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s2smodern

Twenty students graduated with an MA in Applied Spirituality from Waterford Institute of Technology (WIT) on Wednesday 1 November. This was the first time in Ireland that an Institute of Technology graduated students of an MA in Applied Spirituality. The programme is hosted and supported by SpIRE, the Spirituality Institute of Research and Education, in Milltown Park, Ranelagh, Dublin.

Dr Michael O’Sullivan SJ has been the Director of this MA since 2005, first at Milltown Institute, NUI, then at All Hallows/DCU, and presently at WIT with the hosting and support of SpIRE in Dublin. He wrote the approved programme with Bernadette Flanagan for DCU, and a revised version for WIT in collaboration with Dr Richard Hayes, then head of the School of Humanities.

Xuefei Jin, was a graduate whom Michael knew throughout her four years in All Hallows/DCU. She thanked the SpIRE team for their support, and Michael for his commitment down the years and said her graduation on the feast of All Saints was, “a really blessed day.”

Other graduates were equally affirming of the support they received and the MA course itself. They said the academic input was  solid as well as enlightening. “It was challenging but I found the balance of academic and experiential learning uplifting, especially the support of tutors, spiritual advisors and classmates,” said Kevin.  And other students also commented on this aspect of the course which calls for personal reflection on lived experience as well as academic study. As one student, Deirdre put it, “This MA has given me a wonderful opportunity for growth and awareness, an opening to explore the meaning of my relational worlds and those around me, family, friends, community. It has expanded my thinking, opening up my listening, widening my view to be more inclusive of all that there may be, with compassion”.

The MA class consisted of 18 lay-people, 1 diocesan priest, 1 religious order priest (MSC), and 1 sister (FMM). 20 of the 21 graduated on 1 November. One student had to defer her dissertation module and will graduate next year.

Spire

Along with Michael O’Sullivan, SpIRE is run by Prof Bernadette Flanagan, and Sr Anne Marie Dixon, who are also on the leadership team of the Waterford Institute of Technology MA. This November in Boston, Bernadette Flanagan will become the first Irish person ever to be elected President of the global professional society for the study of Christian Spirituality as a transformative academic discipline.

Michael says he will continue to work “on the frontiers of change contributing to the further development of spirituality as an applied academic discipline”. He and Bernadette, along with colleagues in SpIRE, and colleagues at Waterford Institute of Technology, are organising the first international conference in this country on ‘Pilgrimage and the Evolution of Spiritual Tourism’ to take place in WIT in March 2018. Information about the conference, the Call for Papers, and to register and pre-pay is available on the SpIRE website .

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