Former MP Ian McKelvie takes on UCOL community adviser role

Ian McKelvie hopes his new role can provide resources tailored to each of UCOL's unique communities.

Former Manawatū mayor and Rangitīkei MP Ian McKelvie is taking on a new role with tertiary education institution UCOL.

McKelvie starts this month as community adviser, with the purpose of engaging communities and providing independent advice on local needs.

McKelvie served as Manawatū mayor for nine years before moving into central Government in 2011, working as Rangitīkei MP with National for 12 years. He retired from politics at the 2023 election.

Along with his political experience, McKelvie has experience in community organisations, including chairing organisations such as Special Olympics New Zealand and the Royal Agricultural Society of New Zealand.

UCOL operations lead Jasmine Groves believed McKelvie’s past experiences would help his success in the new role.

“Ian brings not only deep community roots but also significant governance experience that will help guide UCOL through important decisions,” she said.

“His role is advisory, not operational, but his input will help shape structures and models that best serve our learners, communities and stakeholders.”

McKelvie’s role as community adviser will include speaking to affected community leaders and communicating their needs to the people who make the decisions.

“I need to take the census of the community, and that’s an interesting community because it goes from Wairarapa to Whanganui, and feed it back politically because the ministers are going to make a decision on the future of these entities in due course,” he said.

“I’ll also bring it back to our local management at UCOL and make sure that they’ve got the community view of where the future needs to be.”

McKelvie hoped his role could provide resources tailored to each unique community that UCOL served.

“Whanganui and Wairarapa are two very different areas, for example, so the needs of our young people and the desire for our community to have people staying and working in the community are different,” he said.

“Entities like UCOL need to specialise in what’s interesting to those different communities and that’s quite possible I think.”

In a time of increasing financial pressure for tertiary institutions, McKelvie said becoming more tailored would be beneficial after UCOL course and staff cut proposals were announced last month.

If UCOL understood what communities needed, cuts could be focused on the unnecessary, allowing for the things that mattered to the community to continue and improve, he said.

McKelvie used the example of Whanganui and the arts versus Wairarapa and winemaking to display the differences in education relevant to the respective communities.

“I’ll certainly be getting around those community leaders that are affected by whatever’s going on with these decisions to get their opinion and make sure that it’s held quite closely,” he said.

“The needs of smaller places like Wairarapa and Whanganui are different to the needs of Manawatū and we need to ensure that those needs are heard.”

Olivia Reid is a multimedia journalist based in Whanganui.