Guests celebrate years of education

EIT HISTORY: The three-year project to record the 40 years of the EIT is outlined by co-author and EIT research professor Kay MorrisMatthews. PHOTOS/DUNCAN BROWN

Almost 200 people gathered in a marquee on the outskirts of Napier on Friday night to celebrate an experiment that has outlived itself by 40 years.

The celebration marked four decades since the establishment at Taradale of the Hawke's Bay Community College.

Once billed as New Zealand's first attempt at a community-based tertiary education facility it is now known as the EIT, an exemplar tertiary education provider, with university-degrees, 10,000 students from over 40 countries, a student village, and learning centres and campuses from Waipukurau to the East Coast and in the heart of Auckland.

Among those present were founding director Dr John Harre CNZM, who came from the University of the South Pacific, and, anonymously in the crowd, Napier community mentor and former businessman Pat Magill, one of the three-man panel which appointed Dr Harre.

In 1987, it was renamed the Hawke's Bay Polytechnic, and nine years later became the Eastern Institute of Technology, the forerunner of the current name, which it retained with the 2011 merger with Tairawhiti Polytechnic in Gisborne.

The chronology is only part of the history being told in the book First to see the Light: EIT 40 Years of Higher Education which had been proudly "produced from within", said EIT research professor Kay MorrisMatthews who co-authored the specially-commissioned tome with EIT Tairawhiti senior researcher Jean Johnston.

Its launch, after addresses by the authors and others, was conducted by Dr Harre's successor, chief executive Chris Collins at 5.43pm, as guests pulled their specially provided Meteor party poppers. This sent streamers across the gathering, one or two landing in glasses of wine, and leaving a not-unpleasant waft oddly similar to that of the nibbles being provided by the EIT's own culinary and catering students.

Another moment of time was marked by Evelyn Kupa in presenting a painting of the old homestead of her forebears on the hill behind the EIT, saying that in a twist of tragedy the placing of the educational facility on the site would never have happened had it not been for a death in the homestead's destruction in the 1931 earthquake.

It was unlikely otherwise that the campus site would have been sold to the late Margaret Hetley, who gifted it to to the people of Hawke's Bay to mark the provincial centennial in 1958.

Another feature of last night's celebration was the unveiling of five plaques for the John Harre Building, Bruce Martin Building, the John Rose Building, the Hetley Building and the Twist Library.

The celebration continues with an open day to be held at the EIT tomorrow.