Canterbury University has been accused of being insular, disconnected, and obsessed with becoming an engineering college. But is the reality very different? JOHN McCRONE reports.

The old Chemistry block in the Arts Centre still has that fresh paint smell. The sun beats down, the cicadas rattle, outside. But indoors, it is air-conditioned calm.

Through a glass wall, a visiting Oxford expert can be seen teaching Greek tragedy to a summer school. A circle of heads, both young and old, sits attentive, pens poised. A snapshot of meditative contemplation.



Yes, the University of Canterbury (UC) has established a pretty flash little outpost for itself back in the heart of Christchurch.



UC vice-chancellor Rod Carr is explaining the logic of the move. He reminds that even before the earthquakes, the university wanted to reconnect with the central city and its old home at the Arts Centre.



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In 2009, there was a plan to build a National Conservatorium of Music in the centre's car park. That fell foul of the heritage lobby. But then in 2014, the restored Chemistry building came up for lease.



The university had its prized James Logie collection of antiquities stuck up on the sixth floor of the Arts College.



Roman bits of this, Greek bits of that. In 40 years, hardly anyone ever came to see them, says Carr.



"They were sitting around all boxed up having been rather knocked about in the earthquakes."



Bingo. They could go on public display in a purpose-built gallery at the Arts Centre – just a step from Canterbury Museum and a guaranteed flow of visitors.

ALDEN WILLIAMS/STUFF Moving some Arts classes to the former Chemistry building at the Arts Centre showcases the role that a university has in the affairs of a city as its intellectual pulse-beat.

The university's classics department – which considers itself likely the best in Australasia – wanted to be part of the move from the Ilam campus too.

"It wasn't going to be parted from its teaching collection," says Carr.

Then to fill the other half of the Chemistry building, UC has installed a recital room for its music department.



So not the wholesale shift that was originally planned, but the creation of a performance space where students can put on a show for the Christchurch public.



It is a crafty move. Well worth the expense of a high class interior fit-out.



Carr says this outpost has a third function in being the place where university people can host politicians, the central city business community, and the Christchurch public in general.



"The message is we can come to you rather than you having to come out to us."



And while Carr doesn't make a big thing of it, you can imagine the psychological effect this lovely old building – filled with activities that speak to the roots of Western culture – will have on anyone arriving for a meeting.



It showcases the role that a university has in the affairs of a city as its intellectual pulse-beat, its brains' trust, its creative vision, its critic and conscience. An engine of both its civic and economic innovation.



But this rises the question. Is Canterbury University contributing as much to that as it should? Some have felt UC has grown too distant and insular out at Ilam.



How long has it been since the campus generated the kind of radical fervour we expect of students, or even hotheaded academics?



Where are all the interesting new names that ought to be pouring out of any lively fine arts or music department?



The earthquakes crushed UC's student numbers. There was all the bad news over humanity courses being chopped or restructured.

ALDEN WILLIAMS/STUFF Studying at the University of Canterbury campus at the Arts Centre on Worcester Blvd.

If the university wanted to go in some direction, it appeared to be about becoming an unradical engineering school – a national institute of technology, with perhaps a BCom factory aimed at the lucrative Asian student market on the side.

So is UC a venerable institution still going places for Christchurch city? Or is this latest Chemistry block move just a bit of fluff, some convenient marketing spin, rather than a serious post-quake statement of intent?

BATTLE OVER THE FUTURE

ALDEN WILLIAMS/STUFF A summer classics class at the University of Canterbury campus at the Arts Centre on Worcester Blvd this week.

In one of the building's glassed spaces, Carr – joined by his head of arts, pro-vice-chancellor Jonathan Le Cocq – sits down to address the criticisms.



Carr is looking relaxed. He can be severe. But after a decade in the job, he finishes up at the end of this coming academic year. And clearly he believes he is leaving UC in a good place.



Carr says not only has the university survived, but it has emerged from the past seven years with a student philosophy which now puts it ahead of the rest of the tertiary pack.



He admits that back in 2012, the future of Canterbury University was in considerable doubt.



The February 2011 earthquake hit just as the academic year was about to start. Every school-leaver or foreign student who could switch university immediately went somewhere else.



"Of those who were going to be new to UC that year, a quarter of them left and didn't come back," Carr says.



This created a hole in the numbers the university knew was going to roll on and compound.



"You didn't have to wait to see it coming. Because we had this much smaller first year in 2011, that was going to be a smaller second year in 2012. And by the time the tide had flowed out in five years, the whole university was going to have shrunk by 25 per cent. "



So from early 2012, UC was looking to the government for financial support.



There were all sorts of wild ideas about what the university ought to do – like uproot and rebuild in the central city again.



Carr says the government itself – believing in a market-led approach to tertiary education – was taking a hard-nosed line.



"They were very reluctant to fund an operating loss at the university. So they said if you're going to be a smaller university, get on and get smaller. Get it over with." Christchurch could have been left with a much reduced university.

Carr says it was also the government's thinking that the alternative was for UC to turn itself into an institute for STEM teaching – science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

Stephen Joyce, the then Minister of Tertiary Education, and the Tertiary Education Commission (TEC), were pushing the need for New Zealand to focus on economy-creating qualifications.

KIRK HARGREAVES/STUFF Cutting comment: UC students protesting art college changes in 2012. Vice-chancellor Rod Carr being lampooned.

"The Wellington view was well why don't you just specialise in science and engineering, become the MIT of the South Pacific? That would suit us and probably suit you. Don't we have too many arts graduates anyway?"



However Carr says that was just a bad idea even for self-interested reasons. UC would not only have had to slash its humanities staff, but also double its intake of STEM undergraduates in a competitive market. A big risk.



"There just aren't that many students in New Zealand. And no other university was going to give up theirs." So for several years, there followed a behind-the-scenes tussle over the future of UC.



The university still needed a bail-out. But Carr says it had to come up with a justification for why it should continue at its pre-quake size. The university had to ask the basic question of why it really existed.



In international terms, New Zealand is unusual in having all eight of its universities ranked in the top 3 per cent of the QS World University table.



"Anywhere you go here, you're going to get a good education," says Carr. There is a high average. Other nations are far more varied.



But that is also a vulnerability as it was why the government could afford to let UC shrink.



Auckland, as the biggest New Zealand university with 35,000 students, ranks 82nd in the QS world listing, while Otago, boosted by its medical and dental schools, is 151st.



Canterbury ranks at 214, Victoria at 219 and Waikato at 292. All remarkably close.



By subject, Canterbury is in the top 100 in the world for civil engineering, but also top 100 for education. And top 150 for English, sociology, law, geography and accounting.



Carr says that likely goes against public perception. "We have more rankings for humanities in the top 200 than we do for science and engineering."



So despite the New Zealand system being a comprehensive education one – staff having to spend half their time on teaching, half their time on research – it gives consistently impressive results for the money.



"In the world's top universities, most get their high rankings from having many full-time, research-only, academic staff," Carr says. Effectively, they embed our Crown Research Institutes (CRIs).



Given UC's strength across the board, Carr says abandoning half of what it was good at made little sense. Furthermore, the thinking was already changing on STEM.

He says with the way the world of work is now actually going, it is STEAM – that is, STEM subjects combined with the arts – which is the place to be.

FINDING UC'S BRAND

JOSEPH JOHNSON/STUFF Recital room: Public performances at the Arts Centre designed to give a subtle message to the city.

So the mission was to recover student numbers, get UC back on even keel. And in New Zealand's narrow marketplace, to come up with a distinctive proposition.



Carr agrees Otago trades on being the student capital of New Zealand. With students making up a fifth of Dunedin's population, you go there for a good time. The "student experience".



Auckland relies simply on being Numero Uno. Of the 40 subjects it teaches, QS rates it nationally top in 37 of them.



Since the earthquakes, Canterbury has also been quietly working on creating a brand – one based on the slogan of producing "people prepared to make a difference".



In fact that was a strategic statement even before the quakes. But the Student Volunteer Army (SVA) put that aspect of UC on the international map.



The SVA seemed spontaneous, however it was already an attitude being cultivated on the campus. And following the earthquakes, UC has been making it official – part of the fabric of the university.



It has set up a school of leadership in the College of Education, a UC Community Engagement Hub, and made a host of similar moves designed to emphasise good citizenship and entrepreneurial spirit.



Carr says this gives a different angle on the question – where is the energy the university delivers to the city?



If the campus seems, well, rather tame compared to Ilam of the 1970s or 1980s, then youth now have other values they want to express. There is a Millennial mindset.



So in 2012, after a six month consultation, the university began to restructure itself around the four student attributes it felt were key, and which would attract people to study in Christchurch.



The first was employability. Carr says students realise that they need more than just qualifications to get a good job. So UC has taken active steps like make it a goal for all degrees to include 800 hours of work experience.



A second was community engagement. The SVA is still going strong. But a community focus is something staff are now expected to work into the heart of their courses.



For example, the Foundations of Engineering class – ENGR101 – gets students to tackle some real-world problem.



Last year, a team of four won an award in the Engineers Without Borders Australia Challenge for a system to dry copra, or coconut meat, in Vanuatu villages.

The third attribute is the complementary one of global awareness. Again, the difference is this is now a targeted course outcome.

"We've been doing things like building in the opportunities to study abroad as part of a degree, giving credits and financial assistance."

DAVID WALKER/STUFF Good investment: Vice-chancellor Rod Carr, centre, with arts boss Jonathan Le Cocq, right, inspect progress at the Arts Centre in 2014.

Then the fourth attribute is bicultural competence. "It's a fact of life – whether you're an engineer, a lawyer, a teacher, or whatever in our society – that you understand what that's about," Carr says.

STEAMING AHEAD

It will be the point of difference. UC wants to be the university with a reputation for producing rounded, confident citizens. Not leaving it to chance, but making it basic to what the university teaches.

JOSEPH JOHNSON/STUFF Fun times: The annual Students' Association Tea Party in Ilam. The more traditional face of campus.

And that leads to the STEAM story.

Carr says just as there is a misconception perhaps about students being too tame these days – a reason Christchurch as a city may have lost its radical edge – so also there is the mistake that there has to be some kind of choice between the dull sciences and the creative arts.

Le Cocq – who has been waiting patiently to have his say as Arts College head – chips in here to explain what has really been going on since the earthquakes.

JOHN KIRK-ANDERSON/STUFF Rebuild progress: The science department starts the year with its new Rutherford Centre.

Through 2012, the headlines were all about closures and reorganisations. But Le Cocq says while some humanities courses were dropped, as many others were created.

It was a restructuring to modernise in a hurry.

Le Cocq laughs at the mention he is a professor of early music – a specialist in 16th century French pieces for the lute and theorbo. A seemingly esoteric interest to pursue at the bottom end of the South Pacific.

ALDEN WILLIAMS/STUFF Future looking: UC now focused on four key student attributes.

And UC's music department has been the source of much angst as it had a reputation for offering the best in a classical music education. It was a reason for the push for a National Conservatorium.

All that seemed to go pear-shaped immediately after the quakes with various ructions. Three top staff vanished to Auckland University along with the prestigious Pettman National Junior Academy.

This was taken as primary evidence UC was abandoning its place in the creative life of Christchurch. A final straw.

However Le Cocq says the new UC has shifted towards an emphasis on contemporary and

experimental music. It actually aims to do become more cutting edge.

His lute is an example. "Early music is experimental. You're having to figure out how to play music that's been lost for hundreds of years. There is a spirit of adventure there."

Le Cocq says last year there was a joint project with the Classics department to recreate the music for a Greek tragedy. Again, it was a challenge in archaeological reconstruction as much as an artistic performance.

"It was difficult for the audience. But also I'd say one of the most adventurous musical things tried in Christchurch in decades, if not ever."

Likewise the Ilam School of Fine Arts. Le Cocq says staff left. There was the feeling its best years were long past. Yet in the end the university has both stuck with its traditional studio-based teaching model and sought to create energy through collaborations with other departments.

So fine art students worked with civil engineering students to design a possible pedestrian bridge over the Avon.

And this year, taking if further, the university has started a product design course that is aimed equally at arts students and the engineering faculty.

Le Cocq says modern innovation has to be a fusion of both worlds. So the course is "calculus-lite". It will pair the logical mixes. Cosmetics and process engineering, widgets and mechanical engineering, gaming and augmented reality.

The strength of UC in the arts can be used to leverage its strength also in STEM subjects. It seems really obvious, but Canterbury is using the unwanted disruption of the earthquakes to steal a march on the competition.

And so that is the university will contribute to the city, turning out engaged students and offering courses that put Christchurch in the forefront of both cultural and technological innovation

BREAKING EVEN

So a direction has been set. UC is remaining a comprehensive institution, as good at the humanities as everything else. And riding what counts as radical today – the new social possibilities of an increasingly technological world.

What about the university's actual recovery in terms of its numbers, its buildings, its budgets?

Carr says enrolment figures are looking good. "We're still 2500 domestic students below what we were in 2010." But the trends are in the right direction.

A sign is more school-leavers are starting to come down from Wellington than are leaving Christchurch for there.

And last year, the university broke even. By 2022, it should be back to running a 3 per cent surplus as government policy demands.

Carr says Canterbury is still light on international students – just 10 per cent of the student body compared with 15 per cent for other New Zealand universities (and a lucrative 30 per cent in Australia).

But finally in late 2014 – after two years of wrangling – Joyce did sign off on a $260m package of support. UC also finalised its $550m insurance settlement.

Carr notes wryly the government money was given for a rebuild of the engineering and science faculties. STEM was still what Wellington felt mattered. However the engineering college was overdue for renewal anyway.

Now UC is into the openings. Some 20 buildings are being repaired or replaced. The engineering block was ready for the start of 2017. Science and education follow this year.

So is everything now shiny and splendid at UC? Some are not so sure.

Sandra Grey, president of the Tertiary Education Union, says the word from staff is they are exhausted by the earthquake recovery.

Grey says for the past seven years they have had to putting in over-time to save the university. They have lived with the drastic restructuring of courses and all the disruptions of rebuilding.

"They're asking when does it stop? They're at the end of their tether. They say, I do my job and go home. They can't keep doing the extra yards."

Grey adds if Christchurch as a city is wondering why UC's academics have seemed less prominent as a voice the past few years, that is another reason. Simply, they are burnt out.

However the official story is that UC is back. It is reconnecting. The Chemistry building venture is the proof.

It might take a few years to appreciate, but Canterbury University should be another part of what will make post-quake Christchurch distinctive.