More College Space For Uni Students

Illawarra Mercury

Friday January 18, 2002

with Greg Ellis

The Richard Johnson College will offer enhanced collegiate accommodation for University of Wollongong students at a new site from next month.

The college has been relocated to a new property, a 75-bed complex vacated by the Illawarra Retirement Trust in Flinders St, Wollongong, and will be ready for occupation by under-graduate and graduate students attending the 2002 autumn session at the university.

The significant upgrade will include 65 en suite rooms with full catering and collegiate facilities.

All rooms are Internet capable with telephone and television access and tutorial assistance will also be available for all members of the college.

According to Master of the college Rev Raymond Heslehurst, a former chaplain of the University of Wollongong for 11 years and presently rector of St Stephen's Newtown, the new improved college was a new step in a bold venture.

He said a decade ago a group of Wollongong people saw the need and desirability of a college associated with the university and the Anglican Church's Sydney diocese.

Through the benefaction of the Fairfax Family Trust it was able to start in a small way and successfully ran the 25-room college in Smith St for nine years.

Rev Heslehurst said the Smith St site was being sold to help finance a loan, to expand both the size and quality of the college, from the IMB and the university.

``This Christian and Anglican ministry opens up new prospects for both town and gown," he said.

``There is a need at the university and a market for the kind of accommodation we are offering. Not only in terms of rooms and size but in terms of the quality we are going to be offering in collegiate accommodation."

College president Peter Kell said the purchase marked a further expansion ``in our provision of excellent collegiate style student accommodation within a caring Christian environment".

``We were aware that, although the old site was having an effective ministry, it wasn't a large enough institution to do the kind of things we wanted," he said.

Mr Kell said it was a significant step forward in the life and ministry of the college which would be appointing five tutors to offer assistance to college members.

``We will be looking for Christian people who actually want to have an impact on the lives of kids, not just from an academic point of view but on their Christian lives as well," he said.

The college plans to work closely with the Anglican Chaplaincy and AFES student work already thriving at the university.

© 2002 Illawarra Mercury

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