Lincoln Uni ‘needs overhaul’

Lincoln University is unlikely to ‘‘withstand another external shock’’ unless it does things differently, a new report says.

A transformation board report released yesterday afternoon said the university had been ‘‘underperforming’’ and teaching was ‘‘in need of an overhaul’’.

Enrolments ‘‘remain lower than desirable’’ and it would fail to survive another event like the global financial crisis of 2007-08 or the

2010 and 2011 Canterbury earthquakes.

To succeed, it needed to ‘‘aspire to become a globally ranked topfive agriculture university and a top-five New Zealand university’’, Lincoln University Transformation Board chairman Sir Maarten Wevers said.

Chancellor Steve Smith said the report contained no surprises as the 140-year-old Canterbury institution began a 10 to 20-year ‘‘evolution, not a revolution’’ after a ‘‘really tough’’ decade.

The report gave recommendations on how to overcome several ‘‘hurdles’’ to become financially viable. These include ‘‘overcoming its small-scale, substantially growing student numbers’’, and strengthening its weak relationships with other organisations.

It needed to redefine courses, increase research outcomes, reposition itself as the heart of the Lincoln Hub rather than remaining a standalone university, focus on knowledge and national and international opportunities regarding land, food and ecosystems, and renew its governance towards these goals, it said.

The university achieved its first operating surplus in a decade in

2016, of $493,000, but it ‘‘remains to be seen’’ how sustainable its improved financial performance would be.

Smith said the university would have a plan for implementing the changes by the first quarter of 2018.

The university had already begun working closer with its agriculture partners and governance was being assessed by outside specialists.

The board recommended courses be ‘‘re-evaluated and perhaps discontinued or simplified’’. Smith said courses would not change next year, but ‘‘we’ll need to weave in the new Lincoln’’.

‘‘It’s going to be different, but I wouldn’t like to predict what or how different that might be,’’ Smith said.

He disputed changes would mean job losses. ‘‘If we’re to become [a top university] it means more staff, not less.’’

An EY audit report released in June said Lincoln would not achieve surplus for another decade and should consider five options for its future – do nothing, continue its planned restructure, bolster its investment strategy, merge with a larger university or pursue a ‘‘managed winddown’’ involving the sale of all its assets.

Vice-chancellor Robin Pollard at the time called the idea of a merger with another university ‘‘naive’’.

The transformation board also decided a merger or winddown were not viable options.

Improving the experiences of students was a priority, Smith said.

Selling assets was also ‘‘high priority right now’’, but it was important to hold onto its valuable farms that were ‘‘outside laboratories’’. ‘‘You’ve got to be careful when selling assets that you’re not throwing out the baby with the bath water.’’