Another student dead, unnoticed

Another case of a student’s body remaining unnoticed at a university hall has emerged, this time in Wellington.

The Australian man, aged in his 30s, died in Victoria University’s Education House in Willis St in January last year. His body was not found for three days.

Details of the death have emerged following the death of Mason Pendrous, a 19-year-old student whose decomposing body wasn’t discovered for nearly eight weeks in a hall run by Campus Living Villages (CLV) at the University of Canterbury.

The delay in finding Pendrous sparked concerns about the level of pastoral care at university halls in New Zealand, several investigations and an urgent, Governmentled review of the regulatory framework that applies to student accommodation.

The student in Wellington was living in a one-person, self-catered studio apartment. He was found by a hall staff member, a Victoria University spokeswoman confirmed yesterday.

The coroner would determine the cause and time of death, but ‘‘university records indicate around three days had passed between his death and the discovery of his death’’, the spokeswoman said.

Education House provided selfcatered accommodation for ‘‘mature students’’, she said.

‘‘As one would expect with mature students, residents are not expected to sign in and out of the hall and their privacy is respected.’’

The spokeswoman said all university critical incident policies and procedures were followed.

Victoria University made one change to its processes, which was to ensure that only the on-site person in charge at a hall entered a missing student’s room. This was to prevent junior staff members potentially being exposed to a distressing scene.

‘‘The university has full confidence in the process and procedures that were followed.’’

Stuff has obtained a document that shows Victoria University consulted with staff in May 2017 about a proposed restructure that would disestablish more than 35 positions in its student accommodation team.

It is understood the restructure was largely adopted later that year, with many of the disestablished roles replaced by new ones.

A university spokeswoman said a number of changes were implemented in late 2017. These included appointing property and commercial managers to free up heads of hall to focus on internal operations and pastoral care.

The reporting line for student support co-ordinators was moved to Student Health and Student Counselling.

Education Minister Chris Hipkins told Stuff yesterday that he was unaware of the Victoria University student’s death and had asked the Tertiary Education Commission to make inquiries.

‘‘I’ll be seeking assurance that there are systems and processes in place in every one of those establishments so that this sort of thing could not happen again.’’

‘‘As one would expect with mature students, residents are not expected to sign in and out.’’ Victoria University of Wellington spokeswoman