[3] McCutcheon was the chairman of the Riddet Institute, a Centre of Research Excellence in food science based in Palmerston North, and Secretary of the Woolf Fisher Trust.

[9] McCutcheon is quoted as saying his most significant regret during his Vice-Chancellorship is that “I’ve never persuaded any government, any minister, to be genuinely interested in the future of the universities…”.

[10] The closure of three specialist libraries for financial reasons at the University of Auckland in 2018 created significant controversy.

[10] In September 2019, McCutcheon was criticised for not removing posters by a white supremacist group after several University of Auckland students complained that individuals wearing swastikas were intimidating students, while fascist posters, stickers and white supremacist messages were reportedly appearing on campus.

[11][12][13][14][15] McCutcheon later released a statement to staff in which he clarified his position on free speech, noting he always has been, and always will be utterly opposed to prejudice, discrimination and hate speech of any kind, including the kind that is characterised as white supremacy, and acknowledging the very real hurt and sense of threat that some people at the University felt in response to these expressions of white supremacist views.