Conferment Of The Degree Of Doctor of Letters, honoris causa on Dame Ann Ballin Dame Ann Ballin: A life filled with intelligence, compassion and courage Associate Professor Bruce Jamieson – 20/07/01
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| The Chancellor of the University of Canterbury, Dame Phyllis Guthardt (right), presents Dame Ann Ballin with her honorary LittD. at a special ceremony at the Arts Centre. |
Reprinted from the University of Canterbury’s Chronicle.
The oration for Dame Ann was given by Director of Human Resources Professor Bruce Jamieson.
"Madam Chancellor, Professor Le Grew, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen.
"I have the honour to introduce Ann Ballin, an ex-student and staff member of the University of Canterbury, psychologist, Dame Commander of the British Empire – one of our own to receive one of the highest accolades our University can bestow.
"Three nouns personify Ann Ballin and they are terms which have done so for as long as I have known her: intelligence, compassion, courage.
"Of intelligence – that sharpness of intellect which characterises those who ask of others ‘Why?’ and ‘Why not?’
"Of compassion – that empathy which recognises we are not all born equal.
"Of courage, which never accepts conditions by which others may be defeated.
"Taken together, and found within one person, a woman destined to have a lasting impact on her friends, her colleagues and those whom she served in so many ways.
"Let us go back a year or two.
"Ann Ballin is a member of a family whose name for many in Christchurch is synonymous with brewing, but for those of my profession one which is associated with the flowering of psychiatry and later clinical psychology in this country. Ann’s father, Jack, was a medical practitioner who was a major figure in the development of psychiatry in Christchurch some 50 years ago.
"Ann went to St Hilda’s Collegiate School in Dunedin, but either she or her mother and father had the good sense to ensure that she attended Canterbury College, from where she graduated with a BA from the University of New Zealand – as was the case in 1961.
‘These were the days of a small university college in a provincial city. But, they were times of intellectual curiosity and restlessness, fuelled by the legacy of people as diverse as Shelley and Popper, and by a number of superb professor-teachers.
"Madam Chancellor, it is most appropriate that today the ceremony occurs in this magnificent Great Hall, where the ghosts of scholars past are almost palpable, and which is only a stone’s throw from the site of Ann Ballin’s postgraduate courses that culminated in her award of MA (Cantuar) in 1964. Two aspects are worthy of comment on this particular occasion; she was one of the first students to undertake the postgraduate clinical psychology programme at the Canterbury, then, and for many years, the only such course in New Zealand. The second aspect was Ann’s role as a stage one psychology tutor; one of those classes contained a very obedient student, who tonight has the privilege of presenting this oration. Dame Ann, you will recall those were the days when Alan Crowther kept us enthralled in stage one lectures, and the gestalt psychologists, Krech and Crutchfield, via the required textbook, conveyed psychology in all of its mid-century glory.
"I lived in awe of Ann’s confidence, probably benefiting from her experience that to teach is to learn twice, and that she was hell-bent on fulfilling that old belief that the idea of education is to unsettle the minds of the young and inflame their intellects. What we did not know at the time was that you, Dame Ann, with your peers, were being challenged in turn by your masterate supervisor Arthur Z Arthur, a man of fine intellect and scholarship.
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| Dame Ann on October 26, 1962, as she was about to head into an exam at the old town site. |
"And no quarter was given – neither with Ann’s challenging of received wisdom, nor in her need to appear in room 56 to take those tutorials in a town site which made no provision or concessions for restricted mobility. No lifts – but the husky male undergraduates of the day provided one means of moving from the ground to first floor of the old east block. Ann’s functional assertiveness ensured that would happen, long before latter-day feminists were to discover its utility as a necessary behaviour for women.
"Subsequently, Ann’s career was to take her to notable achievements in her profession and in public life. She was to have the strong support of her mother, Thelma, who was a constant companion to her.
"From 1965 to 1971 she was a clinical psychologist at The Princess Margaret Hospital with Dr John Dobson, a noted psychiatrist, and she worked also in private practice with her father. This was arguably the first time a clinical psychologist had been given an appointment in a general hospital.
"Following a brief period as a psychologist at the Calvary Clinic, in 1974 Ann was appointed as a counsellor at the Student Health Centre at the University of Canterbury, a role she held until 1986. Of those days Dr Jane Chetwynd, a member of our Council, writes, ‘During those years literally thousands of our students were helped by her with problems ranging from social and anxiety disorders to cases of severe clinical depression.’
"Ann was no soft touch as a counsellor – compassionate, yes, but with those other qualities of intelligence and courage always evident. Perhaps it was ‘tough love’ before the phrase emerged. As one of Ann’s long-time colleagues, Dr Bill Black, writes, the position of student counsellor ‘…. seems to have been the launching pad for greatness, as Professor Andrew Hornblow, Dean of the Christchurch Clinical School, also held that position.’
"This was also a period when Ann achieved prominence in several professional organisations, including the New Zealand Association of Psychotherapists, the New Zealand Psychological Society (where she served a term as the national president) and the Psychologists Board, the statutory authority which administers the Psychologists Act (1981).
"I recall one meeting of the board in Wellington when I became aware that Ann’s attention was wandering from the business in a disconcerting manner. All was to be explained; Wellington was in the throes of a building boom. Through the window behind me Ann could see a rigger assembling or dismantling a construction crane and during much of the day she watched with the mixture of fascination and horror we all feel when observing such antics hundreds of feet above street level.
"The 1980s saw Ann’s emergence in national public life, and the list of her subsequent roles and appointments is impressive.
- 1981 – Chair of the International Year for Disabled Persons;
- 1985 – Chair of the New Zealand Council for Recreation and Sport;
- 1987 – Member of the Royal Commission on Social Policy;
- 1987 – Member of the Hillary Commission;
- 1989 – Chair of the Victims’ Task Force.
"Compassion, intelligence again – and courage too. These years of public service on policy bodies entailed constant travel, particularly to Wellington from her home in Christchurch, a schedule many would find utterly exhausting. So much more so for Ann.
"Ann’s services to the disabled were recognised by the award of a CBE in 1981. In 1990, she was a recipient of the New Zealand Medal. Two years later, Ann was made a Dame Commander of the British Empire, a richly deserved honour for a remarkable woman, who has been a lasting influence for good on so many lives.
"Madam Chancellor, we are here today to honour Dame Ann for her achievements. Her many friends present, had they been asked, could testify to more personal qualities, including her wry sense of humour, her very laudable love of cricket, her distaste for preciousness, her pragmatism and her sense of justice, and always those three qualities I mentioned earlier.
"The term ‘role model’ is a modern cliché. But it has its place. Let me refer to three groups. Consider those who seek to heal others in whatever form distress may take; consider those who work to serve their community and society; consider those who strive to triumph in the face of adversity.
"Dame Ann Ballin has been and remains just such a person for these groups – a genuine and highly principled role model.
"Today …. ‘courage mounteth with the occasion.’ "Madam Chancellor, I have the honour to present Reubina Ann Ballin for the conferment of the degree of Doctor of Letters, honoris causa.
