Auckland Unitec graduation:: who will you be in 2040?
Thank you for the invitation to address you this evening at this graduation ceremony. Before I congratulate the graduates, let me first congratulate Unitec itself for the fine vision you have of your purpose and objectives. Reading a recent Unitec report I noted in particular :
- your mission statement to inspire people to discover and apply their intellectual and creative potential and contribute responsibly to their societies and cultures
- your commitment to sustainable development and the development of an eco-campus
- your commitment to partnership under the Treaty of Waitangi
- but at the same time a commitment to a multi-cultural student body, so evident this evening.
An educational institution which is based on robust principles such as these, and with a clear purpose to be of service to the wider community, models the best of aspirations.
Then let me congratulate those of you whom we have come to honour tonight in this proud moment of graduation. Your presence here is an indication that you have applied yourself creatively and energetically in your studies, studies which have not merely been academic, but have had a significant component of what is described as Real World Learning. Your studies have been undertaken with hands-on experience in the fields of endeavour where you will be working. Lectures and papers have been complemented by practical experience and application.
This is the third Unitec graduation event today. The earlier ceremonies were for graduates in fields such as business, IT, landscape architecture and building. This graduation is for you who will be engaged in front-line people-centred work such as education, health, social work and counselling, environment and voluntary organisations. While it is true that all jobs are done best when people-centred outcomes are in mind, yet the fields you have chosen to work in have some distinctive characteristics :
- they will have no doubt attracted you because you have a natural sense of empathy with people, along with compassion and a care for the well-being of others
- they are fields where you will encounter a number of people we might describe as difficult, or a challenge, and there is always a temptation to avoid such people so that they become marginalised
- yet people of that nature are usually so because they have already been rejected and marginalised by others in their life to date : yours is the challenge to be there for them, however difficult that might be, so their lives may change for the good. There can be nothing more satisfying than helping another person to greater fulfilment in living.
I want to ask you now to look ahead and imagine it is the year 2040. That’s the year I would turn 100 if I live to see it, but for many of you today it will see you in a state of mature experience in your chosen life and profession. Ask yourself how you might judge your achievements in your life and work. One traditional marker of success would be that you have made a lot of money, but I imagine you know (as I did) that you are not choosing your job because it is well paid. Many people get far more money for doing jobs that contribute very little to social well-being, or even impact upon it negatively. Or you might measure your life by having carved out a brilliant career and become a powerful and influential leader. Good leadership is an important ingredient in society, and a desirable thing when exercised creatively.
But the ultimate measure is what good you have done in terms of making a difference in other people’s lives. Through your work in education, health care, social work and voluntary organisations, have you helped people find confidence and hope, develop their talents, and become fulfilled so that they in turn go out and make a difference for others?
Media stories bombard us with accounts of society’s wrong-doers such as drug-dealers, dangerous drivers, swindlers and thieves, rapists and murderers. They create tragedy and distress enough, but a greater wrong occurs when ordinary law-abiding citizens forget their primary objective, as in the Unitec mission statement, to contribute responsibly to their societies. We forget this objective when we become preoccupied with our own personal prosperity and advancement. Institutions lose their way when they are dominated by financial goals, and lose sight of such ultimate objectives as providing education, health, or justice in the interests of all.
Sin is not a fashionable concept today, but it is linked to an interesting Greek word amartia. Amartia is an archery term meaning to miss the mark, shooting wide or falling short of the target. It is easy for a society to fail to achieve its full potential not because a minority sets out to do what is wrong, but because the majority lose sight of the larger targets to be aimed for. The sins of omission can be greater than the sins of commission.
A contrasting word, also a little out of fashion, is vocation. Vocation is not exclusively an ecclesiastical term but has universal application. Vocation is to do with the spirit in which any job is undertaken. If a job is done purely for what one will get out of it, the ultimate objective is lost, the target is missed. But if a job is done with a greater purpose in mind, such as working for the well-being of the community, it may be seen as a vocation.
So if in 2040 you can look back and say you have you have taken a vocational approach to your work, with a commitment always to the well-being of others, then I predict you will view your life with a great sense of fulfilment and satisfaction in what you have achieved.
Let me conclude by offering you six qualities to aspire to as you set out on your journey :
- Integrity – which means being honest and fair in all you do, but at a deeper level being true to your own best self, your values and beliefs
- Compassion – so that you have sensitivity to others, and a care to do the things that will be best for them
- Leadership – which is a quality that may be displayed at all levels of an organisation. It is seen in anyone who has an eye to what is right, and speaks and works for it
- Courage – to do the thing that is right even if it costs you something in the process
- Kaitiakitanga – guardianship of the earth, the seas and the land, the rivers, the mountains and the forests, and all that lives so that this planet will be a treasure and a source of life for all generations
- Taha Wairua – the things of the spirit, whether our spirituality be expressed in religious or non-religious categories. Spirituality is what gives us a sense of being part of something bigger than ourselves, so that we see all people and the Earth itself as whanau/family, and we live mutually rather than exploitatively.
No reira, kia tau te rangimarie o te Atua kia kotou : congratulations on reaching this milestone in your life, and may the peace and blessing of God be with you in the years that lie ahead.
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