Waikato University Appoints Deputy Vice-Chancellor

26 October 2005

Waikato University Appoints Deputy Vice-Chancellor

Renowned author, archaeologist and academic leader Professor Doug Sutton will join Waikato University as Deputy Vice-Chancellor in January.

“We were targeting senior managers with an established track record of effecting change’, said Waikato University Vice-Chancellor, Professor Roy Crawford, “Professor Sutton was a superb fit for the job. He has a passion for education and has dedicated his life to the pursuit of excellence in teaching and research.”

“The Faculty of Arts at Auckland University blossomed under Professor Sutton’s tenure as Dean. Under his leadership, the Faculty introduced new teaching programmes, with enhanced staffing and increased enrolments. Professor Sutton was also responsible for planning and implementing a wide range of improvements to systems, policies and services, with a focus on growth, new revenue, and excellence”, said Professor Crawford.

As Dean of Arts 1997-2003, Professor Sutton supported the development of research, creative work, performance and teaching across the 17 departments and 14 research centres and institutes in the Humanities, Social Sciences, several fields of Education, Languages and Literatures, and in creative and performing arts.

He also had an entrepreneurial role in the development of business opportunities centred on academic skills, and in the growth of research revenues based on relationships with corporate and public sector agencies.

In addition to his achievements as an academic leader, Professor Sutton has gained international recognition for his work as an archaeologist. His research work has included archaeological fieldwork in the Subarctic, Patagonia, the Chatham Islands, Central and Northern New Zealand, as well as islands in the tropical Pacific.

Professor Sutton’s New Zealand research has been focused on the archaeology of Pouerua, a magnificent Maori pa in the inland Bay of Islands, and on the controversial issues of when Aotearoa/New Zealand was first discovered.

The papers he has most recently written include a biography of Heinrich Poll, a German Jewish eugenicist who died in 1939, an examination of the relationships between Tikanga Maori, Archaeology and the Law, and a proposal for the restructuring of New Zealand Archaeology, centred on the development of an internationally recognised centre of research excellence and a professional organisation, comparable to the Institute of Professional Engineers of New Zealand.

The gastronomic delights of ancient times have also been the focus of Professor Sutton’s research. His innovative course on ancient cuisines sampled everything from the banquets of Imperial Rome to the funeral feasts of Egyptian nobility. Professor Sutton viewed the course as a celebration of food and an exploration of changing human tastes.

Professor Sutton was born in Invercargill in 1949, raised in Southland, and attended the University of Otago from which he graduated with a BA(Hons), MA and PhD, having decided in his second year of undergraduate studies to become a career archaeologist.

Experience abroad has included appointments to the Smithsonian Institutions in Washington DC, the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, and visiting fellowships and the like at McGill in Montreal, The University of Chicago, Clare Hall in Cambridge and Templeton College in Oxford. In addition, he holds an Adjunct Chair in Archaeology at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia

In this range of interests and through a series of career opportunities Professor Sutton has worked to enhance research and creative work in New Zealand. “I am honored to have been appointed to the role of Deputy Vice Chancellor of the University of Waikato”, said Professor Sutton, “and to have the opportunity of working with Professor Crawford and colleagues and students from all areas of the University.”

“The opportunity is precious because The University of Waikato has a particularly distinctive role to play in the further development of well-being, prosperity and enterprise of the many people who are touched by it.

These include Maori and Pakeha, friends of the University, domestic and international students, small and large businesses and industries of the broad region to which the University is central, and all those who want to work with and help the University to add value to their enterprises, while improving their own lives and the prospects of friends and family” said Professor Sutton.

Professor Sutton will take up the position on 9 January 2006.

ENDS

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