University of Otago

University of Otago
Otago University shield
Motto	Sapere aude "Have courage to be wise."
Established	1869
Chancellor	Mr Lindsay Brown
Vice-Chancellor	Prof. David Skegg
Location	Dunedin, New Zealand
Students	19,000 total
Homepage	http://www.otago.ac.nz

The University of Otago in Dunedin is New Zealand's oldest university. It is the South Island's largest employer and claims to have the world's longest-established annual Capping Show and New Zealand's oldest ballet company.

Founded in 1869, the university opened in July 1871. Its motto is "Sapere aude" ("Dare to be wise"). (The University of New Zealand subsequently adopted the same motto.) The University of Otago Students' Association answers this with its own motto, "Audeamus" ("let us dare").

Between 1874 and 1961 the University of Otago functioned as a College of the University of New Zealand, and issued degrees in its name. However, as a full university in itself, it retained degree-granting powers, but chose not to exercise them. The dissolution of the University of New Zealand saw these degree-granting powers re-activated. The University is known throughout the country for its unique student lifestyle and particularly its flatting culture, where students generally share semi-dilapidated housing units with a unique name and "character building" domestic life.

Some of the University's many diverse buildings appear in the following panorama:

180° view of Dunedin shot from the hills on the west. The university can be seen in front of the large hill to the left. (Enlarge!)

The University clocktower viewed from Castle Street.

Faculties

Administratively, the university is divided into four divisions: Commerce, Health Sciences, Humanities, and Sciences. For external and marketing purposes, the Division of Commerce is known as the School of Business, as that is the term commonly used for its equivalent in North America. Historically, there were a number of Schools and Faculties, which have now been grouped with standalone departments to form these divisions.

In addition to relatively usual university disciplines, the Otago Medical School (founded 1875) remains one of only two in New Zealand (although it now has constituent branches in Christchurch and Wellington. Other Schools not found in all New Zealand universities include Surveying, Physical Education, and Physiotherapy. It is also the only university to offer training in Dentistry. It was also home to the School of Mines, until this was transferred to the University of Auckland in 1987. Theology is also offered, traditionally in conjunction with the School of Ministry, Knox College, and Holy Cross, Mosgiel.

Distinctions

Many Fellowships add to the diversity of the people associated with "Otago". They include:

• Robert Burns Fellowship (literature)
• Caroline Plummer Fellowship in Community Dance
• Charles Hercus Fellowship
• Claude McCarthy Fellowship
• Foxley Fellowship
• Frances Hodgkins Fellowship (art)
• Henry Lang Fellowship
• Hocken Fellowship
• James Cook Fellowship
• Mozart Fellowship (music)
• THB Symons Fellowship
• William Evans Visiting Fellowship

In 1998, the physics department gained some fame for making the first Bose-Einstein condensate in the Southern Hemisphere.

The 2004 Government investigation into research quality (to serve as a basis for future funding) ranked Otago in fourth place in New Zealand.

Journal "Science" has recommended worldwide study of Otago's Biochemistry database "Transterm", which has genetic code data on 40,000 species.

Otago was recently ranked 114th from a listing of top 200 institutions in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings and within 202-300 in the Shanghai Jiaotong rankings of world top 500 universities.

Colleges and Halls

The vast majority of first year ('fresher') students at the University of Otago stay in one of the many Halls of Residence. These provide food, accommodation, social and welfare services.

Some of the colleges have developed a strong institutional personality over the years. This becomes self-perpetuating as applicants choose the college most suited to their own personality. Quiet, conservative St Margaret's is next to party-hard Unicol in the heart of the campus. Knox College, far up the hill, has developed an insular, close-knit tradition. City College is influenced by two-thirds of its students coming from the Dunedin College of Education or the Otago Polytechnic, and Toroa House is almost exclusively filled by international students.

Halls of residence affiliated with the University of Otago select students based on their marks, extracurricular activities and high school testimonials. However, some halls of residence are more selective than others. Although their order varies from year to year, the most selective halls and colleges are consistently Carrington Hall, Knox College and Selwyn College. Unsuccessful applicants are referred to other colleges.

St Margaret's has similar entry standards, but the reputation of the college as quiet, religious and hard-working tends to attract a self-selected small group of highly-qualified applicants.

Otago's residential Colleges and Halls are not as significant in the life of the University when compared with the Colleges and Halls of the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. Selwyn and Knox Colleges imitate Oxbridge colleges but, although they have occasional tutorials, resident fellows, formal halls, and chapels, the primary affiliation of a Knox or Selwyn student remains to the University rather than the college, and the bulk of formal education does not take place within the college.

College	Founded
Selwyn College	1893	Website
Knox College	1909	Website
St Margaret's	1911	Website
Studholme Hall	1915	Website
Arana Hall	1943	Website
Carrington Hall	1945	Website
Aquinas	1952	Website
University College	1969	Website
Salmond Hall	1971	Website
Hayward Hall	1992	Website
City College	2000	Website
Cumberland Hall	?	Website
Toroa House	?	Website

Official list

Possible Merger with Dunedin College of Education

Currently, the university and the Dunedin College of Education (a specialist teacher training institution) are working toward a merger, with a bilateral working group declaring a merger "both desireable and feasible". A new entity merging the College and the unversity's Faculty of Education would be based on the College site, and include the College's campuses in Invercargill and Alexandra. It is intended that the merger take effect in 2007. A merger has been considered before, however the present talks have progressed further, and more amicably, than previously.

Notable alumni and alumnae

Internal Wikipedia links

(with Hall of Residence, if any, in parentheses where known)

• Arthur Henry Adams, journalist and writer
• Barbara Anderson
• David Benson-Pope, Cabinet minister
• Dame Silvia Cartwright, Governor-General of New Zealand
• Sir Thomas Davis, first Cook Islands medical graduate in New Zealand, former Prime Minister of the Cook Islands, High Commissioner to New Zealand, and research physiologist with NASA. M.B.Ch.B. (1945) LL.D. (2005).
• Bill English, National Party leader
• Janet Frame, author
• Ian Fraser, broadcaster, head of Television New Zealand
• Julian Grimmond, co-producer of "The Amazing Race", which won two consecutive Primetime Emmys
• Jan Hellriegel, singer/songwriter
• Fergus Hume
• Chris Laidlaw, All Black and politician
• Michael Laws, politician, broadcaster, Mayor of Wanganui
• John Edward "Jack" Lovelock, athlete
• Sir Kamisese Mara (Knox), Fijian politician
• Simon McCallum, organiser of New Zealand's first Game Developers' Conference
• Archibald McIndoe, plastic surgeon
• Arnold Nordmeyer, Prime Minister
• Lord Porritt (Selwyn), Governor-General of New Zealand and physician to the Queen.
• Robert Stout
• Peter Tapsell, Cabinet minister
• Jeremy Waldron, legal philosopher
• Allan Wilson, biologist

Rhodes Scholars from the University of Otago

Main article: Rhodes Scholarship

(College at Oxford in brackets)

• 1904 d James A Thomson (St John’s)
• 1906 d Robert A Farquharson (St John’s)
• 1907 d Colin Macdonald Gilray (University)
• 1913 d Prof. Frederick Fisher Miles (Balliol)
• 1921 d Rev. Hubert James Ryburn (Lincoln)
• 1923 d Rt Hon. Lord Arthur Espie Porritt (Magdalen)
• 1924 d Sir Robert Stevenson Aitken (Balliol)
• 1928 d Charles Andrew Sharp (St John’s)
• 1929 d Dr Wilton Ernest Henley (New)
• 1930 Prof. James Campbell Dakin (Trinity)
• 1931 d Dr John Edward (Jack) Lovelock (Exeter)
• 1932 Sir Geoffrey Sandford Cox (Oriel)
• 1934 d Norman Davis (Merton)
• 1935 d The Hon. Sir Lester Francis Moller (Brasenose)
• 1936 d Daniel Marcus Davin (Balliol)
• 1947 Dr Robert Owen Davies (Oriel )
• 1950 Dr John Derek Kingsley North (Magdalen), Peter Selwyn O’Connor (Balliol)
• 1952 Prof. Graham Harry Jeffries (Magdalen), The Hon. Hugh Campbell Templeton (Balliol)
• 1954 Dr Kenneth Alfred Kingsley North (Magdalen)
• 1956 Dr Colin Gordon Beer (Magdalen), Rev David George Simmers Victoria Balliol
• 1957 Em. Prof. Graeme Max Neutze (University)
• 1959 Graeme Francis Rea (Balliol)
• 1960 Dr James Julian Bennett Jack (Magdalen)
• 1966 John Stephen Baird (Merton)
• 1968 Christopher Robert Laidlaw (Merton)
• 1970 Dr Murray Grenfell Jamieson (Merton)
• 1972 Prof. David Christopher Graham Skegg (Balliol)
• 1973 Dr Anthony Evan Gerald Raine (Merton)
• 1975 Dr John Alexander Matheson (Worcester)
• 1976 Dr Derek Nigel John Hart (Brasenose)
• 1981 Christine Ruth French (Worcester)
• 1983 Dr Nancy Jennifer Sturman (New)
• 1985 Dr David Edward Kirk (Worcester)
• 1988 Dr Ceri Lee Evans (Worcester)
• 1990 Dr Prudence Anna Elizabeth Scott (Lincoln)
• 1992 Prof. John Navid Danesh (Balliol), Susan Reta Lamb (Balliol)
• 1993 Dr Jennifer Helen Martin (Lady Margaret Hall)
• 1995 Jennifer Sarah Cooper (Magdalen)
• 1996 Andrew Norman Benson Lonie (selected, not taken up)
• 1998 Jane Larkindale (New)
• 1999 Dr Damen Andrew Ward (University)
• 2000 Clare Beach (Merton), Sally Virginia McKechnie (Hertford)
• 2002 Rachel Sarah Carrell (Balliol), Christopher John Curran (Merton)
• 2003 Thomas Marcel Douglas (Balliol)
• 2004 Glenn Fraser Goldsmith (Balliol)

External links

• Tan Sri Dato' (Dr) Hj Ahmad Azizuddin Bin Hj Zainal Abidin (Dr Ahmad, former Speaker of the Perak State Legislative Assembly)
• Professor Murray Brennan of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York
• Sir Peter Buck (Te Rangi Hiroa), former visiting professor at Yale University then Director of the Bishop Museum of Hawaii
• Sir Geoffrey Cox, co-founder of World Wide Television (today one of the main television news agencies)
• George Griffiths, publisher, journalist, regional historian, and Hocken Fellow 1998
• Alison Holst (nee Payne)
• Dame Judith Mayhew Jonas, City and Business Adviser to the Mayor of London, sitting in the London cabinet, Board Member of the London Development Agency (chairing its Business Committee, and (inter alia) Chairman of the Board of Governors of Birkbeck College, University of London)
• Professor Datuk Dr Mazlan Othman, Director-General of Malaysia's National Space Agency

See also

• Hocken Library

External links

• University of Otago homepage
• General outline of Burns, Hodgkins, and Mozart Fellowships
• About the Bose-Einstein Condensate