19 February 1993 Lincoln University - The Human Face of Tertiary Education

As the cost of universities bites deeply into national economies around the world, the human face of tertiary education can easily be obscured by a hurly-burly of concern for the financing of buildings, the funding of facilities and the general progress of capital works programmes.

While sharing this global agony over the "bricks and mortar" of education, Lincoln University, New Zealand, believes it is still firmly focused on people. Perhaps it's an advantage of size. With just over 3000 students it remains possible at Lincoln to know everyone, if not personally then at least by face. Indeed the institution takes pride in its ability to give a human face to tertiary education and regards it as a strength in today's competitive market.

Clear expressions of Lincoln's promise to students that "you'll always be a face, never just a number" are to be seen at the start of every academic year when new students arrive to begin their university careers. It could be a time of potential dis-orientation, but not so at Lincoln.

Here's a campus cameo from 1993. It could be duplicated any year. A typical New Zealand family car is parked by the entrance of Hudson Hall, one of Lincoln's seven accommodation blocks. A mother, anxious and uncertain, is helping her daughter, shy and self-conscious to unload luggage and carry it inside.

Starting university - it's more than moving to a new "school", it's a staging post in life, a rite of passage almost. That's why it requires sensitivity and understanding on the part of liaison and admissions staff. Because it often coincides with children first leaving home, quitting the nest, parents need to be reassured that son or daughter will be in safe hands. For their part, son or daughter is torn between displaying adolescent coolness and worldly savoir faire and feeling inner apprehension of often paralyzing proportions. It was all there in the scene of the mother and daughter carrying luggage into Hudson Hall.

Before arrival, however, Residential Services Manager Diane Horton would have ensured that the new student had everything needed in the way of information and guidance for settling in comfortably. With over 500 students arriving to fill the halls on the Lincoln campus every year it becomes a well-practised routine, but no less sincere and friendly for its repetition.

And so it is with students flying in from overseas to Christchurch International Airport. International Student Welfare Officer Juliet Nicholas always tries to be on hand to welcome arrivals and, where possible, accompany them on the 20-kilometre trip to the campus and their accommodation. It's an important task because up to 10 percent of Lincoln's students come from outside New Zealand, with some 40 different countries represented.

The work of Diane and Juliet is all part of the Lincoln "faces-not-numbers" approach to student welfare.

Let's now meet some of the other human faces of Lincoln University, people you may well have met yourself internationally. People like Vice-Chancellor Professor Bruce Ross, Deputy Vice­ Chancellor Professor Trevor Bryce, Liaison Officer Ron Hickford, Economics Professor Ralph Lattimore, Agricultural Engineering Institute Director Dr Terry Heiler, and Lincoln International's Chief Executive Office Harry Ferguson.

Professor Bruce Ross has been Vice-Chancellor of Lincoln University since 1990, the year Lincoln became an autonomous university. Prior to that he was Principal of the institution when it was a college. He took up that post in 1985 after having been Professor of Agricultural Economics since 1970.

Like most senior academics, Professor Ross has had a number of overseas appointments and postings in his career - a lectureship in Agricultural Economics and Farm Management at the University of Malaya; a period as Visiting Professor of Agricultural Economics at the University of Newcastle-on-Tyne, UK.; then in 1983-84 he was in Paris as Head of the Trade Advisory Division of the OECD's Agricultural Directorate.

A supporter of the Association of Commonwealth Universities, he is chairing a session at the 15th Commonwealth Universities Congress at Swansea, Wales, this year. He says he derives great value from such international gatherings.

Assisting Professor Ross in the running of Lincoln University, and with his own particular set of responsibilities, is the Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Professor Trevor Bryce. Appointed to the newly created position at the beginning of this year, Professor Bryce came to Lincoln from Australia's University of New England, Armidale, where he held the Chair of Classics and Ancient History. He is an acknowledged authority on the Hittites.

Professor Bryce is now Lincoln's Senior Manager responsible for academic planning and co­ ordination; academic initiatives and standards; management professional development and appraisal of academic heads of department and equal opportunity in education.

While Professor Ross and Professor Bryce are at the hub of the University's administration, out at the rim in daily contact with prospective students, their parents, and their schools, is Lincoln University's Liaison Officer, Ron Hickford.

A former secondary school chemistry teacher and Senior School Inspector, Ron is both a Fellow of the New Zealand Institute of Chemists and an Associate of the University of London's Institute of Education. Thus with a sound background in education and with the science orientation appropriate to Lincoln's courses, he is well positioned to advise prospective students and help them and select their degree or diploma courses.

Ron is also a well-known face promoting Lincoln University in South East Asia through education fairs, seminars and expositions. He has developed many contacts throughout the region and nothing pleases him more than to be on campus to greet a student he has met previously in Asia and counselled on the choice of university and degree programme. He understands well the apprehensions and requirements of students studying abroad and is a key figure in Lincoln's international marketing team.

While Professor Ross and Professor Bryce are now fulltime administrators and Mr Hickford is among the "field staff ', the friendly face of Lincoln is represented among the teaching staff by people like Professor Ralph Lattimore, who holds a personal chair in Economics.

Professor Lattimore is a specialist in agricultural trade and applied policy analysis. He has done international work for the World Bank, OECD, International Monetary Fund, and other global agencies, and has carried out projects in Canada, USA, Brazil, Fiji, Morocco, South Korea, and Vietnam.

In the mid- l970s he was with New Zealand's Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries as Chief of the Commodity Markets Analysis Unit, then he went to North America and posts which included Trade Analysis Chief with Agriculture Canada's International Trade Policy Division.

On a number of occasions he was a consultant for the World Bank in Brazil and a research economist and visiting professor in that country.

At Lincoln University he has been a director of the University's Agribusiness and Economics Research Unit and among various involvements headed a joint study between Lincoln's AERU and the US Department of Agriculture's Economic Research service into the international ramifications of domestic dairy policies in the United States, Canada, Australia, the EEC and New Zealand.

In 1990 he was an inaugural recipient of one of two annual Lincoln University Awards for Excellence in Research. His work on agricultural trade has made a substantial contribution to policy analysis in New Zealand. Most recently Professor Lattimore has been involved with advising on some of the aspects of economic reorganization in Vietnam.

Most universities have associated institutes of various sorts. At Lincoln there is, for example, the Agricultural Engineering Institute. Its Director is Dr Terry Heiler and again you might have met him on the international scene - anywhere from Egypt's Western Desert to Pakistan to inland Sabah, advising on agricultural engineering projects.

Dr Heiler's specialist areas are irrigation and drainage engineering, water resources engineering, hydrology and science management. He has been particularly interested in the development of irrigated agriculture in areas of water shortage and is a past recipient of a top international award from the Irrigation Association of America, the leading body of its type in the world, for his contributions to the promotion of irrigation techniques and procedures and to the advancement of the industry.

Most recently Dr Heiler and staff of the Agricultural Engineering Institute have been working in Sabah on a project, commissioned .by the Department of Irrigation and Drainage, looking into irrigation and drainage needs for wet padi cultivation within the Sook Valley.

Lincoln has a long tradition of being involved with projects of all sorts around the world. Today many overseas jobs come the university's way via a consortium known as Lincoln International Ltd. This company links together the University, the NZ Pastoral Agriculture Research Institute, the NZ Institute of Crop and Food Research and the Agricultural Engineering Institute.

Increasingly universities everywhere are making their expertise available to outside agencies on a fee-paying consultancy basis. The purpose is twofold - revenue and relevance. Consultancy work boosts a university's coffers and at the same time keeps staff in touch with the "real" world and real life projects, thus enhancing their work as teachers and researchers.

On the Lincoln campus the man at the helm of Lincoln International is Chief Executive Officer Harry Ferguson. A Lincoln Agricultural Science graduate, Harry spent 35 years in the chemical business with The Dow Chemical Company working from various international offices. He has had business responsibilities in over 100 different countries during his career, so is well experienced to work with Lincoln International in its global role.

The services offered by Lincoln International include research, education and training, production systems, technology transfer, strategic planning, resource management, and institution building.

Bruce Ross, Trevor Bryce, Ron Hickford, Ralph Lattimore, Terry Heiler and Harry Ferguson - six people from a staff of about 500 associated with Lincoln University. People happy that Lincoln's size and semi-rural location allow the human touch to prevail. Yes, there are grand old buildings (Ivey Hall, built 1878) and fine new ones (the latest hall of residence, opened 1993) but best of all Lincoln is people presenting a human face to the immediate community and the world at large.

Ian Collins, Community Relations Centre, Lincoln University, New Zealand