By Brendan Rees
Cranbourne grandmother Joan Vosen never imagined her passion for helping young people achieve their university dreams would one day add an OAM to her name.
But the 76 year-old, who today was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia as part of the Australia Day honours, has well deserved the title.
Having worked at Melbourne University for the past three decades, she received the award for her service in education.
“It’s very humbling, it’s wonderful,” Ms Vosen said. “I’m very, very honoured. It was thrilled to be nominated.”
“I just wish my parents were alive – they were very community minded. They would be thrilled,” she said.
For the past 12 years, Ms Vosen has been dedicated in her role as the state administrator for the Victorian Rhodes Scholarship Selection Committee, which offers outstanding university students the opportunity to receive a scholarship for post-graduate studies.
“I just take my job very seriously. I absolutely love it and I feel that I’ve helped very clever young people in some very small way.”
The scholarship application process can be quite long and daunting but Ms Vosen says she’s always willing to help applicants feel at ease.
“I always try to put myself into someone else’s shoes and make them feel as comfortable as I can.”
By the time the final interviews come around she says she gets to know applicants on a personal level: “We might be travelling this road together for three or four months.”
She recalled a time when she helped a young man who had to borrow someone’s suit after ripping his own.
“I was tugging at the sleeves of his suit,” she says. “The next interview, I said ‘please give me your suit pants and I’ll get them amended.’ Anyway, he ended up being a Victorian Rhodes Scholar.”
“I love helping young people. I do a lot more than what I get paid for because I love it.”
Ms Vosen was also recognised for her dedication and service to the Victorian Rhodes Committee in 2015 when she was awarded a book called ‘Watson’s Pier’ at the State Library in Melbourne.
The former Darwin resident, who survived the devastating Cyclone Tracy which hit Darwin on Christmas morning of 1974, says she’s lucky to be alive today.
“We were in our home and the house just disintegrated around us. We lost everything,” she said.
“It was amazing when I think of that time because I was in my 30s and life should’ve ended then,” she said, adding her son Matthew was only a baby.
“Our house was double brick and they fell all in on us. It was amazing that we got out without a scratch.”
Ms Vosen then moved to Cranbourne in January 1975 to be closer to her parents and now has six grandchildren.
Today, Ms Vosen says she struggles to find the words to describe the feeling of receiving an OAM.
“I find it very humbling and I feel how blessed I am I’ve had a job which I absolutely love.”
