The La Salle Academy will also be responsible for the development, delivery and quality assurance of teaching and research programs in Religious Education.
The Academy which will be part of ACU's Faculty of Education and Arts will operate as a joint enterprise between the Faculty and the University's Faculty of Theology and the Directorate of Identity and Mission. The initiative to create the Academy is a response to the needs of a new generation of teachers and leaders who are deeply committed to the goals of Catholic education.
The Founding Dean will be Brother David Hall fms, a Catholic school educator with more than 30 years’ experience as a teacher, religious education coordinator, deputy principal and principal of primary and secondary schools including St Patrick's College, Dundas and most recently as principal of Marcelin College, Randwick where he has served as Headmaster for the past five years.
Br Hall said a measure of the success of the Academy would be for it to produce more young people of faith, “living lives committed to bringing about God’s reign in the world and this is all the more likely if they are educated and inspired by well-formed, passionate teachers”.
“What I hope and dream for is expressed well by the late Bishop Michael Putney: that as a Church we will find new doorways through which contemporary Australians can enter, so that the Gospel can find a home in the culture of young people,” Br Hall said.
Br Hall was delighted to have the opportunity to help refine and improve the preparation of teachers and leaders for Catholic school and added that he believes new research in the area of religious education and faith formation can be created and shaped to support school practitioners, and keep our Catholic faith relevant in today's ever-changing global society.
“There are some who assert that young people are not interested in the Gospel, let alone religions like Catholicism that seek to bring the Gospel to life in our world. I have spent most of my adult life engaged in the faith education of children and young people and this is not my experience,” he said.
“Engaged in the right-way and using all the tools of psychology, sociology, theology and pedagogy, young people can be formed into passionate proponents of the Gospel.”