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Salient: Victoria University Students' Paper. Vol. 30, No. 4. 1967.

Chancellor criticised

Chancellor criticised

Heather Robb at Twelth Night rehearsal

Heather Robb at Twelth Night rehearsal

David Smith Photo

Sirs. I have received by post one bound printed copy of the Chancellor's address at the afternoon capping ceremony, 1967.

The speech itself would have been bad enough had it been off the cuff, but to rub in the fact that it was prepared in writing prior to the ceremony is to add insult to injury.

It was addressed to the people of the city, who were not present at the ceremony, nor could they have gained admittance had they wished.

Commencing with a long ramble about domestic university administration matters more suitable for a board meeting and of no conceivable interest to the graduates, let alone their parents (many of whom had travelled long distances for this ceremony), its only approximation to an address marking such an occasion were some vague comments about the "pursuit of excellence" plagiarised from some obscure American. Nowhere were the concepts employed defined, nor was there any implied indication of what the good Chancellor himself understood by the terms.

In conclusion he praised the university administration for the arrangements for the ceremony. Thanks may be in order at a difficult period of the administrative year, but "praise"!!! Words fail me.

The two efforts at singing in Latin, apparently understood by neither graduates, guests or the academic staff, were probably dictated by the requirements of tradition, but when the ceremony is memorable only for the appalling insult to intelligence by a specially created treatise of this calibre, what can one say?

In all fairness I should add that the Chancellor did crave our indulgence for the speech as it was his first in such a capacity. Charitably we have tried to erase the painful memory. Might I plead with the administration not to perpetuate such atrocities in print a month after the event.

G. P. Pirie.