Indigenous news Morning Star scholarship amount tripled NTEU is pleased to announce that from 2014 the Morning Star Scholarship will increase from $1,000 to $3,000 per year and will be paid in three equal instalments. This is the fifth year the Union has sponsored the scholarship, funded by an NTEU Life Member in lieu of annual membership payments. The Morning Star Scholarship was established in 1996 by Pamela and Alan Harris to assist Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students to realise their potential in their studies at Charles Darwin University (CDU). The NTEU began sponsoring this Scholarship in 2009. As recognised in a myriad of Government data and statistics, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students seeking to enter tertiary education face additional challenges outside of those experienced by non-Indigenous students. Universities across Australia recognise these challenges and offer a range of scholarships to assist Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students to enter and successfully complete tertiary level studies. The NTEU has been pivotal in seeking to increase the number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander staff employed in the higher education sector. Encouraging the next generation of Indigenous academic and general/professional staff is more vital now than ever before. To create an appropriate pathway for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students entering university, the NTEU has established a number of scholarships at institutions across the country. The Morning Star Scholarship at CDU is an example not only of the broader work of the NTEU, but also the work of dedicated individuals at the community level. In 2013 the recipient was Caroline Arbon, a 4th year social work undergraduate. The NTEU congratulates Caroline on her successful scholarship application and hard work toward achieving her degree.
Aunty Kerrie Doyle graduates from Oxford NTEU congratulates University of Canberra (UC) Indigenous Branch Committee member, Kerrie Doyle, for being the first Indigenous Australian woman to graduate from Oxford University. Aunty Kerrie, a proud Winninninni woman who grew up on Darkinjung country, completed a Master of Science in Evidence-Based Social Intervention and Policy at Wolfson College as part of the Roberta Sykes Scholarship program. Kerrie is an assistant professor in Nursing at UC, and a current PhD candidate at ANU through the National Centre for Indigenous Studies. She stresses that her achievement was not a solo effort and that she had unbelievable support from colleagues at UC. Kerrie received many messages of support whilst she was at Oxford, and on her return to the UC was welcomed back. Aunty Kerrie is additionally thankful that UC created the space for her to undertake this opportunity, both financially and through flexible leave arrangements. As well as having the opportunity to undertake her studies in what was a ground-breaking course, Aunty Kerrie names other highlights of her time at Oxford as having lunch with a Nobel Laureate, and delivering a lecture at the Nelson Mandela Theatre. She also delivered a paper at the International Nursing Research Conference in London. Kerrie describes her time at Oxford as a very busy time spent in the library an awful lot; she relished the one or two days she had off where she was able to relax and go and see a film. Thanks to the Roberta Sykes and Charles Perkins Scholarship programs, there is now quite a cohort of Indigenous students undertaking postgraduate degrees at both Oxford and Cambridge. Kerrie felt that this has created a wonderfully supportive network of students, and whilst she was at Oxford, she was ‘Aunty’ to many of them.
Adam Frogley, National Indigenous Coordinator
Kerrie is one of four Indigenous students to graduate through these scholarship programs this year (Greg Lehman and Krystal Lockwood will graduate with a Masters in History of Art and Visual Culture and a Masters in Criminology & Criminal Justice respectively from Oxford, and Lilly Brown graduated with a Masters of Philosophy in Politics from Cambridge) and knows that the others coming through now will also be successful.
Further information available at
Celeste Liddle, National Indigenous Organiser
www.nteu.org/morningstar
Photo courtesy of Michelle McAulay, UC
NTEU ADVOCATE • vol. 20 no. 3 • November 2013 • www.nteu.org.au/advocate • page 17