Dr Williams Speaks Out

The Chilling Grasp - The Cold Dead Hand

"The history of the colleges is a history of a struggle to cast off the chilling grasp of the dead hand of the University of New Zealand—."

Dr. Williams' address to the nurses in which he spoke out against the anachronistic university organisation in New Zealand is encouraging to students who, for so long, have been dissatisfied with the present administration. Salient's plea for student representation on the Senate will become obsolete if this far more radical and satisfactory change is supported by the University Colleges themselves and student organisations. In the meantime student representation should be insisted on.

The reply which this address provoked from the Vice-Chancellor did not add anything to the case for retaining the cumbersome University of New Zealand. To plead that the University of New Zealand was responsible for numbers of brilliant men is irrelevant trifling.

Students who have had anything to do with the University of New Zealand will support Dr. Williams very strongly. An organisation representing the Universities themselves may be necessary for the discussion of common problems but as Dr. Williams said the time has now come to liberate the Colleges and set them up as Universities in their own right. The University of New Zealand is too far removed from students and staff to be serving any use as the nominal examining body of New Zealand's 10,000 students.