Plus ca change

So after 8 enjoyable years I am standing down from the senate of Queen's University Belfast. I have enjoyed my time there and see many changes, not the least of which has been in increasing diversity of the student body as evidenced in this snap at the start of our winter graduation.
Education comes from two latin words or congates Ex and Ducare. Literally it means to draw out. It should not mean stuffing young people's heads with facts but meeting their learning, life experiences, aptitudes and appetite to learn with equivalent vigour from academia.
WB Yeats has talked about Education metaphorically not as filling a pail but rather as lighting a fire, kindling the passion for lifelong learning. I have been privileged to have had some short involvement here in this place I call home. I hope those of us at life's older edges continue to be learners, to be creators rather than consumers of knowledge.