A couple of colleges does not make a ‘trend’
I READ with some interest and surprise an article on the ‘‘Report into college futures soon to be completed’’ (ODT, 6.9.19).
The reporter seems to have accepted a previous unsubstantiated opinion in the ODT that ‘‘the move continues a trend for residential colleges to move from church control to that of the University of Otago’’.
As a former student services director at the university, the statement did not ring true as a quick check on the 15 residential colleges under the University of Otago ‘‘umbrella’’ shows.
Four of the 15 colleges are independently operated under their own governance and management structures, but with an affiliation agreement with the university. Knox College, Salmond College and
Selwyn College all have a church connection, as once did the fourth independent college, St Margaret’s.
The Stuarts Residence Halls Council initially established residential accommodation for students in Dunedin starting in the 1940s. While some of the leaders in this council had church connections, the organisation itself as such had not, and from their work they established what is today known as Carrington College and Arana College, both of which the university purchased some years ago.
Studholme College was established by the University in 1915.
In the late 1980s and 1990s, the university purchased from the thenRegional Health Authority the former nurses home now known as Cumberland College and the former Queen Mary Maternity Hospital now known as Hayward College.
The university built the large twin tower complex of University College in 1969, followed by more recent acquisitions of Abbey College (formerly the Commodore Motor Inn and converted to a postgraduate residential college) and Caroline Freeman College (formerly City College)..
Apart from St Margaret’s College, which is still independent, the only other former churchbased residential college to change from church influence to university management is Aquinas College.
One or two colleges out of 15 in the 150 years of the university does not seem like a trend to my way of thinking. A more accurate observation might be the trend the university has made through its strategic purchases of sites that could be developed into successful residential colleges in Dunedin.
David Richardson Dunedin
Euthanasia
ALLOW me to respond to Ken Orr (Letters, 17.9.19).
For the sake of consistency, Mr Orr should stick to the same tack on scaremongering. Usually, legalised assisted dying is presented by its detractors as an ugly way of reducing expensive endoflife care by thrusting the elderly willynilly into an undesired, early death.
But Mr Orr tried a different tack to frighten us, warning of the ‘‘untold millions’’ that would be spent on implementing assisted dying.
Of course, neither position is true. But if ‘‘untold millions’’ are to be spent at the end of life, I’d rather they be spent procuring a peaceful death when this is desired by the patient than on forcing a dying patient against their will to endure a terrifying, painracked death.
Ann David Waikanae
BIBLE READING: Through love, serve one another. — Galatians 5:13.