AUSTRALIAN Catholic University (ACU National) in Brisbane has awarded honorary doctorates to three influential women – Good Samaritan Sisters Mary McDonald and Mary Ronayne, and Margaret Vider.
The doctorates were bestowed at the education graduation ceremony of ACU National’s Brisbane campus, McAuley at Banyo, on May 27.
Sr McDonald has been an innovator and leader in Catholic education, serving as a teacher, principal, facilitator, consultant, ethicist and role model for women in religious education.
She played a major role in the establishment of the Najara Centre for Spirituality and Ecology at Nambour as a centre of prayer, environmental care and adult education.
ACU National Vice-Chancellor Professor Greg Craven paid tribute to Sr McDonald’s involvement in these areas.
Sr McDonald also chairs Brisbane archdiocese’s Education Council.
Prof Craven said Sr Ronayne’s priorities had been Catholic schooling, governance of Catholic education, social welfare and the ongoing development of Catholic women.
Sr Ronayne is a member of the NSW State Planning and Finance Committee of the Commonwealth Schools Commission, the Catholic Education Board Sydney and served as the superior general of the Good Samaritan order.
Ms Vider is a leader in the Queensland health system, having served as chair and national president of the Florence Nightingale Committee and as a leading member of the Political Action for Nurse Education committee, lobbying for nurse education to become a university degree course.
She has served on the Queensland Nursing Council and its committees for many years while also serving as a member of the national board of Catholic Health Australia for 15 years.
She is Chair of the Centacare Council, and is a member of the Brisbane College of Theology, St Paul’s Theological College, the Sesquicentenary Committee of Brisbane archdiocese, Pregnancy Counselling Link and the Human Research Ethics Committee at Queensland University of Technology.
