Hamilton and the Student

Hamilton is not a university town, with all the cultural baggage that implies, but is the site of The University of Waikato, which I attend. (In fact, Hamilton is a cow town, with all the cultural baggage that implies.)

There are other tertiary institutions in town, but since I seldom visit, and know very little of what they do and teach, and am prejudiced in favour of my own institution, I am not qualified to offer any commentary on their activities. More on that later.

The University of Waikato is a hotbed of political correctness, right-wing economics, and bureaucracy, three traditional enemies that have somehow coalesced into the administration of Vice Chancellor Brian Gould, a former British Labour MP turned career manager.

Vice Chancellor Gould has made his mark on the university by attempting to rearrange the existing Schools into Faculties, something he feels we lack. As I understand it, the aim of the exercise is to increase efficiency and improve communication by inserting a new layer of senior management between himself and the current topmost layer of senior management. Professor Gould would then have to read fewer reports and talk to fewer people. This may sound illogical to the lay-person, but if your job consisted of communicating all day with the university bureaucracy, you would understand how doing less of it would improve it. The VCs plan has received widespread support among the six people likely to get the new management jobs. The VC sent a memo to the rest of us explaining everything, it included a list of "potential" benefits, most of which involved words like "maybe".

The current status of the restructuring plans is not very clear. The staff of the School of Law are apparently reluctant to be taken over by - sorry, I mean merged with - the School of Management. Now you might think that the VC, an experienced politician, would know better than to pick a fight with a building full of lawyers. But Professor Gould, a braver man than I, thought this was a battle he could win. When the dust settled the lawyers had an injunction preventing the VC from carrying out his planned changes on the basis that he didn't have the authority to see it through in the first place; and the VC had a six week holiday.

Professor Gould has recently been reappointed Vice Chancellor. The School of Law remains independent (as does the School of Computing and Mathematical Sciences, who find themselves in an analogous relationship with the proposed Faculty of Science). I'll keep you informed of future developments, if I can be bothered.

It's not just the staff at Waikato who like to indulge in political melodrama, the student politicians too have their axes to grind. A few years ago a group of students noticed that compulsory student union membership, as practiced by the Waikato Student's Union (WSU) and the other New Zealand student associations, restricted the student's right to freedom of association. Thus began the campaign for VSM: voluntary student membership.

To make a long story short, the members of a referendum was held to decide whether compulsory student union membership should be abandoned in favour of VSM. In hindsight, the principle factor influencing the decision was the incompetence of the student union and its president. The principle results were that nobody much cares about student politics anymore, and that the WSU issues its members two-digit ID numbers.

Nexus is the official organ of the WSU. That is to say, it is the student magazine published by the Waikato Student's Union. Each year it has a new editor, and a new style, and 1999's is easily the worst I can remember.

Here's a letter I recently sent to them. It may help to know that Matthew Flannagan is the current president of the WSU, and writes a regular column for Nexus. Kris is the Editor, and appears to be on a first name basis with all of his other correspondents.

Dear Editor,

I did not complete your reader survey because it cannot express the contempt in which I hold your publication. This year's Nexus would be an embarrassment to any tertiary institution, and I am continually annoyed that it is associated with mine.

Your continual inability to correct spelling and grammar - whether it be your own or Matthew Flannagan's - is ultimately ironic in light of your "professional" status. Why do you insist on patronising us with advertisements posing as journalism? You may be unaware, but many of your readers have university degrees. Your so-called "Nexus nasties" are banal and probably plagiarised. Do you really expect us to believe your disclaimer--if they do not reflect "editorial policy", what do they reflect, I wonder?

Yours sincerely,
Gordon Paynter

PS: The salutation on this letter does not read "Dear Kris". Please do not change it.

The editor declined to print my letter, for reasons he has not shared.

By this point, many of you are tired of reading, and keen to look at more pictures. If this is true of you, gentle reader, then I apologise for exhausting your sad little attention span. You will just have to take my word for it that you do not want to see photographs of the things I've been discussing. Now, however, you are in luck, as I have captured some of the environs of the university for your amusement.

I spend most of my waking hours in G Block, home of the School of Computing and Mathematical Sciences, which consists of the Departments of Computer Science, Mathematics, and Statistics. I have a little office in the centre of G-Block. Right in the centre. I wont tell you my room number, because I can't imagine ever wanting you to visit. Lets just say that I am so central that if G Block revolved, it would revolve around me.

Attentive readers may note that I seem overly pleased with my (geometrically) central position in the department. This is because my office has no windows, and is so small that the air conditioning ducts have a greater floor area. And they don't even have floors.

This is the library, where the librarians work and live. If you ask nicely, they will help you find books. If you attend the University of Waikato, you will become familiar with this building, and its strange inhabitants.

You may also be tempted to try their web-based search engine. Be warned, it is a treacherous beast, and will deceive you. If you don't know exactly which book you want, you will be better off using the on-line catalogue in the library building, or building a time machine, going back to 1997, and using the good old OPAC system.

It is a sad but undeniable fact (or is it an opinion? apparently there's a difference) that the university has, in the past, displayed a lack of judgement when hiring architects. G block, and the IJK blocks (pictured), and CDEF blocks, and maybe some other blocks, are examples of an architectural style aptly called "brutalism".

The new S block is quite a bit prettier, fortunately, and the new "Building Site of the Performing Arts" is another break with tradition.

Here at the university we're generally disdainful of the academic achievements of the Waikato Polytechnic (such as they are), but I have a theory that a good part of that animosity is based on the fact that their buildings are so much more stylish.

The Polytech has just restarted work on their "new" building (the foundations have been sitting there for years), right in front of the lovely edifice pictured below. The uglier it is, the better we will all get along.

There are a couple of bars in the university area that you may be tempted to visit.

The Station on Hillcrest road is frequented, in the most part, by staff members and wedding guests, and is only (as far as I know) open late on Fridays. If you're not much of a wine drinker, you may prefer the Hilly, a nearby pub with a convenient liquor store. They used to do great food, but these days it is more in keeping with the rest of the establishment.

The Wailing Bongo, or Guru's, or whatever they call it these days, is another pub, nominally "The Student Bar" because it is on campus and in some baroque way the students can be said to own it. They feature loud music by bands of remarkably diverse quality. However, they have recently lost their liquor license, as has the Campus Pavilion bar, so you will probably not want to go there if you're one of those souls who require the stimulus of alcohol to become witty, and pretty, and wise.

When all else fails, a taxi to town costs less than $10, and a walk into town is free. See the restaurants, bars, and cafes page for more information.