Mr Walmisley and Telford council chairman David Yardley both welcomed yesterday's announcement by Tertiary Education Minister Steven Joyce that Cabinet had accepted the proposal to merge the South Otago institution with Lincoln University in Canterbury.
"There will be some minor branding changes, but campus activities will continue ... there is no intention to diminish the importance of Telford's campus," Mr Walmisley said.
"We feel very positive about this," Mr Yardley said.
"We want to assure South Otago that there is no suggestion Telford will close."
The Governor-General is expected to formally disestablish Telford as a polytechnic later this month, to become a division of Lincoln University effective January 1, 2011.
Mr Walmisley believed all staff members on collective or individual agreements, and casual staff "who were required next year", would be offered Lincoln contracts.
"Therefore our staff are protected, and conditions will be similar to what they are now."
Telford mainly offered level one to four courses, and some level five, he said.
"We anticipate continuing with 750 to 880 equivalent full-time students at that level for the next three years."
The merger would occur over a period of time and full integration was not likely until 2012.
The boards of governance were still to be decided, but the expectation was Lincoln's council would include up to three of the existing Telford council, and a subcommittee of the Lincoln council would look at vocational training at Telford, Mr Walmisley said.
The merger process had begun last November and was 12 months in the making, council chairman David Yardley said.
Telford's council had considered the merger extensively and it come back to one thing: How best can we serve the needs of the industry and the students?The process included presenting comprehensive business cases, which were signed off by the councils of both institutions, then sent to the minister and put out for public consultation.
The minister received 53 submissions on the proposed merger.
Of those, 22 were in general agreement with the merger; 12 were supportive of it, but also raised some questions or concerns; 12 were not supportive; and seven were neutral.
Mr Yardley was not anticipating any logistical issues "out of the ordinary" with integrating the two institutions.
The merger provided a greater opportunity to link research into practical farming, he said.
He believed that by integrating the services of the university, which focused on delivering courses at degree level and above, with Telford, which focused on practical training up to degree level, the lower-level students could progress up the education chain more easily and engage in better research on Telford's 800ha of farms.
