On Vice-Chancellors

Stuart McCutcheon, the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Auckland, `brief CV’ on the University of Auckland’s website gives his qualifications as:

Professor McCutcheon completed his Bachelors degree with first class honours at Massey University in 1976, and was then appointed to the position of lecturer while undertaking a PhD in metabolic physiology.

Metabolic physiology? I had been told it was a PhD on the actual freezing to death of new-born lambs. Luckily, the rumour, such as it was, seems like it might well be right; witness the Massey University library’s catalogue:

A study of some factors affecting the resistance of newborn lambs to cold-stress with particular reference to starvation and exposure mortality : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Animal Science at Massey University / Stuart Norman McCutcheon

I pass this one because I’ve been telling people that the rumour was that the Vice-Chancellor had the makings of ‘evil’ genius and it seems that, in our agriculturally-inclined country, that he does, in fact, have the makings.