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14 January 2005
Otago Daily Times
© Copyright 2005 Allied Press Limited. All Rights Reserved.
Former Academic Registrar
Defined role of Otago academic registrar
Staff Writer
Jean Riley would have been pleased to hear Jeff Wilson has
made the Black Caps again, as she was particularly fond of ''Goldie''.
Andrew Mehrtens, too, was a favourite and when the two faced each other,
Highlanders versus Crusaders, as far as she was concerned it was a bob
each way.
Miss Riley, who died at the age of 90 in Christchurch last month, was born
in Pitt St, Dunedin, on November 12, 1914. She was the youngest of four,
having three brothers, Melville, Peter and Graham. The daughter of the
Otago Medical School's Professor Frederick Ratcliffe Riley - a notable
surgical tutor, and obstetrics and gynaecology lecturer - and Susan
Charlotte Graham, it was not surprising Miss Riley excelled and felt at
home in the academic world.
In 1936, she graduated with a master of arts with first-class honours in
mathematics from the University of Otago. She taught for two years at
Craighead School in Timaru before going overseas in 1938. In London, she
undertook further study - a secretarial course - and in the early stages
of World War 2 joined the London headquarters of the French Resistance
movement. A stint as a member of air operations staff in India and Burma
took up part of her 14 years away from New Zealand. She was awarded an MBE
for her services during the war.
A return to New Zealand in the early 1950s was a return to Dunedin and the
start of a job which made her renowned within and outside Otago
University. She was firstly academic assistant to the registrar and, in
effect, defined that position and what it was to come to mean. She became
academic registrar in 1964. For 22 years, life for Miss Riley was the
university. Hers was a demanding role, requiring accuracy and efficiency
and a superb knowledge of the university and its calendar. Colleague Dr
James Robinson, who had more dealings over the telephone with Miss Riley
than in person, said she was very approachable and invariably helpful.
''Students would come to me with problems and so often I would have a
student with a problem and just pick up the phone and had an answer
quickly.''
One of her two successors in 1975, Tim Gray, said she was a huge influence
on his career during the years before she retired. ''She was a meticulous
person and took great care. To me she was a colleague, a friend and a
boss. ''As a boss she was very fair. She had high standards for accuracy
and she passed that on to those who worked with her. Ninety-eight percent
was not sufficient - one had to be 100% accurate in that job because you
could stuff up a student's career if you gave the wrong advice.'' He
remembered long hours working on her living room floor generating the
university's examination timetables.
Miss Riley's time as academic registrar was also a time of fond memories
for her niece, Elizabeth Riley. ''I feel as though I really knew her
when she came back from overseas. I remember her going up the steps at
university to check on things and going in to see her.''
Nephew Dr Rob Riley remembered when, as a medical school student, he would
take his flatmates over to his aunt's and have roast chicken for dinner.
But her forte, he said, was dessert - boysenberries and ice cream.
Miss Riley's devoted attention to her 12 nieces and nephews stemmed from
her never marrying. For her, family was everything, Dr Riley said.
''She would know everyone's names and what they were doing. She was the
co-ordinator of the family, a hub of information.'' She was
described as loyal and warm with a wicked sense of humour; honest and
efficient and respected within the community.
Although the later years of her life were a struggle - she became
partially deaf and blind - Dr Riley emphasised her sharp mind and her will
to continue with life and learning, talking books acting as her lifeline.
She was an avid reader, bridge and tennis player, but it was her unceasing
quest for information and her penchant for detail that invoked a
reputation that tended to precede her. Nurse manager at her retirement
home, Jan Chisnall, said Miss Riley was ''a fine woman, very patient and
uncomplaining, very modest about her past''.
She made the best of her final years as she had the earlier ones.
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