Updating . . .
Anonymous is asking questions of University of Otago Vice-Chancellor Harlene Hayne, and threatening to make this a weekly feature. What if? happily and loosely accommodates regular questions so long as they’re narly.
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There’s the big question about university sponsorship of the Highlanders. Understandably, this leads to questions for our bluestocking about her appropriateness or not for the role of vice-chancellor, turning on research, teaching and funding priorities, marketing, and decision-making processes within the local ivy league.
![Harlene Hayne [otago.ac.nz 1]](https://dunedinstadium.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/harlene-hayne-otago-ac-nz-1.jpg)
Who is Harlene Hayne?
She is a psychology researcher by training, and her work has focused on field memory development in infants, children, adolescents and adults. Prof Hayne was born in Oklahoma, raised in Colorado, and earned degrees at Colorado College and Rutgers University. She was recruited to the University of Otago after doing a postdoctoral fellowship at Princeton University. With a decade of teaching at Otago under her belt, Prof Hayne recently assumed the University’s Vice-Chancellorship. She is the first woman selected to lead the institution in its 142-year history. Outside the University, she sits on the Innovation Board of the Ministry of Science and Innovation, and serves as co-chair of the Prime Minister’s Science Advisory Committee Working Party on Reducing Social and Psychological Morbidity during Adolescence.
University Announcement: Professor Harlene Hayne to lead Otago and becomes first woman Vice-Chancellor of New Zealand’s first university. Link
Channel 9 (now Ch39) February 10, 2011 – 7:21pm
Prof Harlene Hayne is both excited and passionate about the prospect of her new role as Vice-Chancellor. She talks candidly about her hopes and aspirations for the future. Video
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Anonymous
February 11, 2014 at 5:14 pm
Ask Harlene about senior managers from University Union getting tickets/trips to All Blacks tests and whether or not Frucor still makes loyalty payments.
Anonymous
February 15, 2014 at 11:57 am
Ask Harlene, 15/2/2014 (this will be a weekly feature)
How many staff are being made redundant from Marketing and Communications? What are the proposed retrenchments in the current year? Have any staff been threatened with termination for non-performance on medical grounds?
Anonymous
February 16, 2014 at 6:53 pm
Ask Harlene, 16/2/2014
Do you approve?
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10152222730813139
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![Orientation Fire, 15 Hyde Street 15.2.14 [Critic Fb]](https://dunedinstadium.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/orientation-fire-15-hyde-street-15-2-14-critic-fb.jpg)
![Orientation Fire, 15 Hyde Street 15.2.14 [Critic Fb] 1](https://dunedinstadium.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/orientation-fire-15-hyde-street-15-2-14-critic-fb-1.jpg)
![Orientation Fire, 15 Hyde Street 15.2.14 [Critic Fb] 2](https://dunedinstadium.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/orientation-fire-15-hyde-street-15-2-14-critic-fb-2.jpg)
2014 Orientation Hyde Street Fire. Video by Critic – Te Arohi 15.2.14
[screenshots by whatifdunedin]
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Posted by Elizabeth Kerr
*Image: Harlene Hayne with longer hair… re-imaged by whatifdunedin
What if? Dunedin... 
Action following 15 Hyde Street fire
http://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/291887/fire-lighters-will-be-prosecuted-police-promise
Well, this is all part of the fun of attending Otago University which supports rugby and drinking… and general misbehaviour associated with both… with its new branding. Get used to it Harlene Hayne.
Why would you study all the way down south if you can’t let your hair down? Academia has nothing to do with it, eh.
Peter; It is the result of virtually free entrance (not to be confused with free education) of new students. The achievement standards of past eras tended to exclude most of the idiot factor. It’s just a “bums on seats” business exercise now. In effect a percentage game. Of any given number you will get representatives of all factions. That is why you see crooked lawyers, policemen and sofa burning students. The greater the number, the greater the factions. When in 1961 the student role was 3,000 the factor was probably the same. Now, in 2007 it was officially 18,000, we see the result. Summary: Why are we surprised? Get over it.
The cost of running our emergency services today compared to 2007 I’m not sure is muchly comparable. Nor is the wide availability of alcohol discounted at supermarkets for youth purchase (alcohol industry lobby); or the number of immature rich kids flowing into the town now which makes mockery of student loans when their discretionary stipends provided by parents buy them the clothes, the cars, the winter skiing, and more alcohol and other substances to fuel peer group autonomy. Within my living memory entrance to university was not restricted except by not having UE, and some professional schools (offering their five-year degrees) like I went to had an A-/A average for entry based on intermediate year performance. Otago has recently restricted entry to some courses outside of its professional schools. The university currently attracts a lot of no-hopers who haven’t yet worked out that entering the trades is the best course career wise – and besides, the clueless of the deep south think it’s fun to be here for Orientation and mayhem because they can’t be told apart from drunk students. Welcome to the new Harlene Hayne Rugby Hall of Infamy, as another exciting subtext. The institution also sports highly paid staff who offer the climate change religion to mindless believers. Brilliant times and scorched tarseal.
Excellent opinion piece in today’s ODT by a group of professors and students criticising Harlene’s Americanisation of our university to allow for jock sports culture in favour of academia.
Harlene needs to realise we don’t want her dumbed down branding for our university. The American education system, from what I gather, is in a total mess…….worse than ours…. and not something to emulate…though we seem to love copying all things American.
Nothing much changes away from the smartly well-endowed ivy universities in the States – their work and international reputations and investments are difficult to cheapen. The stars of the lesser tertiary providers tend to wax and wane unless you’re in the global top 100 universities – there’s brains and entrepreneurship but also the gamble of parochial sponsorship and all that brings to middle class outputs.
Harlene is American after all. A psychologist as well. Connect the dots.
Calvin. Maybe from California too????
I have tried to find the said OP from today’s ODT, but can’t find it online. Self censorship, after the fact, through pressure applied by the university to drop it…. or am I blind?
Yes, Elizabeth, the emphasis should be on aspiring to Ivy League type status, not sponsoring rugby teams… along with other articles today on Josh Cronfeld, and pal, holding a bottle of beer and looking pretty blokey.
Peter – shortly off to town will collect ODT on the way and bring the piece to readers here.
ODT have a dreadful habit of not placing all opinion pieces online – they completely misunderstand their online audience and growing smartphone use, and occasionally they use this device to try and sell more tree versions. Sad puppies. But hey, I read them anyway and buy the occasional rag.
http://www.odt.co.nz/opinion/opinion/291941/opinion-sponsorships-must-uphold-universitys-principles
Thanks!
The opinion piece opens:
Sponsorships must uphold university’s principles
Mon, 17 Feb 2014
A group of staff and senior students – Dr Lynne Bowyer, Emma Tumilty, Katelyn Ferguson, Dr Deborah Stevens, Colin Sweetman and Prof Grant Gillett – say they are baffled by the University of Otago’s recent sponsorship of the Highlanders rugby team. The University of Otago has a reputation built on excellence and social responsibility through its engagement with individuals, social groups, government and the international academic community. The sponsoring of the Highlanders professional rugby team makes sense neither in relation to University of Otago’s reputation of excellence, nor in its commitment to “social responsibility”.
Soon followed by:
As educators, we cannot help but think the University of Otago, with its problematic idea of ”brand exposure”, has lost sight of its role as a learning institution for both students and the wider community in favour of a misguided and short-lived celebrity and corporate status, directed by the idols of the market place.
Then, more questions for Harlene & Co.
Peter, quite often opinion pieces aren’t available online. It may be about the copyright agreement. Roy Colbert’s columns are online, Joe Bennett’s aren’t. Don’t know the reason for the one you’re looking for.
Also, some pieces are syndicated.
Or in this case – simply, the Online Editor forgot to put the link up.
### ODT Online Mon, 17 Feb 2014
Fire lighters will be prosecuted, police promise
By Vaughan Elder and Hamish McNeilly
Police have warned students and other O-Week revellers that anyone involved in lighting fires will be put before the courts. The warnings come after large parties and a couch fire in Hyde St on Saturday night led to the arrest of four men.
Read more
This OP was a one off, not as regular column.
Although – it would be great to have a regular column that goes to ethics and direction of this university (from academic and general staff, and students — as ‘teams’). University as Community Conscience.
ODT Online (homepage) has slapped a highly questionable headline on the opinion piece, which is very considered in its message.
Slam – no, definitely not.
Examine and discuss, yes.
The Oddity often takes a position on certain topics which are nothing short of dreadful. That opinion piece is very well considered and does much of the work for those same journalists. Even Morris could copy and paste the included questions for an email to Harlene. At half a million dollars, she should be able to take the disagreement in her stride and respond in kind.
Personally I think it bloody madness a renowned university has aligned itself with professional rugby and willing to carry its fetid baggage.
http://www.odt.co.nz/opinion/opinion/291941/opinion-sponsorships-must-uphold-universitys-principles
Of the two, I don’t know which is the more desperate, the University, or the Highlanders. Which ever it is, there seems to be the smell of carrion about it.
Maybe there’s no more properties for sale just now. Shopaholics gotta get their shopping fix.
Ivy League, right here, right now? So Otago is up there with Harvard, Yale, Princeton. This amazes the duchess. It was Elvis, we think, who sang ‘Poison that Ivy League’.
“Otago is not in that league, Ivy.”
Been there, seen that. At a rather young and impressionable age, too.
Twenty-four I was, to Harvard, Yale and Princeton.
Otago seems like a thickset agricultural college, compared.
Well, Im relieved to hear that, as the Ivies are all male scions with their Secret Societies, handshakes and Lodge Aprons embroidered Beta Cum Laude.
Hang on, Eliz. Showing my age. I did not realise the Leagues are integrated, but then, Sharon Crosbie attended Harvard on a Fulbright. Only the Fully Bright go. Well done.
Uh-oh. Dave and Jinty have a whole new bunch of stew-dents to share religion with. Dave started yesterday with a speech at Orientation…
“Other orators made sobering speeches, with Dunedin Mayor Dave Cull saying students faced the ”impending combination of climate change, financial and geopolitical instability, sea-level rise, energy crisis, environmental challenges and demographic change. And it will be increasingly your generation’s challenge to grapple with those factors.””
http://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/292019/some-sobering-messages
Bloody hell. Why would he do that. Irrational crap. It’s not election year but I guess Davy-boy needs a pressure group to justify the cycle lanes, protest numbers at St Clair, other spending (before that Apocalypse), etcetera.
Elizabeth he is right about the financial instability and demographic change (of Dunedin) – so 2 out of 7 would be good for him. About 28% – hmmm – matches his performance as an effective mayor.
The rest he can’t do a damned thing about and nor could the students he was pontificating to.
Fair enough, Mick. But today’s poxy teenager from Auckland really only thinks about themselves, and like hell they’ll plan their life to look after the aged or decrepit. Read their Facebook pages or the comments that surface at Forsyth Barr Stadium page and related. A whole cowardly new world. Not sure Dave will get a full conversion of the student population. And what if he’s into tithing?!
Whew, that’s a relief. I thought us blokes would have to grapple increasingly with that list.
Student recruiters and impressionable young minds. Dave wears a halo and chains nowadays.
More from Dave, corr… fighting Highlanders’ talk and pleasantry!
”Anyone who thinks they can treat Dunedin like a drunken sailor in a foreign country and take no responsibility, then they’ve come to the wrong place.”
http://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/292025/students-urged-make-most-dunedin
Then OUSA president Ruby Sycamore-Smith says:
“We are ready for an amazing week that will welcome new and returning students to Dunedin, and we hope to see you out there with them! Rain or shine we have events for everyone, and thankfully the stadium will keep us dry! Get out there #gigatowndun and enjoy the new life breathed into this great city.”
http://www.odt.co.nz/opinion/opinion/291991/getting-our-orientation-right
Highlanders and Chorus. Where did ‘Otago’ go wrong.
Dave has done it again. Not only is he breaking into hallowed territory dear to every student’s heart, “global warming”! It is not as if this was a subject he would even have a smidgeon of knowledge about, but he isn’t even aware of the fact, that as we speak, the world is ‘pissing on ‘ the whole concept. Then he goes on to make the grand statement “Dunedin is the only city in the world where you can surf and ski…huh? and catch a salmon, all in one day.” Hasn’t he heard of Vancouver?
The ODT Online editors must be heartily sick of oil, gas, fluoride and climate change by now. All the circular arguments… And Dave recruiting more bloggers with their smart phones. The sooner ODT moves to full paysite mode perhaps the better – a dissuasion. I wonder how the New Zealand school curriculum approaches climate science, and why there aren’t teachings in the avoidance of gullibility.
Elizabeth
Money is made out of gullibility – ask any snake oil salesman. The ‘pollies’ like Dave are just playing catchup.
@gigatowngnome 1000 bonus points for creating a fun giga-mess in the lecture theatre. Great job students! http://t.co/nwblYqNvNT @gigatowndunedin
Not just Dunedin or Vancouver. Also New Plymouth.
Not all of us are sick of these debates. And not all of us agree over all the same issues or have made ‘a final decision’ on one or more of them. I think it is healthy to debate things which are contentious. It’s inevitable, anyhow.
I feel it is wiser to leave the technical arguments to people, like myself, who didn’t go beyond Junior Science at school.
Calvin. You say, ‘the world is pissing on the whole concept of climate change.’ How do you come to this broad generalisation?
Peter
What do you mean by this? ” I feel it is wiser to leave the technical arguments to people, like myself, who didn’t go beyond Junior Science at school”..
I cannot understand the sense of this statement. Do you mean leave it to others who did more science or leave it to people like you who didn’t do science.
Or are you simply extracting the proverbial ?
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{Peter has most likely made a typo – his advice has already been sought, we await his reply. -Eds}
Peter; Look at Japan, USA UK, and tell me that global warming is a fact.
To be fair their concern is climate CHANGE.
Much of the evidence with which they support panic is down to modern communication. We get to have collective conniptions in real time instead of reading about the flood / snow / drought / heatwave months later, individually, which makes a big difference to the heat-to-light ratio.
What we used to have was weather that didn’t “indicate” or “prove” anything, except perhaps that shit happens.
http://hwe.niwa.co.nz/event/July_1939_New_Zealand_Snow
Hype, way too logical. You’re a threat, although a very small one compared to “climate CHANGE”.
For, at Dunedin, we speak of rats deserting sinking ships (we know some, right?) —or lemmings racing sheep over cliffs (with lemmings refusing to believe they’re really sheep). The tendency to leap from common faith that the planet will NOT end is very ‘human’, very doomsayer – it normally remains in the recessive until SKY PANIC sets in (wrong clouds, wrong weather, electrical storms, ice-blindness – and HUGE computer swindles between global corporates funding scientists and ITs to bend markets). “Stadium smothering” comes to mind (to haul this back to the purpose of What if?, er ‘the stadium’)…
Rat, sheep, lemming, or rogue computer: before he quit DVML I don’t think Darren Burden solved the potential CRUSH problem in the Main Stand.
Anyway, I blame the education system and ‘peanut brain’ – despite these, some logic still gets through.
Calvin. It’s also about freakish, and more frequently freakish, weather patterns during during both the winter and summer seasons, isn’t it?
That list of countries doesn’t confirm a thing for me, I’m afraid.
You also said ‘the world is pissing on climate change’. You don’t answer my question about your generalisation.
Sorry about that confusion, Mick. Head cold…. due to climate change! I meant: leave it to others, who did go beyond junior science, to investigate and verify one way or another.
Peter
February 18, 2014 at 4:26 pm
Sorry about that confusion, Mick. Head cold….
Thanks Peter that is what I hoped you meant.
and to….
Calvin. You say ‘It’s also about freakish, and more frequently freakish, weather patterns during during both the winter and summer seasons, isn’t it?’
I think that Hype O’Thermia’s comment @ February 18, 2014 at 3:55 pm is apposite and says it all.
‘Much of the evidence with which they support panic is down to modern communication. We get to have collective conniptions in real time instead of reading about the flood / snow / drought / heat wave months later, individually, which makes a big difference to the heat-to-light ratio.’
Peter, if you read the data about the frequency of freakish weather you will find that the incidence of it has not changed at all since records began.As Hyp said, We have to have collective ‘conniptions’.
Mick
Up until 10,000 years ago the Great Barrier Reef was a forested lowland. Then the thaw of the last glacier age started and raised the oceans and flooded the lowlands into what is today the Great Barrier Reef. Guess what? There wasn’t any oil burners or a coal burning factory’s about to blame in those days. The cause could have been the same thing 10,000 years ago that is causing the climate change today. The steam of all the bullshit on climate change that is entering the stratosphere, and warming the planet.
Nothing would give me the greatest pleasure if the climate change people, in the end, are proven wrong. We could then all breathe a sigh of relief.
Equally, nothing would give me the greatest displeasure if the climate change deniers are proven wrong and we have to bear the burden of the consequences to an even larger degree than what is apparent.
I prefer to recognise my own limitations in understanding the science of climate change and I take the path of caution in the meantime.
If what we are witnessing, in the obvious degradation of our planet (plus the chaotic weather patterns we are experiencing) is proven to be a ‘beat up’….along the lines of the Y2K scare…so be it.
Time will tell.
There is less debate over climate change being part of this worldly existence in the long timeframes – than there is with this nutty preoccupation with how fast ‘global warming’ is proceeding if indeed it is. And who cares anyway? A human life span is very short; maybe the presence of people on earth is not the most desirable thing to continue given the propensity to destroy ecology… other species are much more civilised and restrained! And nature takes care of plagues.
I’m happy to live with the notion of cyclical climate change (this is not about weather!) and that it isn’t all down to me to save the world from the global warming movie plot – since my footprint is piddling and yes, it could be even smaller. I’m not interested in wasting time thinking I have to change very much to be a responsible short-term ‘dweller on earth’. Better things to think about. Cell to cell, dust to dust.
If people want to invest in cleaning up their industries, preserving rain forest, planting more trees, not covering the ground in tarseal/petrochemicals – that’s great, go ahead. And all the greenies give them a hand! But keep the noise down.
Peter
February 18, 2014 at 6:33 pm
Peter said “….prefer to recognise my own limitations in understanding the science of climate change and I take the path of caution in the meantime.
If what we are witnessing, in the obvious degradation of our planet (plus the chaotic weather patterns we are experiencing) is proven to be a ‘beat up’….along the lines of the Y2K scare…so be it. Time will tell.”
Ah Peter – the ‘precautionary principle’. But what steps would you be taking or expect others to take for you on your behalf as a precaution? And against what precisely?
Peter: I agree that debate is good, but I think that it is very unwize to recognize your limits if it means that you limit your efforts to increase your understanding.
It seems like the average person who doesn’t want to read a lot about global warming will either follow the crowd/news-media or choose the side that matches their personal politics. These are terrible ways to decide if something is true or not. I suggest everyone reads about both sides and tries to follow the debates.
Jo Nova is an Ausi girl with a good website (a non-believer) – http://joannenova.com.au/
Mick. In answer to your question as to what I am doing I guess I just try to do my best to be less wasteful in terms of consumerism. I don’t claim to be a paragon of virtue all the time. I still run a car and I still go on aeroplanes to places, like Melbourne, to visit my children or elsewhere occasionally. Sometimes there is no alternative. I am not an ascetic holy man living in an ashram.
At the same time I applaud those smart people who are developing new technologies to reduce our carbon footprint, which will help us all, and the planet.
Aside from that, I regularly donate to organisations like Greenpeace and Forest and Bird to give some support, in my small way, to their research and variously positive endeavours. I know this is kind of passive but, as I said, I know my limitations.
Jimmy. I think you find camp followers on both sides of any contentious debate. Like fluoridation. It is just what happens. There are some things people take a position on because of gut instinct and they try to find the evidence to support their case….and ignore the rest. C’est la vie.
I’ll check out Jo Nova……the Aussie girl. I bet she is full on……like they can be.
Peter @ February 19, 2014 at 7:14 am
Peter
Thank you for your honest answer. I agree that it is always good to avoid waste. However, you did not really answer my question asking precisely what problems you would take precautions against.
In your post (February 18, 2014 at 6:33 pm), you said “we are witnessing the obvious degradation of our planet (plus the chaotic weather patterns we are experiencing)”. I would have expected some reference to that statement in your reply. But instead you say “I applaud those smart people who are developing new technologies to reduce our carbon footprint, which will help us all, and the planet”.
I assume from your answer that you are referring to CO2 in the atmosphere when you say ‘reduce our carbon footprint’. I would like to know what this has to do with the ‘chaotic weather patterns we are witnessing’ you mention and how these two might be related to each other or even how it might work as ‘taking the path of caution’. You might be able to demonstrate the connection between the two perhaps.
People have always invented “smart people who are developing new technologies” though it is doubtful if they were driven by panic “to reduce our carbon footprint, which will help us all, and the planet”. From what I have seen so far the ideologically driven advances have been less than stunning, while the ones aiming for efficiency to benefit the user (purchaser) keep on rocking along. Here is an example http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/farming/dairy/9736602/Milk-transfer-plan-could-save-millions. As a by-product it will save some truck use (planet-saving) and can be spun Greenly, but its basis is lower costs >> more profits.
Forces of darkness? Have a look at this, from the exercise-promoting, green-transport DCC, a huge emission of hot air (global warming?) to address one of the demonstrably least important “problems”, as the writer points out: http://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/292168/board-bylaw-reviewed#comment-53389.
Skateboarders annoy me, I think it’s the droopiness of the youths when they are not actually engaged in skating, they have a tendency to look like the very embodiment of gormlessness. Not an accurate assessment of their character or achievements, it’s approximately 98% irrational prejudice on my part. So if the accident stats quoted are correct, what’s the council getting its rates-purchased knickers in a twist over?
@Hype O’Thermia
February 19, 2014 at 11:45 am
You say …‘So if the accident stats quoted are correct, what’s the council getting its rates-purchased knickers in a twist over?’
Well – regulate, regulate, regulate. For the staff it seems it’s a case of regulate or perish.
But then you see this….In its Spatial Plan 2012 it talks (glibly?) of “A vibrant and exciting city”. I wonder how it is fulfilling its ‘vibrancy and excitement’ stuff by getting rid of this rather harmless if perhaps annoying activity.
Hype: I mostly don;t mind them …. except for the night-time stuff – extreme skate-boarders zooming out of Moana and down Stuart St or down Ross St from the top – scary if you come across them in the dark.
Oh yeah and the skateboarder at night on the road with no lights being towed by their dog I almost wiped out near the Gardens last year – that guy is lucky he’s still around.
Peter, it sounds like you are doing the sensible old things that everyone used to do, because they were “common” sense back then.
Don’t be wasteful.
Live within your means (now needs to be extended beyond personal budget)
Re-use, pass on to others the things that are still good but you don’t need them.
Make and mend where it is worth the amount of effort. Like doing the darning while listening to the radio, today’s equivalent might be peeling apples while watching TV.
A fruitful tree is as beautiful as a decorative one – think on’t when you plant your garden.
IS YOUR JOURNEY REALLY NECESSARY? (War-time posters)
The more I observe “sustainable” enthusiasts the more I think of the saying during the post-pill “sexual revolution”:
“Today’s generation think they invented sex!”
### ODT Online Wed, 26 Feb 2014.
A ‘major shot in the arm’
By Vaughan Elder
A University of Otago plan to spend more than $600 million on infrastructure will be a ”major shot in the arm” for the Dunedin construction industry and create hundreds of jobs.
Read more
Ask Harlene: how well-developed is the university plan to acquire the stadium? As in “take it off your hands no trouble Guv” as opposed to buy it for book value. Just asking.
Ask the winkler Stuart McLauchlan.
[Ban the Kegs]
Not so much a question as a confession by her highness.
### ODT Online Wed, 14 May 2014
Partygoers still get too drunk: Hayne
By Vaughan Elder
The Hyde St keg party will not ”truly” be a success until students stop drinking as much, University of Otago vice-chancellor Prof Harlene Hayne says. Prof Hayne made the comments at yesterday’s university council meeting.
Read more
Coverage of the “feral” student party in Stafford Street at the weekend was one thing (the excusers appear at ODT Online…), but read the excellent comment by loulou22 saying what went wrong at the Octagon on Saturday night – it’s more graphic and provides an excellent reason to knock on the head the ‘fly by night’ student idea to close half the Octagon and a section of lower Stuart St to traffic. The students and other drunks don’t deserve any encouragement. And no, when my friends and I were students we had fun without inciting bottle throwing, fighting, and civil disorder – we didn’t have the money to spend on continuous drink, nor did we want to, or indeed the lack of morals that PARTY OTAGO UNIVERSITY now espouses. If we wanted to kick up our heels we stayed on campus to do so once or twice a year – not every Thursday, Friday and Saturday night, or more – of every week.
****
### ODT Online Mon, 19 May 2014
‘Feral’ student party in city shut down
By John Lewis
A ”feral” student party in Stafford St yesterday was shut down by police, amid concerns for the safety of intoxicated people climbing on the outside of a three-storey flat. Sergeant Dion Phair said police received multiple calls from Stafford St residents complaining about noise and people climbing on the fire escapes. It was also reported someone had thrown a beer bottle at police, he said.
Read more
****
At ODT Online:
[comment]Ruined Saturday night
Submitted by loulou22 on Mon, 19/05/2014 – 2:47pm.
I am in my early twenties and was out on Saturday night in the Octagon celebrating a birthday, but the night was completely ruined by drunken idiots. Many of which were first year uni students as i heard a lot of them talking about which hall they were from. Satuday was chaos, never have Iseen the Octagon so bad, it was out of control and police presence wasnt doing much. The level of intoxication of most people was disgusting and many were trying to start fights, vomiting everywhere and there were ambulances at the bars by 12am. I actually had to check the news on Sunday morning because i was sure something must have happened and that’s when I read about the fatal crash.
They need to raise the drinking age to 20 or 21, it’s just getting ridiculous.
****
### ODT Online on Sat, 17 May 2014
Council pushes ahead with pedestrian-only city centre zone plan
By Chris Morris
A proposal to turn part of Dunedin’s Octagon into a pedestrian-only zone has gained momentum, after the Dunedin City Council endorsed plans to investigate a trial of the concept. The proposal sought to turn the lower Octagon and lower Stuart St between the Octagon and Moray Pl into a car-free zone temporarily. That followed a call from University of Otago students Alexis Belton and Georgina Hampton to convert the area into a pedestrian zone.
Read more
Come to OTAGO to PARTY….
### ODT Online Tue, 29 Jul 2014
Botanic Garden staff see red on parties
By Vaughan Elder
A crackdown on out-of-control drinking in North Dunedin has pushed student parties into the Dunedin Botanic Garden, leaving garden staff to clean up the mess. Garden team leader Alan Matchett said the mess left behind ranged from vomit and broken bottles to coloured dye in the pond at the Mediterranean garden – something that had done deliberately twice in the past month.
Read more
North Dunedin family know exactly what’s happening with the uni brats…. “Haaaaarlene, get off your fat behind!”
Comment at ODT Online:
Drunk students
Submitted by Barnaby on Thu, 31/07/2014 – 4:54pm.
As a long-term North End resident and graduate of Otago University I’m appalled at the continually degenerating behaviour of students. Drunken riots are frequent and the timid approach by the university authorities, the police and DCC have allowed the situation to worsen.
On St Patrick’s Day there were three major drunken student riots in the North End, each with 200 to 300 people and during daytime. There were only 6 frontline police on duty. Simply, the police were massively outnumbered. Not one single person was disciplined or arrested. If these drunken brats from wealthy Auckland families were labourers from South Dunedin they all would have been locked up!
Last Sunday morning I drove my daughter to act as a host at her school’s open day. In the elevated part of Dundas St at 10.30 am our car was pelted with beer cans by drunken students. Later that evening our two large recycle bins were kicked over and emptied on our street, necessitating a half hour clean up. A typical North End street now has rubbish, broken bottles, pools of urine and vomit.
Clearly the university’s “bums on seats” policy and promotion of Dunedin as a party town with no risk of expulsion, has had an effect. When you have a Vice Chancellor who attends the Hyde Street Keg Party and gives it an official thumbs up, it is clear that the interests of “other Dunedin residents” don’t matter to the university. But I guess if you get paid $500,000 pa and live away from the North End and it’s problems in a tax payer funded mansion, it needn’t be a concern.
[ends]
The university has developed an “in loco parentis” policy. Regrettably the parental style chosen is the grovelly desperate one of infinite indulgence. It’s not nearly as cool as it feels at the time. Parents shouldn’t crawl to their unlovely spawn, trying to be their best friend.
Call for north end cameras
A Dunedin city councillor is calling for video surveillance of the student quarter as a way of preventing out-of-control vandalism.
http://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/311292/call-north-end-cameras
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[see new post: University Partyville, North Dunedin: Put the cameras in ~!!]
Cameras in student quarter? Why not? Nothing else works at controlling the inane behaviour by the minority. Not university rules, not campus watch, not police, not common sense. The University council is little different from our City council, in as much as they are so PC as to be non existing.
I’d be for cameras. It is amazing how the very presence moderates silly behaviour. The times I’ve taken photos of the “Slums of North Dunedin” to post on “Whatif” I’ve had very hostile reactions to my presence with a camera. They seem to want to carry out their anti social deeds anonymously without scrutiny. In fact, if the ODT was doing its job properly, it would run a regular collage of images in the student area that might be a catalyst for a cleanup and better behaviour. Critic could live up to its name and do likewise. Such publicity should shame the University and DCC to address the problem. No other identifiable sub group in Dunedin society behaves so badly and causes so much disruption of peace and damage.
### ODT Online Thu, 9 Oct 2014
Explicit Facebook page ‘sullies’ university’s reputation – Hayne
By Vaughan Elder
University of Otago vice-chancellor Prof Harlene Hayne says an explicit Facebook page has ‘sullied’ the university’s reputation. The Rack Appreciation Society group, set up on Facebook by Otago University student Sean McDonald, attracted more than 2000 members before being shut down this week. A male student involved in the site -where explicit images of young women were shared without their consent – is facing disciplinary action by the university ‘after an initial investigation’.
Read more
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Different sides of the same problem. Brain age zero…
‘It was common for people to drink on the streets or in and around the botanic garden.’ (ODT)
Boozing up in the ‘botans’ http://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/319257/boozing-botans
College rules divide opinion http://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/319254/college-rules-divide-opinion
Student opinion is split on whether rules in University of Otago residential colleges are too strict.
ohhhh, horreur —What WOBH has done is give some sunlight to troughers deep in the public trough.
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Otago Uni trougher at it again #dirtypolitics
By Cameron Slater on October 16, 2014 at 4:30pm
http://www.whaleoil.co.nz/2014/10/otago-uni-trougher-dirtypolitics/
I wouldn’t give any credence to what this creep puts up on his blog.
He needs to take some happy pills.