The Spike: or, Victoria University College Review October 1911

An Aspect of University Reform

An Aspect of University Reform.

Sir,—There is one aspect of University Reform which has as yet been very little emphasised by the University Reformers. The matter has been brought home to me very forcibly by reason of the fact that I am a sufferer from the existence of the evil.

The trouble, so far as I am concerned, is that there is at present no person or body of persons responsible for seeing that the professors carry out satisfactorily the duties for which they are paid. The Professorial Board has no authority to interfere with an individual professor, and the College Council is a lay body, not having sufficient knowledge of the inner working of the College to enable it to know whether a professor is doing his work.

The result is that when, as sometimes happens, an unsatisfactory professor is engaged there is no means of getting rid of him.

Of course the professors of our Colleges are, as a whole, a line body of men, at least so we inform them when we propose their healths on Capping Day. When, however, we come to the daily toil of the lecture-room, some of us see reason to make exceptions.

At the present time I attend the lectures of three professors. One of these has a large class, the members of which are, I suppose, of average intelligence. Nevertheless, I am fairly certain that 95 per cent, of the students understand practically nothing of what their professor is talking about. He declines to include in his course of study that which he is engaged to teach, namely, what the syllabus of the New Zealand University Calendar sets out as necessary for the degree. The result is that many of his students who are very ill able to afford it, are obliged to obtain outside coaches in order to pass their examinations. If a student should fail the professor gives him the very satisfying consolation that failing an examination does not ruin a man's character, and that "a man's a man for a' that." The learned gentleman is apparently oblivious of the fart that a student's bread and "'litter may depend on his haring certain degree.

Another professor whose lectures I attend makes more or less of an effort to teach, but unfortunately he lacking in ability.

The subject which he teaches is one which in the hands of a capable man, inspires the greatest enthusiasm. Nevertheless, at the present time the class is treated by most students as a joke.

I have given my experience for the purpose of showing the necessity of having some capable person whose duty it should be to exercise some control over the appointment and dismissal of professors. For such a purpose, neither a College Council, nor a Professorial Board is of any value. Possibly a President, as in the United States or America, might be able to perform satisfactorily a very necessary function.—Yours,

Plucked.