Student Union Building

There are many things we look forward to in the future and not least among them is the Student Union Building and Gymnasium which first appeared on the drawing boards as long ago as 1936. With these fine buildings we shall have much to be thankful for. In some of its features Victoria has been the Cinderella of the University of New Zealand, but with the new buildings we shall be unequalled in the provision of facilities for student life and recreation. We are to have a theatre seating approximately 400 people, common rooms, editorial and club rooms, a spacious cafeteria, and a dining-room for formal functions, quiet reading rooms and Executive offices. On a separate site we shall build a fully equipped gymnasium.

Our Union building will be the very centre of our corporate life and we shall be proud of it not only for what it will mean to us but also because it will be the realisation of the dreams of generations of students who have contributed very substantially to its cost. It will be a tribute to their patience and preseverance. It will be their building and it will be ours as well, for, apart from the Government, graduates and undergraduates will have been the larges group of contributors by the time that the project is completed. From 1957 onwards each student wilt be contributing £l each year which, by 1965, will represent a sum of approximately £28,000! Such generous giving has earned the praise of a former Minister of Education (the Hon. R. M. Algie), who observed that any Government should be pleased to help those who were so obviously helping themselves. The Government agreed to subsidies amounting to £115,000.