Academic dress hire pays dividends for students
Eight Massey University postgraduate students have become the lucky recipients of grants made by the Graduate Women Manawatu (GWM) Charitable Trust.
The grants come from a fund built up over many years by the GWM Trust, which owns the gown hire business used by Massey graduates. The profits are invested and passed on to women students to advance their education.
Since it started over 50 years ago, the organisation has donated over $1.7million to scholarships and grants to enable women to advance their education. The gown hire business in Palmerston North started from small beginnings with graduate women often wives of academic staff hiring out gowns to graduating students and investing the small profits into the Trust.
The business made its first award in 1966; by 1976 records show it awarded $475 to students, increasing to $4800 in 1986 and $50,000 in 1996. Annually the Trust now donates over $100,000 to women’s education. Of that, $60,000 was awarded to female Massey University students studying at the postgraduate level. The presentation was held on Saturday at Wharerata on the Manawatu campus.
The Trust also supports a range of women’s education in the Manawatu region including donations and awards to teen mums studying at the Teen Parent School and to women who are taking up second-chance education opportunities, driving lessons for female refugees and language support for Pacific communities. It also supports a national-level scholarship programme. This year the Trust is also partnering with Zonta to support a postgraduate travel award for women in sciences.
Trust chair Jean Corbin Thomas says she was proud of the Trust’s connection to Massey and that funds raised through gown hire were going back to support students’ further learning.“Our focus is to invest at all levels in an important human right – women’s right and ability to pursue academic opportunities.
We disperse money across a wide spectrum of activities from driving lessons to postgraduate study but all our grants support women's learning and therefore their ability to achieve,” she says.
Karin Sievwright, a master’s student in conservation biology, was one of the eight Massey recipients.
The 21-year-old is studying the effects of the Rena Oil spill on little blue penguins and the survival rates of rehabilitated birds. She received a $7500 grant and says she was grateful for the Trust’s support. “It will help with travel and research costs and ease the financial burden,” Miss Sievwright says.
This year’s recipients are:
Sarah Buchanan (Food, Nutrition and Human Health) – Investigating the relationship between vitamin D and Metabolic Syndrome (MS); specifically in relationship in obese and non-obese males.
Lyndal Henden (Institute of Fundamental Sciences) – Working with human mitochondrial DNA from 55 Indonesian populations exploring population parameters.
Jessica Hiscox (Institute of Natural Resources) – Looking at why 60 per cent of Kiwi eggs fail to hatch and the role of microorganisms in failure rates.
Riona Ni Bhroin (Institute of Veterinary, Animal and Biomedical Sciences) – Conducting a qualitative exploration of migration and motherhood, and the impact of migration and motherhood on identity.
Bridget Reweti (Maori Visual Arts) – Whose work is exploring the growing divide between nature and culture within New Zealand’s Conservation Estate.
Barbara Rouse (History, Philosophy and Classics) – Looking at the roles used by women in Fourteenth Century England to navigate around gender-imposed social constraints and prohibitions.
Karin Sievwright (Institute of Natural Resources) – Monitoring and evaluating the overall impact of the Rena Oil spill on little blue penguins and post-release survival rates among rehabilitated birds.
Alice Smialowska (School of Engineering and Advanced Technology) – Exploring the quantification and composition of white crystals in cheddar cheese as part of a work-based project.