlier in his life, he spent five years, from the mid’70s, in England, the United States and South Africa, working for English rock band Pink Floyd.
He had spent ‘‘quite a bit of time in London and New York on Pink Floyd business’’ before heading to work in Johannesburg.
He became a member of the Otago University Council in 2003 and served as prochancellor from 2007 until becoming chancellor in 2009.
Dr Royden Somerville QC, of Dunedin, will succeed him as chancellor in January.
Mr Ward has overseen the university taking on its most ambitious capital development programme, which includes an upgraded Business School building, the new Chemistry Mellor Laboratories and a new Dental School Clinical Services Building.
Last year’s milestone graduation of 50 Maori doctors had been wonderful, and the university’s success this year, when Otago topped all eight of the Government’s Educational Performance Indicators, meant he was leaving on a high.