Mary presents exchange scholarships

Today Crown Princess Mary has presented this year's recipients with the Crown Princess Mary Scholarship at the Amager campus of Copenhagen University. The scholarship is a wedding gift for a five year period from the University of Copenhagen. It is an exchange student scholarship for two Australian students from the University of Copenhagen's Australian partner institutions, with DKK 10,000 to go towards the costs of studying in Denmark. The first scholarships were awarded in 2005, which makes this the third year of the awards. The awards this year are going to Pheobe Downing, Art History student at the Australian National University and Sam Christensen, a law student from the University of Tasmania.




This year the award of the scholarships is part of a conference called Australia: What’s Left? The conference is convened by the Centre for Australian Studies in the Faculty of Humanities of the University of Copenhagen.

Crown Princess Mary's sister Trish Bailey (right) presents the award to Sam Christensen at the University of Tasmania on 31 March, 2007. Mary's eldest sister Jane Stephens was also present, she had done the honours for the UTAS recipient last year.

Read Crown Princess Mary's speech at the awards (in English)
Phoebe Downing, ANU is one of the recipients.
University of Copenhagen

Australia: What's left? program
Australian keynote speakers

Madeleine Glindorf's gallery (20 photos)
Søren Steffen's photo gallery (11 photos)
Hello magazine 'Princess Mary presents fellow Aussies with student award'
Hola.com 'Mary Donaldson cambia la vida de los estudiantes' (Mary Donaldson changes the life of students) - the Princess presented the awards named after her and in a missive to the chosen students she gave "big sisterly" advice ... the rest as per this post and Mary's speech in the form of a letter to Phoebe Downing and Sam Christensen (link above)

Added: From The Copenhagen Post:

A warm g’day from Crown Princess Mary

4 October 2007
Welcome to Denmark! Welcome to Copenhagen University.
Party-crashing was how vice-chancellor Lykke Friis put it! She was speaking in her usual energetic and forthright manner to the participants at a day of lectures about Australia in the new auditorium at Copenhagen University.
She was also speaking to two young Australian students who had won the Crown Princess Mary Award to study for a year in Denmark. And she was speaking in the presence of the Crown Princess herself.
The award presentation ceremony was held as the culmination of a conference organised by the European Association of Studies of Australia, which The Copenhagen Post reported from last week.
It was a beautiful sunny afternoon and the auditorium was packed when the sleek black cars slid up to the red carpet.
As the slender figure of Crown Princess Mary arrived, she was met with a megaphone barrage - a "happening" as the Danes call it, from across the canal calling haplessly for her attention to cost-cutting at the university. Slightly puzzled, she smiled and waved - also to the demonstrators - and then sat down with the two Australian students and Lykke Friis.
Situated as it is besides a canal with bridges linking the various departments of the university, the parallels with the Sydney Harbour bridge, and bridging culture and knowledge between Denmark and Australia, was clear.
Lykke Friis welcomed Sam Christensen from the University of Tasmania and Phoebe Downing from the Australian National University to the campus and warned that with the new dormitories, where one in eight occupants will be international, borders may be crossed in all kinds of ways!
She pointed out that Sam’s grandfather had emigrated from Denmark to Australia, so this award allows him to return to his roots.
The Crown Princess then congratulated both students warmly and sincerely. She said that an increasing number of Australian students are coming to study in the "exotic" land of Denmark, which delighted her.
She was proud that the academic distinction and outstanding skills of the two award-winners would stand them in good stead for their year of study here.
‘They show drive and enthusiasm that will take them far beyond textbooks,’ said the Crown Princess, ‘and this will give them deeper cultural understanding of both the Danes and of Europe in general.’
She also knew that they had arrived three weeks earlier in order to take intensive Danish lessons. ‘How’s it going with that?’ she said with a wry grin. "Det går fint,’ responded Phoebe.
Crown Princess Mary ended by hoping that this award would allow them both to attain mutual objectives and give them the necessary qualities for the global market.
‘Enjoy yourselves!’ she said, and moved upstairs to a private reception for guests of the vice-chancellor, and a chance to ‘have a natter’ with her young countrymen.

Report on the presentation and the recipients from the University of Copenhagen