In his interview with the NZ Herald, the Otago Vice Chancellor and Former Finance Minister Grant Robertson all but proved his appointment by that University's Council to the $629,000 paying "top job" was a mistake. It may cost Otago, and folks living in Dunedin who rely on their hospital, dearly. The interview mainly asked about his plans. His answers were pure politics. Given he has little to no academic background, he's spending much of his time learning on the job. Indeed, the title of the Herald article is that he's "settling" into it. Extraordinarily, he admits, "I’ll be listening and learning as I go around the areas that I’m less familiar with". I'd suggest to learn about the job he first enroll in a Masters, then PhD, and then spend 20 years teaching & writing academic articles. But none of that is for him.
One cause Robertson has latched onto emerged in the interview - his staunch opposition to the prospect Waikato may get NZ's third medical school, which would hugely affect Otago by breaking its duopoly with Auckland. That proposal is referenced in National's Coalition Agreement with ACT-NZ First. Why will it probably go ahead? Because by Otago appointing National's arch political enemy to its Vice Chancellor job, it has turned that University's opposition to Waikato Medical School into partisan politics. National supports it, whereas the Labour VC of Otago, opposes. Since National holds power, it can make Robertson (and Labour) look bad, by going against his wishes. Turning one of the most important health-care decisions in NZ into pure left-right politics rather than making the best decision for the nation is, for want of a better word, revolting. Had Otago appointed an eminent medical doctor who was non-partisan to the VC job, then its arguments would have carried far more weight. When I worked at Imperial College London, which is dominated by its large medical school, much like Otago, that is exactly what it did. It appointed Sir Richard Sykes as Rector (the same as our VCs). He had been an eminent medical researcher and former CEO of Glaxo Smith Kline Beecham, a large pharmaceutical company. How did Sykes do? Imperial now ranks in the world top 10, above Yale & Berkeley, and just behind Cambridge & Princeton in The Times Higher Rankings, in which Otago fell to 350-400.
It gets worse. VC Grant Robertson referenced the need for Otago Medical School to have a top class teaching hospital, in the form of Dunedin Hospital, to go with it, otherwise the future of its medical school (which my Dad attended) would be in doubt. Again, since that issue is heavily politicized right now, Robertson's arguments carry little weight. Maybe he's making trouble about Dunedin hospital not to protect the interests of Otago University, but instead for political reasons, since by doing so he can cost the Nats votes in favor of Labour. We will never know. Should Otago's Council have thought it was smart appointing someone squarely aligned with Labour to its top job, then its probably gone & cost that University not only its medical school duopoly, but the revenues to go with it, and more rankings declines. The best Robertson offered in his unclear interview was a vague reference to opening an Otago Queenstown campus since apparently then it could tap into that place being NZ's new Silicon Valley. What? Maybe a graduate school of skiing would be more popular.
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