Diversity at Sydney Uni

Every senior high school student experiences loads of new pressures – parental, academic, community and peer – but for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students, these pressures are multiplied many times.

Access for Indigenous students

Sydney Uni has a 30-year history of recognising the additional difficulties faced by Indigenous Year 11 and 12 students by helping establish support networks across NSW between students, schools, communities and peoples.
The office manager of the University’s Koori Centre, Jenny Thompson, said every Indigenous student who decided to sit for the Higher School Certificate had already overcome major obstacles.
“Often these kids are the only Indigenous students in Year 11 or 12 at their schools. It can be very isolating for them to have goals that are uncommon for Indigenous children in their community,” she said.
“The Koori Centre was set up to show Indigenous students they aren’t alone and to help them believe a university education can be part of their lives.”
Ms Thompson said one of the main events organised by the Koori Centre was the Year 12 HSC Enrichment Camp, held each year during the July school holidays. This year’s camp attracted more than 30 students from the metropolitan area as well as towns as far away as Bourke, Lismore and Wagga Wagga.
“We provide free travel as well as free accommodation in the colleges on campus for the week. The work is intensive and students say the camps are very motivating,” Ms Thompson said.
“Some of the students have formed friendships that have continued to University.”

Ms Thompson said an online application form for next year’s camp is available on the Koori Centre website at www.koori.usyd.edu.au.
“The main message of the Koori Centre is that every Indigenous student in NSW, no matter where they are studying, should know that studying at Sydney Uni is a realistic goal for them,” she said.
The University operates a special admissions program for Indigenous students, the Cadigal Program, in acknowledgement of the particular disadvantages they have overcome in completing their HSCs.
Ms Thompson said students in Year 12 should apply for the program by the end of November, in advance of the HSC results.

Top student praises Koori Centre

THE first Aboriginal student to gain the top HSC mark in Aboriginal Studies says she chose to study at Sydney Uni for two main reasons: the reputation of its Aboriginal Studies course and her experience of the Koori Centre’s HSC Enrichment Camp in 2003.
Fiona Webb, now in her first year of a five-year, combined degree in education and arts, says the Koori Centre provides a vital sense of community for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students.
“If it hadn’t been for the Koori Centre, the only other Indigenous student I’d know would be my brother,” she says.
“It’s provided a place to meet and make friends with Indigenous students from all faculties and at all different stages of their degrees. The availability of mutual support has stopped me feeling that I’m on my own.”
Fiona says she attended the 2003 Enrichment Camp on the recommendation of her brother, who had been a participant the year before.
“The camp was very inspiring and I’m still friends with many of the people I met there. Anyone who has the opportunity to attend should apply.”