Canterbury Uni thriving a decade after disaster

Friday, 30 June 2023

While universities around the country face redundancies and plunging student numbers, the University of Canterbury is recording a record high of enrolments.

A decade ago University of Canterbury (UC) was threatened with closure. Now it’s one of the most successful tertiary institutions in the country.

Former vice-chancellor Dr Rod Carr revealed while the university was navigating it’s earthquake recovery - facing redundancies and falling enrolments - it’s future was in question.

“There was a time when Treasury in 2011 said maybe New Zealand can afford one less major university. Maybe you should just become a provincial campus and we should not fund a major rebuild at UC,” he said.

“That was a mind game that was being played in Wellington in 2011.”

Former vice-chancellor Dr Rod Carr revealed the University of Canterbury was threatened with closure in 2011.

A decade on and one global pandemic later, the institution is one of the few in the country not proposing laying off staff and is experiencing a year of record enrolment.

It’s on track to surpass 23,000 students this year, up from 20,223 in March 2022, current vice-chancellor professor Cheryl de la Rey said.

It’s a vastly different situation at other universities.

A “lifeline” bail out of $128 million in funding was announced this week by Education Minister Jan Tinetti, to combat more than half of the country’s universities facing serious financial distress and proposing hundreds of job cuts.

Finance Minister Grant Robertson and Education Minister Jan Tinetti announce a $128m funding boost for the tertiary sector.

While Canterbury has weathered the current crisis, Carr, now chairperson of the Climate Change Commission, reflected on his decade-long tenure as vice-chancellor between 2009 and 2019.

He said the tough decisions and tough times made the institution resilient.

“The university [went] into this decade in pretty good shape financially - as well as student numbers, not facing some of the challenges that it appears other universities may now be facing. And I guess that's because we had a decade of disruption and we set ourselves up for success for this decade.”

Carr was quick to acknowledge the university would not have survived without a $260m government cash injection to rebuild, or if it had not been fully insured.

University of Canterbury expects to pass 23,000 students this year.

But the “thousands of individual decisions” to get on with it, build temporary student villages, teach in tents and reassure staff and students the university would recover again, were vital to it’s future success, he said.

“Get the students back, get the buildings safe, keep the university running and come out of the end of it, which we did.”

About 25% of first-year students never returned following the quakes, which was a big “head butt”, Carr said.

While they only made up 6% of the total university roll, which was “not fatal”, the “real problem” with plunging first-year enrolments was the flow-on effect they had - they’re “no longer there to be your second year students” and so on.

University of Canterbury vice-chancellor professor Cheryl de la Rey welcome a review into tertiary funding.

“[When you’re] funded on the basis of per student, and the students don’t come, you're in trouble.”

That “hyper competitive” model - “vulnerable” to losses in revenue when student enrolments dropped - had now left multiple universities grappling with huge budget deficits and needing government intervention, Carr said.

Despite Canterbury’s “buzzing” campus, a review into the current funding tertiary model was welcomed by de la Rey.

“We have had an extended period where university funding, year on year, has been below inflation. And that has had an accumulative impact on universities,” she said.

“So the additional funding announced is very helpful and very welcome, but we do need a review.”

To achieve record enrolments, the university invested in a new residential hall, student support, and a close relationship with the Christchurch City Council and ChristchurchNZ to make the city “an attractive place to be”.

“It's a focus on long-term planning, on our strategy, putting our student’s experience and engagement with the community at the centre of what we do,” de la Rey said.

“We see ourselves as what I call, a pillar or anchor institution in Canterbury. So we want Canterbury to do well. And if Canterbury does well, we do well and vice versa.

“Universities have to be in the long game. We are 150 years [old] - my job is to make sure that the University of Canterbury will be celebrating 200 years.”