CITATION: Sr Mary McDonald SGS

 

 

CITATION   Read by the Vice-Chancellor, Professor Gregory Craven BA LLB (Hons) LLM (Melb) on the occasion of the conferring by the Chancellor, Brother Julian McDonald CFC, AO, BA, Dip.Ed.,Cert.Rel.Formation, Grad. Dip. Lang in Ed, of the degree of Doctor of the University, Honoris Causa, on

 

 

Mary McDonald, a Good Samaritan sister, has made an extraordinary contribution to Catholic education over many decades of dedicated and strong and inspirational leadership at school, congregational and diocesan level.

 

Educated by the Good Samaritan sisters at Charters Towers, Mary joined the congregation in the nineteen fifties after working in a children's library between finishing school and entering the congregation in Sydney. She undertook a path that was to be a hallmark of her future as a teacher and school principal; namely, lifelong learning.  Almost immediately after finishing her initial religious formation, and qualifying as a teacher, Mary began teaching in Sydney and enrolled simultaneously as an external student at the University of New England in an Arts degree. Whilst principal at Coorparoo, Brisbane, Mary went on to complete the degree, specialising in English and Psychology.

 

Part time study was to be her pathway to further her personal and professional life in the years that followed. Mary undertook further study in Educational Administration at the University of New England whilst a teacher and later a principal at Nambour, and then went on to a Master's degree by research in Education at the University of Queensland. Mary combined the two commitments, principalship and study, with ongoing attention to her congregation and parish with zeal which remains a mark of her approach to all that she undertakes to this day.

 

Whilst at Nambour Mary assisted with a major undertaking for her congregation by taking a role in the revision of the congregation's constitution. She was privileged to travel to Japan as part of this work and she began another aspect of her extensively broad range and commitments, namely her work as a facilitator of congregations in their preparation for Chapter and congregational leadership. This work still engages Mary as religious orders here and overseas seek her inspirational guidance and gentle leadership.

 

Mary has also been an active environmentalist for over three decades.  Yet she has ensured that this interest was balanced by her deep faith and sound educational background.  Mary played a major role in the establishment of the Najara Centre for Spirituality and Ecology  at Nambour as a centre of prayer, care of the environment and also of adult education.  Mary became an active member of the Sunshine Coast Environment Council, contributing to their activities, including demonstrating on behalf of the environment as God's creation.  Her degree in Environmental Education was undertaken to ensure that she was well educated and abreast of the academic thinking in this field as well as to safeguard the movement from vague good intentions that has sometimes clouded the environmental movement.

 

In the mid nineteen eighties Mary was appointed to the role of Director of Education for the diocese of Townsville, a position she held for almost a decade.  During her term as Director, Mary rebuilt declining morale and established structures that ensured a more professional direction for education in the diocese.  She particularly established a future lands fund to provide for the future growth of schooling and also an archives to recognise and retain the history of the contributions of the clergy, congregations and laity of the past generations.  It was during this decade of her directorship that Catholic Education expanded in significant ways in the diocese and was established on a sound basis.  It was also during these years that Mary completed her doctoral studies, focussing on women in administration in Catholic Education.

 

Mary's religious, professional and academic lives have gone hand in hand throughout her career.  She has been active in assisting religious, especially women's congregations, in the discernment processes that have characterised their ongoing renewal formation.  She was appointed the Georgia Harkness International Fellow at North Western University in 1994, and completed master's studies in ethics without taking out a degree for which she was qualified.  The studies inform one of her current activities as a member of the University of the Sunshine Coast Human Ethics Committee.

 

Mary McDonald's life has been and continues to be one of continuing education.  Her seven academic qualifications have been undertaken and completed as a part-time student. They were each undertaken to complement her work current at the time and each informed the direction of the organisations she then and later led. Mary combined studies with community engagement as a volunteer in a safe house for prostitutes in Chicago during her time at North Western University.   She continues her voluntary work with the Buddhist sponsored home palliative care organisations Karuna and Cittimani.

 

She currently is Chair of the Education Council for the Archdiocese of Brisbane, an educational consultant, an international religious consultant, an ethicist, and has had a profound effect on the direction of the Good Samarian colleges' social justice programs.  Mary McDonald is a member of the national Good Samaritan Education Council and a current member of the International Benedictine Education Commission.

 

Mary McDonald's life, both religious and professional, has been exemplary. Her contribution to women's spiritual growth, through her role as the foundation president of Women and the Australian Church, as adviser to women's congregations and her role in the development of the schools of the Good Samaritan sisters, in addition to her leadership in education as principal, Director of a diocesan office and and Chair of an archdiocesan council, and her inspired contribution to the movement linking spirituality and ecology, mark her as an extraordinary  figure of the Catholic Church in Australia.