That Is Congress

Student Congress is the only time a true University atmosphere is attained in New Zealand, people say.

For a week at the end of January, more than 150 students from all over the country gather at a secluded spot in the Marlborough Sounds to get down to the real business of being students.

They relax in the sun, they listen to lectures, they argue, they pass resolutions to change the world, and they conduct wild parties.

This year's Congress was no exception. Students of all types and shades of opinion were thrust together in a most picturesque place called Curious Cove. They had a delightful week getting to know one another and one another's ideas.

Lectures on controversial topics by prominent New Zealanders were listened to closely but with no great respect. The students lie in the lecture hall on sleeping bags, staring at the ceiling. Judging by the spirited argument which follows this must be a singularly good position from which to absorb knowledge.

Afternoons are kept free for bush walks, water ski-ing or just general lazing. Then comes evening. There are more lectures, more discussions, or maybe a film, followed by a strenuous evening of partying. These parties are a difficult phenomena to describe for those who have not been to Congress. If you can imagine 20 people in a two-man hut, a cabinet minister clutching a bottle of beer on the top bunk; a University professor talking sex with a law student from Canterbury; a drama type from Otago reciting his own work; a socialist from Vic expounding his especial brand of the doctrine; a protectant chaplain singing Gilbert and Sullivan; if you can imagine all that going on at once in a confined area with everyone drinking an alarming assortment of alcoholic liquors of doubtful origin, then, and only then, you may have some inkling of what a Congress party is like.

Congress has the true spirit of liberality pervading it. You can drink beer at lectures; tell a faculty member you have no respect for his ideas; you can wear anything you damn well please; you can sleep in the same hut as a girl if she'll have you. This probably sounds like a moral jungle. But it is not. It is the epitome of civilisation.

There is some spirit in Congress which cannot be described. People who have not been there may look on it as being depraved. People who have been to Congress find it has a liberal yet corporate spirit, which no New Zealand University campus can emulate.