Doubters wrong in degrees

By BRIDGET CARTER

The woman who stood in a line of Cambridge University graduates wearing traditional Maori dress had come much further than her journey to Britain.

Alison Cole is a young part-Maori woman who spent much of her life on Waiheke Island in a struggling single-parent family. She aimed to enter Cambridge University's law school but many doubted she would find the means.

She proved them wrong.

She has graduated with a first-class honours degree in law, and now has won a scholarship to Harvard Law School. She starts at the illustrious American institution this month.

The image of Alison, 22, graduating in Maori dress in memory of her grandfather, featured in London's Sunday Times and generated widespread interest among New Zealand's law community.

The costume is from the Ngati Ruanui iwi near Hawera, in Taranaki, where her grandfather, Thomas Cole, originated.

Her mother, Susan Atkin, said Alison was very close to her grandfather, who died in 1998.

Alison's "Aunty Olive" borrowed the traditional Maori dress from her grandfather's iwi for Alison to wear at her graduation.

Ms Atkin said her daughter had always been a high-achieving student. She came third in New Zealand history in Bursary and won a music scholarship to Wanganui Collegiate for her excellence as a flautist while at Palmerston North Girls High School.

Ms Atkin was a solo mother of four struggling on a benefit and studying at university when Alison was trying to get to Cambridge.

People tried to tell Alison that she might not make it, mainly because they did not want her to be disappointed.

But they were just fuelling that determination, her mother says.

"She just breaks down those barriers and marches on."

Once successful in the Cambridge University entrance exams and interviews, Alison went everywhere in New Zealand to find the money to study.

After a trip to England, she managed to find enough money through scholarships to start studying there in 1999. She also received help in New Zealand from Anne Priestley, a former Cambridge student, and her husband John, QC, now a High Court judge.

A Cambridge staff member wrote to Mrs Priestley, who asked her husband to help raise money through the legal profession.

In her studies at Cambridge, Alison worked towards a career in foreign policy or New Zealand diplomacy.

In her final year, she specialised in the welfare of women and children.

Alison has been working for the United Nations in Italy since graduating.