Across the ditch, Robin Pollard has resigned as VC of Lincoln University, after just two years. Professor Pollard is a former head of what was once Monash U’s Gippsland campus. He is replaced by Lincoln’s pro-chancellor, the indefatigable James McWha. Professor McWha is experienced in stepping into sensitive situations. When Mary O’Kane resigned at short notice at the University of Adelaide in 2001, Cliff Blake (ex CSU) became interim VC, before McWha took on the substantive role and ended up staying there for a decade.   This time however the appointment is only to December.

Lincoln U has not been especially well-regarded by the NZ university regulator, which reported last year, (CMM February 17 2017); ““because of its small size and the consequentially smaller pool of staff, Lincoln might be challenged to cover the full range of academic leadership roles which is normal for a university of any size. Similarly, the need to encompass a breadth of responsibilities within single roles might lead or have led to a dilution of impact in particular areas.”

Reasons why Professor McWha will not hang around beyond Christmas seems clear