Principal’s Perspective: Endings and Beginnings
I am still feeling the joy of graduation! The 2025 Victoria University Convocation of Emmanuel College graduates was a party, and there were so many things to celebrate. Our graduating class did us proud once again, with so many academic achievements!
Convocation Week began with the Alumni/ae Day and Awards Celebration, where we welcomed our graduates as new alumni/ae and honoured five amazing leaders from our community with Distinguished Alumni and Service Awards. Their presence and wisdom are proof of the big differences Emmanuel College graduates are making in the world.
On Alumni Day, we also celebrated the United Church of Canada’s centennial year and the 10th and 15th anniversaries of the Master of Psychospiritual Studies program’s Buddhist and Muslim foci, respectively. The celebration of these anniversaries marked new beginnings. We pray that the United Church of Canada’s new century and our MPS students will be successful beyond our imagination.
Special services will be held June 8 at UCC congregations across the country to mark the church’s centennial. Every UCC congregation across the nation will praise God and mark this historic moment. Christian churches will also celebrate Pentecost, the day that marks the end of the Easter season, the birth of the “church universal” and the descent of the Holy Spirit to the Apostles.
During Convocation Week, we witnessed the powerful ways in which the Holy Spirit continues to move through our community—particularly in the relationships and learning that flourish among students of diverse religious backgrounds. We were encouraged by prayers and rituals from the Buddhist and Muslim traditions, and by the spiritual accompaniment offered by others throughout the week. These moments were a profound reminder of the richness that comes from interfaith connection and the shared pursuit of meaning, compassion and understanding on our campus.
There is also a pang of sadness in saying farewell to the graduating class of 2025. Yet we gladly send them into a world that needs their service and their leadership more than ever. And we will welcome a new batch of students this fall. In a cycle of the academic institutional life, it is the ebb and flow of students that ground our very being, and Emmanuel College’s very existence, and we are richly blessed indeed.
On a personal note, I will be on sabbatical for six months, beginning July 1, and Vice-Principal Pam McCarroll will serve as acting principal. I’ll be using this sabbatical to advance my research on ecology and preaching, and to participate in several significant events. These include the United Church of Canada’s General Council in Calgary and a conference in Thessaloniki, Greece, marking the 1,700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea. In October, I will attend the General Council of the World Communion of Reformed Churches in Chiang Mai, Thailand, where a book critically reflecting on the Nicene Creed—to which I was honoured to contribute—will be launched. In November, I will travel to Taiwan for the 2025 Fo Guang Shan Presidents Forum, where I’ll join a panel on Contemporary Crises and Ecological Sustainability.
As I reflect on my first three years as principal, I am deeply grateful for my team’s dedication and efforts. I look forward to returning in January 2026 with a renewed sense of call and commitment to lead the school into its next chapter.
— Principal HyeRan Kim-Cragg