Sydney, Tuesday 02 March 2021: The University of Wollongong (UOW) has officially welcomed twenty-eight high-achieving students who have been named as UOW Ramsay Scholarship recipients for 2021.
The 2021 UOW Ramsay Scholars were welcomed at a reception on campus by Vice-Chancellor Professor Paul Wellings CBE and several UOW senior executives.
The event was also attended by Ramsay Centre for Western Civilisation Chair, the Hon John Howard OM AC, and Centre CEO Professor Simon Haines, as well as last year’s UOW Ramsay Scholarship recipients.
Thanks to a partnership agreement between the Ramsay Centre and UOW, the 2021 UOW Ramsay Scholars will be supported to complete UOW’s Bachelor of Arts in Western Civilisation, through scholarships worth up to $30,000 p.a. for up to five years. The scholars will be taught in small class groups and receive academic mentoring. They will also be funded to participate in an approved overseas experience as part of their studies.
Billed as a course for the ‘intellectually fearless’, UOW’s Bachelor of Arts in Western Civilisation is designed to help students ‘discover the enduring insights of the greatest thinkers, poets and artists of Western civilisation’ and ‘become part of a conversation about ideas that have changed the world as we know it.’
UOW Vice-Chancellor Professor Paul Wellings congratulated the 2021 UOW Ramsay Scholars, saying they “should be immensely proud of achieving a place in such a prestigious program.”
“On behalf of the University I extend a warm welcome to each of you and trust that you will find the degree and the program to be equally rewarding. Undoubtedly it will change your thinking and shape you as future leaders in your chosen fields.”
Professor Wellings also paid tribute to the 2020 UOW Ramsay Scholars who as a cohort achieved the highest marks at the University last year.
Ramsay Centre Chairman the Hon John Howard OM AC remarked how happy the late Paul Ramsay AO would have been to see the legacy he had in mind some years ago come to fruition.
“Paul Ramsay was always optimistic about what was going to happen and I feel a tremendous sense of optimism and enthusiasm today… not only because the BA degree in western civilisation has done better than any other degree at this University, but I’m enthused by the spread of new entrants, different backgrounds, different schools, different interests, but with one interest in common, and that is a desire to know something more in depth about who we are, and where we come from, because in essence this degree is about understanding that.”
Ramsay Centre CEO Professor Simon Haines also addressed the gathering, advising the 2021 UOW Ramsay Scholars to take ownership of the extraordinary works they would study.
“They are great texts because all of them have always been much too strong and manifold and complex to be absorbed into any convenient contemporary fashions or dogmas. They push back against all types of lazy conformism,” Professor Haines said.
“Sometimes it is hard to notice how much we are captured by the spirit of the age, by the biases and prejudices of our society. So, one very important thing this course will give you is a chance to be non-conformists, to be rebels—and the way to do that is to take ownership of these very texts, which are the ones that have made us in Australia and the wider Western world what we are, namely a constantly self-critical civilisation.”
The Ramsay Centre and UOW entered a partnership in 2019. Worth approximately $50 million over eight years, the partnership enables UOW to offer at least 150 undergraduate scholarships over that period and to hire world-class educators to teach its Western civilisation program. The partnership is made possible through the extraordinary generosity of the late Paul Ramsay AO, founder of Ramsay Health Care.
Media contact: Sarah Switzer 0407 816 098 / sarah.switzer@ramsaycentre.org