News

Graduation season has rolled to an end for another May and bookings are once again possible in restaurants classier than Blue Sky.
This year’s three graduation weekends saw almost thirteen hundred graduates make the trek to the Town Hall to cross stage in person.

Each graduation ceremony featured a different speaker: Emeritus Professor James Flynn spoke at the first, Simon Moore SC at the second, and artist and educator Marilynn Webb delivered the final address.
In his speech Professor Flynn noted that there had been a decline in students reading books during his years as a teacher, and urged more students to engage with the great works of literature. Prof Flynn said that the lack of literary appreciation among today’s students was a worrying phenomenon, perhaps traceable to a decline in the emphasis placed on books and general knowledge in the increasingly technological society of today.
“I suspect that it has little time left to place high priority on reading literature that requires concentration and wide general knowledge. You are unlikely to enjoy Tolstoy's War and Peace if the vocabulary is unfamiliar and you do not know who Napoleon was or where Russia is.”
At the graduation, Professor Flynn was also awarded an honorary Doctor of Science degree.
Simon Moore SC, Crown Prosecutor for Auckland, also addressed the issue of change, telling Law and Commerce graduates that they should be prepared to embrace the quickening pace of change in society. One example he gave of this was the change of attitudes towards flatting in Dunedin. These days, mixed flats are entirely normal, but in 1967 a student was suspended for living in a mixed flat. “In 2010 it seems inconceivable that the University's disciplinary powers could be invoked for something which, viewed through today's social lens, seems so apparently harmless.”
Marilynn Webb, an internationally celebrated artist, also received an honorary doctorate, the Doctor of Laws degree. In her speech she congratulated graduates for their achievements, but also took her chance to offer a stern warning against plans to mine New Zealand’s conservation land, saying it would “destroy heritage for all future New Zealanders."