Austin Elected Lincoln Chancellor

FORMER Labour Cabinet Minister and secondary school science teacher Margaret Austin of Christchurch has been elected Chancellor of Lincoln University.

Mrs Austin, a Government appointee to Lincoln University Council, will replace Mr Malcolm Cameron of Wellington who is standing down at the end of next month after six years as Chancellor, and over 20 years as a Council member.

Yaldhurst Member of Parliament for Labour from 1984 until the United New Zealand Party was founded in 1995, Mrs Austin served on the old Lincoln College Council from 1984 to 1987 as a House of Representatives appointee. She returned to Lincoln University Council in 1997.

A former Head of Science at Christchurch Girls' High School and Senior Mistress at Riccarton High School, Mrs Austin is well known in education circles. After serving as Minister of Research, Science and Technology in the last Labour Government she took up the shadow Education Portfolio when Labour went into Opposition. Subsequently she was a foundation member of the United New Zealand Party.

Since 1996 she has engaged in educational consultancy work.

Mrs Austin, a science graduate of Canterbury University, is Lincoln's first woman Chancellor and the only the third Chancellor since the former Lincoln College became an autonomous university in 1990.

Mr Gill Cox of Christchurch has been re-elected Pro-Chancellor of the University.

ENDS....

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