|
NEWS HEADLINES
↓ WHAT'S INSIDE
|
|
|
|
|
Home » CW National » Article
|
Go back |
|
|
‘Trained for life, not just for work’
|
Printable version |
| By KERRY MYERS
14 December, 2008 |
 |
| CAPS OFF TO CAMPION: The graduates gather in the Quadrangle of the University of Sydney after the graduation ceremony. in the middle is Olivia Meese, winner of the College Medal for outstanding academic achievement. |
|
|
The great argument for a liberal arts education is that it can train a person for life, not just for work.
This was the message from the the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, at the inaugural graduation ceremony of Sydney’s Campion College last week.
Twelve young men and women received their degrees for Bachelor of Arts in the Liberal Arts in the Great Hall of the University of Sydney on Friday, December 5.
The Member for Blaxland, Jason Clare, represented Mr Rudd. (The Prime Minister had been unable to attend because of the late sitting of Parliament).
Mr Clare delivered the PM’s comments and also presented each graduate with a personal letter of congratulations from Mr Rudd. His message included his endorsement of the importance of a liberal arts education and the Government’s strong support for initiatives like Campion College.
“It's often said today that education is the pathway to opportunity,” Mr Rudd’s message said.
“And it's certainly more today than ever before, with so many jobs requiring a strong and diverse set of skills.
“What Campion College also understands, of course, is that education is always much more than just preparation for a job.
“It is also preparation for a life.
“Which is why you can never separate values from education.
“This is something that is well understood by the Catholic education tradition.”
The Prime Minister was a product of a Catholic education, at Marist College, Ashgrove, in Brisbane.
Mr Rudd said that Campion was the first college of its kind in Australia to have an exclusive focus on the liberal arts – although the same trend was now evident in the new direction being taken by the University of Melbourne.
Research suggested that while only three per cent of American college graduates studied at liberal arts colleges, those colleges have produced 19 per cent of US Presidents, and a disproportionately large share of CEOs and Pulitzer Prize winners, he said.
“The great argument for a liberal arts education is that it can train a person for life, not just for work.”
The Bishop of Parramatta, Bishop Kevin Manning, delivered the occasional address.
He told the graduates that there were three qualities “which must underpin your deeds, great or otherwise.”
“These are fearlessness in the advocacy of human dignity, love, and proclamation of the mission of Christ,” he said.
Bishop Manning said fearlessness in the advocacy of human dignity, was evident in the life and work of a man who was a member of the first Senate of the University of Sydney and its vice
chancellor from 1865 to
1869 – John Hubert Plunkett, an Irishman who was appointed Attorney-General of NSW, the first Catholic to be appointed to high office.
Plunkett successfully prosecuted a group of white stockmen responsible for the Myall Creek Massacres in which 28 Aboriginal people were murdered in 1838.
“Plunkett was fearless in applying his conviction that all people are equal under the law,” Bishop Manning said.
“So I say to you that the equality and dignity of all men and women is the basic principle of humanity, a principle which Jesus lived and taught, and a conviction you must carry with you all the days of your life.”
Bishop Manning continued that humility is a virtue which well becomes a graduate in the liberal arts.
“This applies to Church matters as it does to all areas of life,” he said.
“Some Catholics persuade themselves that it is their mission to correct everybody else, other Catholics in particular: to develop a Church of those who are right, rather than a Church of mercy, forgiveness, compassion, justice and love. Alongside these Beatitudes, and leaving aside the great truths of Scripture and the Magisterium insistence on being right, often over the most trivial items, is indeed folly.”
He told them, too, that it was useful knowledge to know when one makes a mistake and to apologise for it.
“Without justice, there is no peace and without forgiveness there is no justice. And with forgiveness comes reconciliation, joy and peace.”
Talking of the primacy of love, the bishop said that there was “no doubt that our society has made many advances: in whatever field you name – science, technology, medicine, new ways of thinking and knowing – great advances have been made, but one fact eludes many people: we are saved by love; not by the fastest broadband or by the leanest, smallest laptop, but by the love of God, given to us in Jesus.
“The challenge for us is to call men and women away from the self, and self-made ideologies, to the Other, the Transcendent, the God of Love, who fills us with love, and impels us to collaborate with others to make the Kingdom here on earth a kingdom of justice, love and peace.”
Campion College, named after the 16th century Oxford scholar and martyr St Edmund Campion, was opened in 2006 at Old Toongabbie, after being approved as a registered Australian higher education institution by the NSW Department of Education and Training.
The 2008 graduates are:
Kate Anne Bateman, Molly Bridget Healy, Elanor Mary Hitchings, Kieren Frederick Jackson, Andriya Michael Nikolai Martinovic, Madeleine Joan Meese, Olivia Jane Meese, Johanna Mary O’Farrell, Conor Joseph Power, Charbel Trad, Timothy Joseph Wallace and Stephen Mark Woodnutt.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
