Update 2020 | Vol 38
Keep Current
President's Message
In my first few months as President and Vice Chancellor, I have been so struck by this powerful sense of community at St. Jerome’s: clear even as I have related with individuals and groups here in mostly virtual ways.
I think this extends from the way we understand the importance of our mission as a federated partner in the University of Waterloo (UW). This mission calls on us to be unique, through our courses and programs, through the use of our voice and our thought leadership, through our adherence to the Catholic Intellectual Tradition, and our commitment to providing formative student experiences.
We are also called to a complementary role with UW, by providing a hub for high quality teaching, learning, and research, and by preparing our students to complete UW degrees in an environment that attends to their unique, individual needs. Together, these roles make us an important aspect of the diversity of the broader University of Waterloo community.
The imperatives of education, formation, and service demand that St. Jerome’s be more than a denominational presence on the campus of a large secular university. We must be understood as a place of inclusiveness and welcoming to students of all backgrounds at every stage of their journeys. Because we are a Christian university, we must do so with dynamism, joy, and hope.
The theme of hopefulness is central to Pope Francis’ recent encyclical, Fratelli Tutti, in which he looks forward to life after COVID:
God willing, after all this, we will think no longer in terms of “them” and “those”, but only “us”.
If only this may prove not to be just another tragedy of history from which we learned nothing…If only
this immense sorrow may not prove useless but enable us to take a step forward towards a new style
of life. If only we might rediscover once for all that we need one another, and that in this way our human
family can experience a rebirth, with all its faces, all its hands and all its voices, beyond the walls that we have erected.
May this spirit of hopefulness help us to address the challenges still before us, and inspire us to still greater expressions of community, of service to others, and of love. Thank you for your important role in supporting us and this shared mission.
Peter Meehan
President and Vice Chancellor