New Year Honours 2024: Dr Cherie Chu-Fuluifaga made officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to education

Dr Cherie Chu-Fuluifaga has been made an officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit as part of the New Year Honours for her services to education.

Chu-Fuluifaga, who lives in Waikanae, is a distinguished Pacific academic who has been contributing to tertiary education for 25 years, and in that time, she has held various roles with Victoria University of Wellington.

She started at the university in 2003 and developed the Pacific education leadership cluster in 2005 with five students and grew it to more than 200 students in 2020.

She was the Bachelor of Arts (BA) programme director of education between 2009 and 2011 and served on the BA review panel during that time. She is one of 151 New Zealanders recognised in the 2024 New Year Honours.

Chu-Fuluifaga has also been instrumental in introducing a range of outreach activities - extending pastoral care into the wider Wellington region to encourage more Pacific and Māori students to enrol at the university.

She has also designed cultural training and education programmes for a wide range of professionals, including lawyers, judges, midwives, doctors and teachers.

In 2000 she founded the mentoring programme for the humanities and commerce departments at the university and has been providing leadership training for Pacific students.

Most recently, she has been involved as a volunteer in the Graeme Dingle Foundation since 2016 and has led research projects for Ako Aotearoa and the Ministry of Education.

Cherie Chu-Fuluifaga with one of her students.

She said her work was always about uplifting people who don’t have a voice in different communities – including Māori, Pacific, and people with disabilities.

“My work has always been about making sure their voices are included.”

Chu-Fuluifaga said her career started when she was studying in the 1990s when someone asked her to be a tutor.

She wasn’t sure if she could do it, as she had never been the best academically and she was never much of a public speaker, but she wanted to try and change the world.

“I never saw the potential in myself, but someone else did.”

Cherie Chu-Fuluifaga, who has been made an officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit as part of the New Year Honours for her services to education.

Chu-Fuluifaga said she was very surprised when she found out she was being made an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit, as it wasn’t something she had ever expected to happen to her.

“Never in my lifetime I thought I would be getting this type of honour.”

She wanted to thank her colleague, Professor Joanna Kidman, who has been a great influence on her and supported her throughout her 25 years at the university.