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Salient: Victoria University Students' Paper. Vol. 28, No. 12. 1965.

The Problem

The Problem

There is a lack of labour force (and often money and public interest) to meet some of these needs. Students should be given an opportunity to exercise what they learn in their classes to either reinforce their learning or critique some of the ideas they are exposed to at a practical level of application.

Listening to lectures, reading books and journals, without any practical experience along with it, makes about as much sense as studying astronomy without looking up at the heavens. Especially since many of the social and physical problems are like stars; so numerous and readily available for observation if one looks in the right places at the right time. Students can never completely understand the concepts, principles, and accumulated data they are exposed to until they have "discovered" at least some of them for themselves.

The areas of university work in the community were recently discussed by Professor Holmes of the Economics Department here at Victoria. He cited the American examples of mutual co-operation between university and community. This allows American universities to carry out wide-range research into national and civic problems to the benefit of the whole country. It makes for much closer and more deliberately contrived relationships between the universities and the community generally, and with their own graduates or alumni in particular.

Professor Holmes further elaborated on the point that teaching would not be impeded, but, on the contrary, greatly invigorated and made more exciting for the students if they were conducted by teachers who were also "actively expanding the frontiers of knowledge through research," and/or practical applications.

With the whole of Wellington City, the Capital City, and its surrounding communities at their disposal, the students (once organised) have a unique field for activity and they can make the most of it. Volunteer projects in the beginning, leading to part-time positions after they have proved themselves, are feasible. Of course, some students have taken on volunteer jobs in more usual places such as government offices and hospitals, but with a difference.

Their aim, besides providing a useful service, is to see that the work they do is "an important educational experience." The hospital volunteer work — pushing around the library cart, helping out at the snack shop, and similar chores — won't do. The students may, for instance, have considerable laboratory experience in science courses, and are capable of preparing culture slides, identifying disease organisms for slides, making stains and dyes, and performing sensitivity tests on antibiotics.

The some has been true in other areas. Schools, for example, have taken on part-time students as teacher aides, both in the regular and in some of the special classes. This has allowed the students in psychology, education, and social work to put to test some of the theories and practices learned. These people may become the sources of "new ideas" to those practising in the field as they often have a more critical eye.