21 December 1995 Date Change Should Broaden Kellogg Course Applications

A new starting date - July instead of February - is a departure from tradition for Lincoln University's prestigious Kellogg Rural Leadership Course.

Organisers of the 1996 course believe the changed date will open up the programme to many new participants whose seasonal round of work had previously excluded them from applying.

The course, founded in 1979 and funded initially by the Kellogg Foundation of the United States and now by the New Zealand Joint Producer Boards, has been a training and grooming ground for over 300 rural leaders. Course graduates include Cabinet Ministers and Members of Parliament, members of regional authorities and rural lobby groups, executives in rural service industries and leaders in farming politics.

The courses are based on the belief that leadership is a critical factor in the performance of the rural sector in the New Zealand economy.

"We expose Kellogg scholars to two important components of leadership," says Course Director Dr Alastair McArthur.

"First there's the science of knowing the direction to go and then there's the art of persuading others to follow. The first component requires a knowledge of how to access information, how to put information together in a decision-making framework, and how to think critically. The second depends largely on communication skills. The Kellogg course provides opportunities to practise both.

"On the communication side, course Deputy Director and communication lecturer Colleen Mills of Lincoln University, creates a series of opportunities for scholars to practise their skills and make improvements."

The 1996 Kellogg course opens in July with Phase I, a 10-day residential period at Lincoln University. Phase II then runs through until October during which time scholars complete a research project working at home. Topics covered in 1995, for example, ranged from a paper on private farm wetlands to one on the experience in changing the rural rating system from unimproved value to capital value.

In Phase III, which will occupy the last week of November, the scholars return to Lincoln University to present their projects for peer review. The course then moves to Wellington for two and a half days where participants meet political leaders and chief executives of government departments, SOE's and businesses who provide them with first-hand advice on leadership.

The course is funded by the Joint Producer Boards and individual board chairmen present their positions to the scholars.

Dr McArthur points out that while producer boards are faced with a number of pressure groups pushing for their closure, he personally is opposed to such action.

"Both as an academic and someone with an investment interest in one of the industries concerned - dairying - I would see it as a disaster to wake up one morning to find that the Dairy Board, for example, had disappeared.

"There seems to be confusion by organisations such as the  Business Round Table between a monopoly dealing on the local market and a monopoly trading on the world market where it is possible to extract more as a single seller than as a lot of individuals."

Application forms for the 1996 course are available now from Dr Alastair McArthur, Agribusiness and Economics Research Unit, PO Box 84 Lincoln University, Canterbury.

Applications close on 1 April 1996.

Anyone with a leadership role or potential leadership role in the rural sector can apply. An applicant may be, for example, an office-holder in a farming or horticultural organisation or a community group, a territorial authority representative, or someone who works for an agribusiness organisation or is employed in the servicing side of agriculture or horticulture. The scope is very wide

Although the course is a funded one and there is no tuition fee, scholars have to pay for their own travel, meal and accommodation costs away from home.

There is no age restriction on applicants but the selection committee will take into account the extent of past experience in a particular field and the number of years that lie ahead for leadership activity.

Ian Collins, Journalist, Lincoln University, Canterbury, New Zealand.