Dame Alison Paterson: the art of lifelong learning

Dame Alison Paterson is used to breaking barriers.

In 1976 she became the first woman appointed to a New Zealand producer board, and in 1979 the first woman to sit on the board of a publicly listed company.

Now she’s graduating from the University of Auckland on 7 May with a Master of Arts in Art History with First Class Honours.

A pioneering business leader whose career spans more than five decades across finance, agriculture and public governance, she says she had no interest in being “a lady who lunches” on retirement at 85.

“Nor did I want to play bridge, join a book club or occupy myself with any of the traditional retirement activities. I just wanted to continue to push myself as I’ve always done.”

“My whole working life has been driven by an ability to work very hard and with a desire to 'add value' in whatever I do.”

But while business has been her career – her original qualification was in accounting – history, she says, is her first love, which led her to enrol at Auckland for a Bachelor of Arts with a double major in history and art history.

And that led to the masters, with a dissertation on the Gibbs Farm, the extraordinary 400-hectare sculpture park north of Auckland.

Created in 1991 by businessman and art collector Alan Gibbs, the park is known for its huge, eye-catching works by notable artists (Anish Kapoor, Neil Dawson), exotic animals freely wandering (giraffes, zebras), and the beauty of its rural setting with lakes and harbour views.

“My dissertation is the story of the conversion of a dry stock farm on the Kaipara Harbour into a sculpture park,” says Dame Alison.

“The history of the Kaipara and its iwi, the use of the harbour by iwi as a food source, the importance of the area as a bird sanctuary and the negative impact of colonialisation on existing land use.”

There have been 30 major sculptures commissioned and constructed for the park, she says, many of them site specific and for which major site recontouring has had to happen.

“My PhD planned to examine the nexus between engineering and sculpture. Alan Gibbs’ degree was in engineering and he personally commissioned and supervised the installation of the sculptures on the farm. However, I can’t arrange the site access I need to undertake the thesis.”

She is contemplating the alternative of a MLitt, building on three pieces of work completed in her final 18 months of study: the Sculpture Park dissertation, an examination of corporate governance failure at the Auckland Museum and a dissertation on the future of museums more generally.

“The current museum model is unsustainable, you can't save and store everything for everybody, and anyway, the sector has changed significantly. There will be corporate governance challenges associated with the new models which will be worth discussion.” 

She says she’s “highly valued” the chance to study at Auckland, where she already has connections through chairing the Centres of Research Excellence (CoREs) and as a board member of Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga, both for about a decade.

“As a student, I've made a raft of new friendships from all walks of life, benefitted greatly from exposure to the range of lecturers I’ve studied under, particularly Linda Tyler and Caroline Vercoe, who are truly inspirational. I believe the University invests considerable resources to ensure students 'get through'.”

One of those friends, she says, was a person she calls ‘Kurty Kat’, a man in his thirties she sat next to in the front row for lectures.

“We really were the odd couple! But we became great friends, as I did with several others, and we still keep in touch to see how each other is getting on.”

“Above all,” she says, “I’ve continued to learn and to exercise my brain. Hopefully there will be useful lessons for others considering this path, communicated from a different perspective.”

Dame Alison will be graduating in absentia and continues to make her husband, the Honourable Barry Paterson, a retired High Court Judge, three stepchildren and seven grandchildren very proud.