I love Dunedin. When I turned 18 and began considering my future, I couldn’t seem to overcome a love for the city I had grown up with.
To ignore the inexorable urge to travel and see newness in the world seemed a natural choice to make. Thus, I found myself at the University of Otago, a cultural landscape I had merely glimpsed in past.
Now, fully engrained in this wonderful culture, my love for the city has only grown further. The University is key to what this city is and will become.
To me this mantra rings mostly true. There is something of Dunedin’s essence inherent in the University.
In my mind, it seems a pity that not every Dunedin local feels this way. One look at the average ODT Facebook comments section attests to this claim, and though this may be an overly vocal minority, you don’t have to venture far to see this negative attitude arising elsewhere.
You can see it in the way people stare at you out on the street, the nervous looks exchanged which implicitly say, ‘You’re bad news mate.’
It’s not just strangers either. I get a sense of my status every time a local I know asks me ‘How’s university going?’ before they interject with a comment like, ‘drinking plenty?’
The prevailing narrative is that students are lazy, chaotic, and destructive. While students undeniably have a hand in some of the destruction, the student community does a lot more for the city than breaking glass on Castle St.
There are roughly 25,000 students in Dunedin, making up about 20% of the city’s population. Aside from the obvious economic factor of the university’s existence, students themselves are at the very core of the culture that makes Dunedin unique.
Literature, art, and music have all been subtly influenced by the swathes of students who have come and gone through the institution’s hallowed halls.
Recently, I’ve been lucky enough to witness a series of political protests which students have orchestrated in efforts to save hundreds of jobs in the city.
To me these protests are symbolic of the broad range of political movements and other causes which students are starting to speak up for.
Elliot Weir’s appointment to the Otago Regional Council last year is just one of the many examples that can be drawn upon of individual students fighting tooth and nail for the good of Dunedin.
Humbly, I would suggest our flat has even contributed to wider Dunedin’s wellbeing as we have attended every Highlanders game at the Zoo this season.
An excruciating task causing all forms of sorrow and rage within the flat, we nonetheless continued to show up in dutiful service of the team and the city.
Most Dunedinites sadly don’t see the student community as I do. To this degree, something must be done to rectify the divide.
No longer should students and citizens stand on two sides of the Leith River hurling abuse at one another.
Now is the time for reconciliation. Through this column, I would like to expose some of the joys inherent within the student experience.
In doing so I may just be able to play a small part in bridging the gap between town and gown.
- Hugh Askerud (19) is a politics and religious studies student at the University of Otago
