Professor McCutcheon was born and raised in Wellington, New Zealand.  He left the Capital in 1973 to study at Massey University.  Completing his Bachelor’s degree with first class honours in 1976, he was appointed to the lecturing staff of Massey University and studied for the Ph.D. in metabolic physiology.  From 1982 to 1984 he was a postdoctoral fellow at Cornell University, New York, while the recipient of a Harkness Fellowship.  He was appointed Head of the Department of Animal Science at Massey University in 1990, Assistant Vice Chancellor (Research) in 1994, and Deputy Vice Chancellor in 1999.  In November 2000 Professor McCutcheon was appointed Vice Chancellor of Victoria University of Wellington.

Professor McCutcheon has published extensively in the fields of endocrinology and metabolic physiology, particularly as they apply to the regulation of growth and development in the fetus and newborn.  He has served in an advisory capacity to a number of Government agencies and producer boards and been a Director of the New Zealand Dairy Research Institute.  He is at present a Trustee of the Wellington Regional Economic Development Trust, a member of the Council of the Wellington College of Education and Chair of the New Zealand Vice Chancellors’ Committee on Research.  He is currently Chairman of the New Zealand Vice Chancellors’ Committee.

RECENT DEVELOPMENTS IN THE NEW ZEALAND UNIVERSITY SECTOR 

ABSTRACT

During the past 15 years, the New Zealand University system – and the tertiary sector more generally – has undergone marked changes in its structure, funding, and relationship with central Government.  This paper will explore the nature of those changes, from the “free market” of the 1990s to the present “steering of the system”.  It will provide alumni with an overview of those changes and some context for the development of the individual universities during that period.

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