New Otago Polytechnic Central Campus director John Christie was joined by polytechnic leadership to discuss the plans for the campus and its accommodation.
Otago Polytechnic had two campuses in Cromwell and one in Wanaka.
Late last year it was announced the brewing and stonemasonry courses run at Cromwell would be discontinued from this year.
It was also announced the town campus would be sold and programmes centralised at the Bannockburn campus.
The possibility of selling the Chalets, the polytechnic accommodation was being explored.
Executive director Megan Potiki said she was delighted by the number of people at the meeting.
While they were waiting for directives from the Minister of Tertiary Education and Skills Penny Simmonds, Otago Polytechnic was in debt and they would have to take out costs to get it standing back on its own feet.
There was a risk that they could be forced into a federation of polytechnics and that was not wanted, Ms Potiki said.
Mr Christie, who had been in the director role for about two weeks, said he was committed to the polytechnic.
He had just bought a house and moved his family to Cromwell from Dunedin.
He wanted the community to have pride in the Cromwell campus, for staff and learners to be proud to be there every day.
Ms Potiki said getting enough full time equivalent students was the key.
The number of hours students spent on their course mattered more than the number of students enrolled.
Audience members had plenty of ideas of courses to run and activities that could generate income.
One man pointed outside to the nursery area and said he could not buy native plants in bulk locally yet the polytechnic had a facility to do that on site.
The pending sale of the polytechnic’s accommodation, the Chalets, was soundly dismissed by the audience.
Many of the audience, including Central Otago Mayor Tamah Alley, said if it was sold the polytechnic would never get back into the property market.
Otago Polytechnic deputy executive director operations Max Sims said it would have to be sold under the Public Works Act and that was a complex progress.
At the moment there was only 50% uptake in rooms and the increased requirements to provide pastoral care was a problem due to the low numbers of students, he said.
Asked what options the polytechnic would offer students from out of town, he said home stays was one option.
That was quickly cried down as already being exhausted.
Audience members were quick to offer multiple suggestions for using any spare rooms at the accommodation and what to do with them during the summer when they were not needed for students.
Offering evening classes to working people was suggested as an income stream with topics from car maintenance to upskilling for career advancement proposed.
