Vice Chancellor, Professor Celia Hammond's Inauguration Speech

Your Grace, Your Eminence,  Bishop Holohan, Chancellor, distinguished guests, members of the clergy and religious orders, ladies and gentlemen.

It is with a profound sense of honour and humility that I stand before you tonight as the third Vice Chancellor of the University of Notre Dame Australia.  I pledge to you all that I will lead this University with my head, with my heart, guided by my faith. I will do so with a light touch and with a strong hand…. depending on the circumstances.

Taking the “torch” of leadership of this University from Peter Tannock is somewhat daunting. He is a true champion in the history and evolution of Catholic education in this country and his leadership has at times been less that of a torch bearer and more that of a controlled burner. However, in addition to having had the benefit of his mentorship over the last four years and having the support of all friends, staff, alumni and students of Notre Dame, I gain strength from my faith and confidence from two predominant forces in my life.  The first is the love with which I have been blessed, and the second is the education I have received.  These two defining forces in my life, love and education, are also the cornerstones of the University of Notre Dame. I believe that my faith, coupled with the love and education I have received, will help me to serve and to lead.

I have been blessed throughout my whole life never to have known a day without love; never to have known a moment without love.  I was born into a family where love was not conditional, where I was always made to feel special and wanted.  It is true that there were transitory moments in my childhood where I felt underappreciated, ( I never did get the Malvern star bike or Barbie Doll I wanted and requested every birthday between the ages of 6 to 12); there were brief periods in my teenage years and young adult hood where I felt “misunderstood” or perhaps unduly restricted in my life, but even after the third time I crashed the car and endured the wrath of my father, I never questioned my love for my parents or their love for me.  There may have been times when I questioned the love of my sisters and indeed the love for my three sisters, but these moments were never long and were usually at the end of a battle over clothes, the bathroom, the telephone or the television.  This love of my parents and of my sisters continues and I am very pleased that they are all here today.  This love has in fact extended now beyond that of my three sisters to their husbands and children, my beautiful nieces and nephews, and to the family of my husband.

I have also been loved by friends and have loved them in return.  I still have friends that I made as a child who are very, very dear to me.  I have new friends whom I have met through the years – many of them through my work here at NDA. These colleagues/friends have become very special.

Of course when it comes to talking about love there are no words to describe the love that I have for my husband Simon and for my three boys - Samuel, Joshua and Thomas.  I would not be who I am today without these four men in my life.  They give me balance, they give me warmth, they give me hope, they give me unquantifiable joy, they give me many sleepless nights. They are always in my heart. They are my home.

In speaking of love and the fact that I have never felt a moment of being unloved, I recognise that I am extremely blessed.  There are many who cannot claim to have had or to have such love in their lives.  I thank all those in my life, but above all, I thank Jesus, whom I recognise as God’s unique gift of love offered to the whole world.

Just as I have been blessed with love, I have benefited from education.  I was born into an environment in which education was valued. The pursuit of knowledge and understanding, of truth and wisdom, was not only legitimate, but indeed encouraged and fostered.   As I get older, I realize how fortunate I am to have had the educational opportunities which have been afforded to me, by virtue of my parents, of the country in which I was born, and the time in which I was born. My educational opportunities have not been limited by the colour of my skin, by a lack of adequate money, by disability or by the fact that I am female. I wish it were so for everyone.    

I believe that education is one of the most valuable enabling and empowering opportunities that can be offered to people. However, knowledge and learning without a context or framework of humanity is hollow.  Knowledge without love and respect is not wisdom. To learn that the thighbone is connected to the kneebone and to understand how to reconnect them should they break, is useful – but if you are incapable of understanding or empathising with the human being whose bone is broken: if you cannot recognise and address their fears, their concerns, their “humanity” - your ability to “help” will be limited.

In the same way and with an analogy that is closer to my heart, to learn the rules of insolvency and who takes priority and precedent when a company is wound up is hollow and empty if you cannot also look into and understand the impact an insolvency has on everybody involved: on the people who have been running the company, on the employees, on the creditors, on the community.  Without this sort of context, without understanding the “human element”, without having empathy or compassion, such basic Christian and humanitarian values, you may be able to apply the strict letter of the law, but you will struggle with serving your neighbor, your fellow human being and society. Law, like all human learning, serves a purpose greater than itself.

At Notre Dame we are not simply transmitters of information, creators of knowledge. Our mission will always be to teach and to educate in an environment that encourages people to seek understanding, to seek wisdom, to seek to serve, to seek to live in a way that fulfils everyone’s higher purpose. We do and will continue to provide tertiary education within a context of Catholic faith and values: a context we believe is well-adapted to the true fulfilment of the human person. We accept that higher education is rightly a means to an end for an individual: it prepares people to find a job, a certain income, a certain way of life and a certain (perceived) status in society. We accept too that in providing higher education, we are helping society – by graduating individuals who know how to fix broken arms, how to balance accounts, how to research new ideas and invent and innovate. However, we also know that these two goals, valid as they are, are not all that there is. We must always strive to help individuals to develop and grow as human beings, holistically, with an eye not just to status but also to service. We seek to graduate students with a better understanding of the world and their role in it – an understanding which should not be individualistic and self serving, but compassionate, faith filled, just, decent and honest as our Catholic intellectual tradition demands.

In seeking to fulfil our goal, our mission, at Notre Dame, we will continue to emphasise and focus on the individual. We will not succumb to pressure to assess the potential and ability of an individual solely by reference to a numeric assessment of someone’s capacity or achievements to date. We must assess the holistic strength of each individual; we must help each individual to grow and develop in understanding; we must encourage each individual to value the true, the good and the beautiful. Above all else, we must help our students to discover real love. For only with the giving and receiving of love can we fully realise our potential and exercise the talents and strengths which have been bestowed on us. To foster the unity of love, faith and education is the greatest service we can offer to the individual, the greatest service we can offer society, and the greatest service we can offer to Jesus and his Church.

As I embark on the role of Vice Chancellor, I ask that Mary, Notre Dame’s Patroness, gently support me and this University with her prayerful intercession.

Thank you.

Professor Celia Hammond
4 August 2008