Sydney, Thursday 29 August 2024: Three brilliant performances by Western Civilisation scholars; a quintet acapella performance of 16th-century French chanson, Celtic-inspired music played on fiddle and guitar, and a group oration of Les Murray’s The Quality of Sprawl, were just some of the many highlights of a recent special dinner to mark four years of partnership between the Australian Catholic University (ACU) and the Ramsay Centre.
The celebratory dinner at the Tea Rooms at the Queen Victoria Building in Sydney, was hosted by ACU Vice-Chancellor and President Professor Zlatko Skrbis. It was also attended by ACU Provost and Deputy Vice-Chancellor Professor Julie Cogin, ACU Western Civilisation Acting Program Director Professor Jan Seruga, several senior ACU executives, and academic staff from the program.
The Ramsay Centre was represented by our CEO Dr Martin Fahy, Academic Director Professor Diana Glenn, and Chief Financial Officer Emily Williams, as well as Board members Professor Ann Brewer, Peter Evans and Michael Siddle.
Most importantly, the event was attended by the growing community of ACU Ramsay Scholars, including the most recent to join the community, the first-year students and the Master of Liberal Arts degree students.
The Ramsay Centre and ACU entered a partnership in 2020. Worth approximately $50 million over eight years, the partnership enables ACU to offer its BA (Western Civilisation) degree program, to offer at least 150 undergraduate scholarships over that period, and to hire world-class educators. Each ACU Ramsay Scholarship is worth $32,000 p.a. for up to five years, with scholars taught in small class groups and receiving academic mentoring. Funding includes a study abroad experience for which students can choose to study at ACU’s Rome campus.
ACU’s Western Civilisation degrees explore “the past, present and future of Western intellectual life and culture through immersion in some of the key literary, philosophical, artistic, religious, political and scientific works that have shaped the Western intellectual tradition from antiquity to the present.”
ACU Ramsay Scholars can study a stand-alone Bachelor of Arts (Western Civilisation) degree (with the possibility of Honours), combine it with a Bachelor of Laws or Master of Teaching (Secondary), or elect to study the new Master of Liberal Arts (Western Civilisation). The annual dinner which includes students from all these cohorts was the largest to date.
Professor Skrbis said ACU was deeply honoured to contribute to the late Paul Ramsay’s vision of promoting and deepening the study of Western Civilisation. He expressed his joy at the program’s growth and the success of the scholars in the program, including Catherine Murphy, a recent graduate who received the University Medal and Helena Skundric who was recently announced as a 2024 Ramsay Postgraduate Scholar.
Professor Skrbis also applauded the program’s increasing diversity of students, including students from military backgrounds as well as students from regional and remote areas, who he said enriched the program with their unique perspectives and experiences.
“ACU Ramsay Scholars have proven to be energetic, imaginative, clever and curious while also displaying a commitment to the enrichment of society and that’s something that we hold very close to our heart,” Professor Skrbis said.
Centre CEO Dr Martin Fahy paid tribute to the Centre’s benefactor the late Paul Ramsay AO, whose extraordinary generosity had made the partnership possible. He urged the scholars to be proud of their “very important” degrees through which they will “grapple with ethical issues, complexities, and ambiguities that define so many of the very real wicked problems that we face”.
In addition to the musical performances by scholars, two scholars delivered speeches about their experiences.
ACU Ramsay Scholar John Tabuteau said that the degree emphasised the Great Books including Homer’s epics, Shakespeare’s plays, Locke’s political treatise, and many others that became the foundation for all philosophical, literary, political and economic developments of Western Civilisation. He said that these books become a connection between the living and the dead, “so that the great questions which have held mankind in suspense and awe, may constantly be asked and thought about”.
However, while he lauded the study of the Great Books, he said it did not reflect the totality of his scholarship.
“That is not what a Ramsay Scholar is, it is what they studied,” he said.
John said that considering his reading about Paul Ramsay it was clear that a Ramsay Scholar is not just someone who could recite a definition of Western Civilisation when asked, but rather someone who understood that they were chosen because they possess the leadership qualities to make a difference.
“Ramsay scholars ought to be just as invested in the people around them as they are in the people who fill the books on their shelves. It is our cause to be invested in the service of people and society because if service is beneath us then leadership is beyond us.”
ACU Ramsay Scholar Sylvia MacRitchie-Hook who is studying the Master of Liberal Arts degree said her Master’s course was “not merely an academic exercise, it’s a framework for understanding the big questions.”
She cited the challenge of integrating AI into our future as one example where our society would need to rely on an understanding of context, emotions and the human experience.
“It’s precisely in these times of rapid change and uncertainty that our cultural, philosophical and intellectual heritage becomes our compass,” she said.
For more information on ACU’s BA (Western Civilisation) and related degrees, go to: https://www.acu.edu.au/course/bachelor-of-arts-western-civilisation
Media contact: Sarah Switzer 0407 816 098/ sarah.switzer@ramsaycentre.org
For more information on the centre please visit our website: www.ramsaycentre.org