Lincoln boss upbeat about future

Sharing the love at a Valentine’s Day forum for staff, Pollard told a “well-attended” gathering of about 250 that the focus on improving sustainability was paying off.

He says that having embarked on a ‘fitness programme’ in August 2016, “Lincoln recorded a strong last quarter result, showing financial performance well ahead of forecast and with a positive surplus”.

In an interview with Rural News, Pollard says the budget for 2017 is looking strong.

“There’s been an awful lot of talk about Lincoln being a financial disaster. That’s not the case; we have turned the finances around.”

Pollard says that with 2017 registration at about the half-way point, total student numbers, including returning students, were higher than for the last two years.

For new commencing students, domestic enrolments were on a par with this time last year, but international enrolments were slightly below. There had been speculation that that was because of Indian student visa problems, or because of international publicity about the November Kaikoura earthquake. Pollard quips that it has “quite unreasonably” been described as another Canterbury earthquake, but should perhaps have been labelled a Wellington quake.

Pollard also brought staff up to date on developments including the proposed transfer of the Telford campus at Balclutha to the North Island-based Taratahi Agricultural Training Centre, under a Statement of Intent announced in mid-January. He says discussions were continuing on the final make-up of the agreement.

The university had previously announced 16 staff cuts at Telford, in a move explained as necessary because the campus was being heavily subsidised by students actually studying elsewhere.

Pollard says that a few years ago Telford had 1350 effective fulltime students enrolled, while the campus actually held a maximum of only 110 to 120. He claims the roll was therefore “hugely dominated” by students elsewhere, many in the North Island, studying by correspondence or through other private education providers.

“It’s a point that’s often lost on people, especially those in the [Balclutha] region,” he adds.

Pollard says Lincoln is moving ahead with renewed vigour and confidence, and is in good shape to set a path for the future.

“The Transformation Programme aims to reassess and re-articulate the vision for Lincoln University, to best achieve the vision set by the Lincoln University Council.”

A Transformation Board was being appointed which would engage widely with people and organisations with a stake in the future success of Lincoln University and provide feedback, in a programme to take place over the next six to eight months.

Pollard says it had been a bold move by Lincoln to reposition itself through 2013 and 2014 as a specialist land-based university.

“It’s not all agriculture. We have a broad range of disciplines, environmental science landscape architecture and so on, but one way or another they’re all connected with land.”

The forum also covered progress on the joint Lincoln University-AgResearch Lincoln Hub concept. A revised business case for the first-stage building project to house the hub was submitted to Tertiary Education, Skills and Employment Minister Paul Goldsmith last month.

Pollard says this facility will provide a new operating model for learning clusters, allowing ‘multi-institutional and multi-disciplinary collaboration’. A new concept is that everyone would be engaged in learning, from first-year students through to professional researchers.

“Learning involves teaching, research and experiences, and the joint facility will be ideal for that,” he says.