University Head On Students' Need Of Community Life

"We students and staffs are not knit together as a community as we should be and so we miss an essential part of our education." said Dr R. G. Soper, vice-chancellor of Otago University, in his address when he opened the seventh annual New Zealand university students congress at Curious Cove.

Dr Soper said that he had often heard criticism of the New Zealand university graduate—that he did not pull his weight in the community. If this was so, said Dr Soper. it was directly attributable to the fact that New Zealand students lived so little of their time in a community.

"I trust that buildings for students unions can be taken out of the list of priorities of university buildings and a start made with them as soon as labour and materials permit. I regard them as the really essential parts of the university, and the expenditure on such buildings will be returned in full to New Zealand from more community-conscious University graduate," he added.

Earlier in his address, which was called "Some University Problems," Dr Soper pointed out that the awareness of the problems of the university was a comparatively recent development, but they were nonetheless real. These problems, he Mid, arose from the very nature of the university. The function of the university was difficult to define, but it could be broadly said to have three main aspects. In the first place it provided professional training for its graduates, the doctors, lawyers, architects, etc. Even the arts student. Dr. Soper added, was in some measure receiving a professional training, as most arts graduates became teachers.

In the second place the university, like the medieval Church, kept alive the heritage of knowledge and learning.

The third main function of the University was to extend the boundaries of knowledge by research.