AUT Farewells A Visionary Educator
December 12, 1949 – April 9, 2010
Professor Des Graydon, Dean of the Faculty of Business and Law at AUT University passed away surrounded by family on
April 9 after a short illness.
Professor Graydon leaves a legacy of revolutionary tertiary education teaching and learning in New Zealand and tens of
thousands of students and staff have benefitted from his passion and stewardship.
Professor Graydon joined AUT in 1980 as a lecturer in accountancy at AUT after a career in management and chartered
accounting.
In 1984 he became the Head of the Accountancy and Law Department, before being appointed as the Dean six years later. As
Dean he was a pivotal figure in launching AUT’s business degree in 1992 which contributed significantly to AUT becoming
a university in January 2000.
Under Professor Graydon’s watch the AUT Business School has grown to become the second largest in the country with more
than 5,000 enrolled business students from undergraduate through to MBA and PhD, and with 250 staff members.
As Faculty leader, Professor Graydon took an active role in appointing senior academics from New Zealand and overseas
universities, growing the faculty’s professoriate rapidly and significantly. The outcome has seen growth in AUT’s
research and scholarship profile to becoming one of New Zealand’s leading academic centres in accountancy and finance,
and employment relations.
AUT Vice Chancellor Derek McCormack says when Professor Graydon became Dean, business education was highly competitive
so AUT sought its niche.
“Des was an innovative educator. He led the faculty for twenty years through times of enormous change in a very
competitive and difficult environment,” says McCormack.
“He established a distinctive style and contribution for a university business school, where the student was at the
centre, and independent thought and practice was their goal.”
Professor Graydon’s passion for a different type of learning saw a shift away from large lecture theatres to a model of
intimate learning spaces, where students could discuss and debate, and know their lecturers.
With that, Professor Graydon had the courage to create a new building based entirely on this foresight. He collaborated
in creating small classrooms and the round tables that echo the feel of a boardroom, and where he encouraged lively and
robust enquiry in the classroom.
McCormack adds that Professor Graydon’s vision for students was about outcomes not just education, and that’s why he so
heartily supported AUT’s international student exchange programme.
“Des took his faculty to the world, with student exchange programmes, and with thousands of international students
coming to Auckland to study AUT’s distinctive business degree programmes.”
Professor Graydon strongly endorsed the compulsory work placement because he believed students learnt by participating.
And he would take enormous delight too, in hearing about AUT’s graduates getting good positions in the workforce.
Professor Graydon keenly supported the introduction of AUT’s law degree and in 2008 expanded the Faculty to include a
Law School. He was delighted too, to launch the AUT Venture Fund in 2009 whereby students could apply for a grant to
fund a real business of their own creation.
As well as being respected internationally, Professor Graydon was recognised by Maori as an esteemed leader and
visionary. He was committed to maintaining genuine links with Maori and local Iwi and believed it was a fundamental part
of being a New Zealander.
McCormack says the whole AUT community will feel the loss one of the university’s most significant leaders.
“Des was a hugely capable leader. He was sure-footed and offered clarity of vision,” he says.
“Everything he did was scrupulously planned and executed. He was a tough-thinking decision maker, and he achieved an
extraordinary success rate. He was sought out to be on reviews and committees and working groups where his contribution
was always noteworthy.”
McCormack adds that leaders from universities in New Zealand and throughout the world have contacted him acknowledging
the positive contribution Professor Graydon made in the global university sector.
“The accomplishments of Des’ perspiration will be our building blocks,” says McCormack. “The accomplishments of his
inspiration will be our plan.”
It was Professor Graydon’s wish to establish a scholarship for a business student so ‘The Des Graydon Memorial Fund for
a student scholarship’ has been created through the AUT Foundation.
ENDS