Sixteen top scholarship winners gathered for a special afternoon tea last week with University of Waikato Vice-Chancellor Professor Roy Crawford to celebrate their success in gaining New Zealand Vice-Chancellors’ Committee (NZVCC) awards. Some of their fellow winners, of a total of thirty awards, were not able to attend the function. Some are currently overseas, supported by the funding they have won.
Twenty-six Waikato students from a range of disciplines currently hold thirty NZVCC scholarships worth more than $1,000,000 in total, including travel grants, research expenses, fees and living allowances for those heading for advanced study overseas.
The graduate and postgraduate students include Tehnuka Ilanko, who’s won a prestigious William Georgetti scholarship plus another scholarship from the Cambridge Commonwealth Trust to study for a PhD in volcanology at Cambridge University in the UK.
Also present was Ashley Easter, the University’s first winner of a $300,000+ Woolf Fisher Scholarship. Ashley is also off to Cambridge for doctoral studies in molecular biology.
Other participants included Commonwealth Scholarship holders from the UK, Malawi, Mauritius, St Lucia, Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands.
Commonwealth Connections: Vice-Chancellor Professor Roy Crawford (second left), with Commonwealth scholarship holders from left to right: Berthina Auguste-Walter, Patricia Rodie, Franco Rodie, Jody Jackson-Becerra (Waikato International), Chandan Boodhoo, Matt Sinton, and Mange Matiu.