University plans opposed
So Waikato University Vice-Chancellor, Neil Quigley wants to spend $90 million on a flash ‘‘front door’’ to the campus.
Just what a university needs – more shops, cafe´ s and restaurants.
Hang on a minute. This is a university we’re talking about, not some downtown development project? Is this what higher learning has come to in this country?
Or is it to do with surplus cash sloshing around after so many redundancies imposed on the arts and science faculties, shadowed by the collapse of the proposed medical school?
One can imagine the chagrin of all those unemployed lecturers on hearing the news of such a swank entrance.
All this, the VC argues, to keep students on campus during winter – somewhere dry and warm to sip their lattes.
But shouldn’t these budding scholars be in the warm and dry library working their thesis butts off?
As for the proposed spaces hosting conferences and events, I can understand councillor Garry Mallett’s objection to this oversubscription, given Claudelands Arena struggles.
Apparently this development will gut A Block. For those of us associated with the university longer than the current VC, A Block was the founding lecture theatre on campus. History bound for landfill again.
Peter Dornauf, Hamilton