The University of Otago in Dunedin is New Zealand's oldest university and the world's most southerly. It is the South Island's largest employer and claims to have the world's longest-established annual Capping Show and New Zealand's oldest ballet company.

Founded in 1869, the university opened in July 1871. Its motto is "Sapere aude" ("Dare to be wise"). (The University of New Zealand subsequently adopted the same motto.) The University of Otago Students' Association answers this with its own motto, "Audeamus" ("let us dare").

Between 1874 and 1961 the University of Otago functioned as a College of the University of New Zealand, and issued degrees in its name. However, as a full university in itself, it retained degree-granting powers, but chose not to exercise them. The dissolution of the University of New Zealand saw these degree-granting powers re-activated.

Some of the University's many diverse buildings appear in the following panorama:

The University clocktower viewed from Castle Street.

Faculties

Administratively, the university is divided into four divisions: Commerce, Health Sciences, Humanities, and Sciences. For external and marketing purposes, the Division of Commerce is known as the School of Business, as that is the term commonly used for its equivalent in North America. Historically, there were a number of Schools and Faculties, which have now been grouped with standalone departments to form these divisions.

In addition to relatively usual university disciplines, the Otago Medical School (founded 1875) remains one of only two in New Zealand (although it now has constituent branches in Christchurch and Wellington. Other Schools not found in all New Zealand universities include Surveying, Pharmacy, Physical Education, and Physiotherapy. It is also the only university to offer training in Dentistry. It was also home to the School of Mines, until this was transferred to the University of Auckland in 1987. Theology is also offered, traditionally in conjunction with the School of Ministry, Knox College, and Holy Cross, Mosgiel .

Distinctions

Many Fellowships add to the diversity of the people associated with "Otago". They include:

• Robert Burns Fellowship (literature)
• Caroline Plummer Fellowship in Community Dance
• Charles Hercus Fellowship
• Claude McCarthy Fellowship
• Foxley Fellowship
• Frances Hodgkins Fellowship (art)
• Henry Lang Fellowship
• Hocken Fellowship
• James Cook Fellowship
• Mozart Fellowship (music)
• THB Symons Fellowship
• William Evans Visiting Fellowship

In 1998, the physics department gained some fame for making the first Bose-Einstein condensate in the Southern Hemisphere.

The 2004 Government investigation into research quality (to serve as a basis for future funding) ranked Otago in fourth place in New Zealand.

Journal "Science" has recommended worldwide study of Otago's Biochemistry database "Transterm ", which has genetic code data on 40,000 species.

Otago was recently ranked 114th from a listing of top 200 institutions in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings and within 202-300 in the Shanghai Jiaotong rankings of world top 500 universities.

Colleges and Halls

These residential Colleges and Halls are not as significant in the life of the University when compared with the Colleges and Halls of the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge -- with the exceptions of Selwyn and Knox Colleges which do have resident fellows and operate like Oxbridge colleges (with chapels, for example). As a result some New Zealanders regard them as more prestigious and desirable -- in other words as 'true' "colleges". Selwyn and Knox form separate corporations, apart from the University.

Official list

Notable alumni and alumnae

Internal Wikipedia links

(with Hall of Residence, if any, in parentheses where known)

• Arthur Henry Adams, journalist and writer
• Barbara Anderson
• David Benson-Pope, Cabinet minister
• Dame Silvia Cartwright, Governor-General of New Zealand
• Bill English, National Party leader
• Janet Frame, author
• Ian Fraser, broadcaster, head of Television New Zealand
• Julian Grimmond , co-producer of "The Amazing Race", which won two consecutive Primetime Emmys
• Jan Hellriegel, singer/songwriter
• Fergus Hume
• Chris Laidlaw, All Black and politician
• Michael Laws, politician, broadcaster, Mayor of Wanganui
• John Edward "Jack" Lovelock, athlete
• Sir Kamisese Mara (Knox), Fijian politician
• Simon McCallum , organiser of New Zealand's first Game Developers' Conference
• Archibald McIndoe, plastic surgeon
• Arnold Nordmeyer, Prime Minister
• Lord Porritt (Selwyn), Governor-General of New Zealand and physician to the Queen.
• Robert Stout
• Peter Tapsell, Cabinet minister
• Allan Wilson, biologist

External links

• Tan Sri Dato' (Dr) Hj Ahmad Azizuddin Bin Hj Zainal Abidin (Dr Ahmad, former Speaker of the Perak State Legislative Assembly)
• Professor Murray Brennan of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York
• Sir Peter Buck (Te Rangi Hiroa), former visiting professor at Yale University then Director of the Bishop Museum of Hawaii
• Sir Geoffrey Cox, co-founder of World Wide Television (today one of the main television news agencies)
• George Griffiths, publisher, journalist, regional historian, and Hocken Fellow 1998
• Alison Holst (nee Payne)
• Dame Judith Mayhew Jonas, City and Business Adviser to the Mayor of London, sitting in the London cabinet, Board Member of the London Development Agency (chairing its Business Committee, and (inter alia) Chairman of the Board of Governors of Birkbeck College, University of London)
• Professor Datuk Dr Mazlan Othman, Director-General of Malaysia's National Space Agency

External links

• University of Otago homepage
• General outline of Burns, Hodgkins, and Mozart Fellowships
• About the Bose-Einstein Condensate