Top Māori student for FHSS recognised
The Te Tini a Rehua awards are given each year to celebrate the hard work and achievement of Māori students in each faculty. Te Tini a Rehua means ‘the multitudes of Rehua’. Rehua is referred to as a chief among stars and is, therefore, apt to apply to these Māori students who have accomplished the highest grades at the 300-level in 2018, says Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Māori), Professor Rawinia Higgins.
Lily has just completed her third year of study at Victoria University for a Bachelor of Arts degree with a double major in History and Art History. “I have loved studying for both of my majors because of the way they have helped to develop my understanding of the world. To be a recipient of a Te Tini a Rehua award for the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences Te Wāhanga Aronui is an unexpected honour for which I am very grateful,” she says.
Lily credits the memory of her grandfather, George Marshall (Hori) Hall (1922–2001), as a factor in her success: “He was a very clever, kind man who should have gone to university, but instead left school early to escape the Pākehā orphanage he had been raised in. I have always understood being at university as being a way to honour the sacrifices he and my other tīpuna made in their lives, so to receive a Te Tini a Rehua award was to me a very special acknowledgement of them.”
The other 2018 Te Tini a Rehua award recipients were:
- George McKnight (Ngāti Porou)—Architecture and Design
- Kerry Courtney (Ngāti Porou)—Education
- McKenzie Tornquist (Ngāti Raukawa, Ngāti Toa)—Science
- Cameron Hopkinson (Ngāi Tahu, Ngāti Raukawa)—Engineering
- Pita Roycroft (Ngāti Kahungunu, Ngāti Tūwharetoa)—Law
- Rowan Thom (Ngāti Kahungunu, Ngāi Tūhoe)—Victoria Business School