Preparing students to meet today’s realities and tomorrow’s challenges
Rev. Dr. Sylvester Ranasinghe was recently appointed as the Rector of the Aquinas College of Higher Studies in Colombo. Under his leadership, the institution hopes to formulate strategies to pursue excellence, refine education and make the college impactful locally and internationally.
In his inaugural address, on assuming office this month, he outlined his vision for the college and emphasised the need for servant leadership. Excerpts from his speech are given below:
“I am truly honored to stand before you as the ninth rector of Aquinas College. I take this opportunity to give credit to the former rectors for their leadership and the university staff for their cooperation and contribution. I especially offer my bouquet of thanks to Rev. Dr. Susith Silva for his dedicated service to the college.”
“I will listen to the views of different parties of the college, build communication pathways for staff, and foster mutual trust and personal transparency and accountability. We will together formulate strategies to pursue excellence, refine our education and make the college impactful locally and internationally.”
“I want to also use this occasion to share my initial ideas on four aspects of college development that my experimental and naturalistic studies at Fordham University and experiences at Catholic colleges have produced.”
“The fundamental pursuit of a world-class college is to provide quality education to all students. We will optimise our whole-personal education system consisting of Catholic education, general education, discipline- specific education, research and internship and peer and community education. Let us make this college not only a place of information and graduation but also of formation.”
“The greatness of a worldclass college lies in the strong scholarship of its faculty. Having a team of good teachers is a prerequisite for having good students. The quality of an education system cannot exceed the quality of its teachers. We will build a dynamic team of professional teaching staff with academic integrity and international standing.”
“A world- class college constantly explores the unknown and be innovative, which are keys to making it influential and prestigious. We will focus
on our priorities and enhance research quality. The strength of a world-class college is also testified by the service it provides to the community. We need to promote greater responsibility towards society and play a more significant role in the community’s socio-economic development. Let us prepare students to face today’s realities and tomorrow’s challenges.”
“We have experienced the negative consequences of selfserving leaders who have been conditioned by power and control. They are dictators today; the world is challenging us to produce leaders who serve the community. I believe, the world needs authentic servant leaders and the Catholic Church needs servant leaders with the heart of Jesus because of widespread self-interested and scandalised leaders. A servant leader’s unconditional emphasis is on serving and having concern for the well-being of everyone and is destined to bolster success by creating a change in the lives of his or her followers.”
“Prof. Sen Sendjaya, a leading scholar in servant leadership theory says servant leadership is a holistic approach to leadership that engages both leaders and followers. It contains empirically and conceptually six distinct dimensions: Voluntary subordination, authentic self, covenantal relationship, responsible morality, transcendental spirituality, and transforming influence such that they are both transformed into what they are capable of becoming.”
“A new starting point. A new chapter. A new journey. A new mission. This gives me a critical sense of responsibility. As prescribed in the mission statement of Aquinas College, we should provide the necessary manpower skills and enlightened leadership so as to bring about a better world.” “Let us together transform Aquinas College into an institution of world class excellence that the Catholic Church feels proud of.”