UC classics PhD student wins Wakefield Scholarship

UC classics PhD student wins Edward Gibbon Wakefield Scholarship

July 15, 2013

A University of Canterbury (UC) classics PhD student has won the Edward Gibbon Wakefield Scholarship.

The Wakefield Scholarship will help UC postgraduate student Andrew Wong enrol as a visiting student at Oxford University for an academic year at Christ Church College.

The scholarship is awarded on the basis of academic excellence, but also an interest in the life and works of Edward Gibbon Wakefield and the Wakefield family, who were large figures in the colonisation of New Zealand and have left a strong legacy.

The scholarship is testament to this legacy, set up by Priscilla Wakefield Mitchell, in memory of her great great uncles and her brother who was a graduate of Christ Church, Oxford.

The scholarship will cover Wong’s expenses at Oxford, including travel costs and living expenses.

``This opportunity has various benefits to the University of Canterbury and for New Zealand. The opportunity for me to study at Oxford will enable me to encounter people and ideas, which will be of huge benefit to my research

``As my PhD will still be conferred at UC, it will still contribute to New Zealand scholarship and the academic work will be recognised as originating from UC. This scholarship helps to strengthen the quality of New Zealand research by broadening the horizon for its recipients.

``By having students from UC studying overseas and at universities with such prestige as Oxford, the reputation of UC is increased. The Classics Department has been instrumental in helping me reach this point in my studies and I have benefitted from world-class supervision in my research.’’

The Edward Gibbon Wakefield Doctoral Scholarship was established in 2004 by the late Priscilla Wakefield Mitchell.

ENDS

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