Lady Beverley drops in on PMC at opening of Sir Paul Reeves media building

Lady Beverley Reeves, whose husband inspired the naming of the high-tech new AUT University media and communication education building opened yesterday, dropped in on the Pacific Media Centre during her tour.

She and her whanau visited the PMC facilities and was impressed by what she saw.

“An amazing day – a very proud day,” she wrote in the PMC visitors’ book and admired the Pasifika video programmes.

Earlier, she gave an impassioned short address at the opening of the $100 million Sir Paul Reeves building by Prime Minister John Key.

She gave some insights into the life of Sir Paul, a former chancellor of the university and who had also been both Governor-General and Anglican Archbishop of Aotearoa/New Zealand.

Sir Paul co-authored the 1997 Fiji Constitution and was a key figure in trying to resolve issues in post-coup Fiji.

He was described by Vice-Chancellor Derek McCormack at the opening as one of the “great sons” of New Zealand.

In an article for Te Waha Nui Online, an AUT student journalism publication, Stephen Gillam reported that the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication's senior associate dean, Associate Professor Marianne Barrett, described the Sir Paul Reeves building as making its communications school one of the up-and-coming places to study journalism in the world.

 “I’m just so thrilled for everybody at AUT and it will really help the university and the programme’s stature worldwide I think,” Barrett said.

Her favourite features of the building are its integration with the rest of the campus.

She also praised its “openness”.

“It’s really a student-centric building,” she said. “Which I think is fabulous.”

She praised the building’s convergent media centre and its feel of a real newsroom, and stressed the importance of journalism courses that had broad multimedia curricula.

The Pacific Media Centre's Daniel Drageset reports on Prime Minister John Key's opening address