Proctor protest ‘beginning of fight’
A MARCH in which hundreds of people descended on the proctor’s office at the University of Otago is ‘‘just the beginning’’ of a fight to curtail the university’s power to discipline students, the students’ association president says.
To cries of ‘‘whose streets? our streets’’, between 500 and 600 protesters delivered a list of demands to proctor Dave Scott, and the university administration at the clocktower building.
OUSA president Caitlin BarlowGroome said the protest was ‘‘the beginning of the fight’’ and massive changes had to be made. OUSA is calling for Campus Watch and the proctor to no longer be allowed to discipline students offcampus.
Protesters, led by Otago University Students Association recreation officer Josh Smythe, waved placards with messages such as ‘‘Get out of our flats’’ and ‘‘Hey proctor, leave my bong alone’’.
One student climbed on to the ‘‘Proctor’s stocks’’, a memorial to a previous proctor put up in 2015, and told the crowd they ‘‘must be removed’’.
Following an article in Critic Te Arohi magazine Mr Scott earlier this week admitted going into a student flat while the flatmates were sleeping or out, and taking three ‘‘smoking’’ cannabis bongs.
Mr Scott, who came out to meet the students, said he was happy to repeat the public apology he made via the media on Tuesday.
‘‘I feel I’ve learnt from this error, and I give an assurance that it won’t be repeated.’’
Despite Mr Scott being greeted with applause, some of the students heckled him and criticised his remarks as ‘‘scripted’’ when he returned to his office.
Mr Smythe told the crowd the students had three requests to formally make.
‘‘We’re going to ask that he doesn’t come into student flats without asking, or unless it’s an emergency, because that’s an important part of his role [in] pastoral care.
‘‘We are going to ask that he doesn’t take property from student flats, and we’re going to ask that he, as he just acknowledged, treat us as equals within this community.’’
Chanting, and occasionally singing, the crowd headed to the clocktower building where Mr Smythe presented the students’ demands to the university administration.
A university spokesman said vicechancellor Harlene Hayne was in Wellington for the day, but would meet the current and incoming OUSA president when she got back.
‘‘The university believes that the proctor’s powers are already welldefined by existing policy and by the law, and that their scope is appropriate.’’
Campus Watch and national media were present.
Mr Smythe has said other students have told him of the proctor going into their flats while they were there.
A second group of students told Critic he let himself in when they were not home this year, and a third group told the magazine he let himself into their flat in 2016.