For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow

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The Council of the University of of New South Wales will award an Honorary Fellowship to Dr Hilton Immerman, the CEO of the Shalom Institute.

Dr Hilton Immerman with Indigenous student Dr Josef McDonald

Dr Immerman has held this position as well as Master of Shalom College for almost 24 years. In notifying Immerman of his award, the Chancellor of the university David Gonski wrote: “Council recognises the contribution you have made in providing counselling, advice and mentoring to Shalom College students, especially the indigenous students who are recipients of Shalom Gamarada Ngiyani scholarships.”

Dr Immerman told J-Wire: “I feel most proud and honoured to receive this wonderful award from the University of NSW, which I regard as the leading university in the country. My association with UNSW goes back many years. I completed both my Master’s and Ph.D Degrees at UNSW and taught in one of its Master’s Programs as a visiting Fellow for 10 years. My main involvement, though, has been through my role as Head of Shalom College and CEO of The Shalom Institute.  Next year will be my quarter century in this capacity!

Students who live in great colleges like Shalom, experience university life and gain a broad education in a way that no day student can.  I receive much professional fulfilment from being able to contribute to this experience for so many students.

One of the most rewarding aspects of my role in recent years, however, is playing a part – with a team of outstanding people – in developing the significant Shalom Gamarada Indigenous Scholarship program.  This initiative, founded in 2005 by Ilona Lee and Professor Lisa Jackson Pulver, has now served a total of 50 students and currently supports 24 who reside at and are supported by Shalom College. At the end of last year, we achieved over a 90% pass rate for these disadvantaged students.  This is remarkable given that it greatly exceeds national averages for Aboriginal students and is even better than the national performance of non-Indigenous Australian tertiary students.  Together, we are making a small but meaningful contribution to closing the shameful gap that exists between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians.”