Católica starts new school year with renewed mission to train "dream entrepreneurs"
"What use is higher education in wartime? How can the university fulfil a mission of enlightenment and aspiration in such troubled times?" It was with this reflection that the President of the Universidade Católica Portuguesa (UCP) initiated the National Convocation and Graduation Ceremony on 18 October.
In an event that brought together the academic community to celebrate the new graduates and welcome the new students, Isabel Capeloa Gil emphasised "the role of the university in a world at war, repudiating, without conditions, the barbaric terrorist attack by Hamas on civilians in Israel" and expressed "enormous concern at the appalling conditions of the siege of Gaza and the colossal loss of human life that has resulted".
For the President of UCP, today's problems "require the action of multiple protagonists, pluralism, dialogue, commitment and, above all, in-depth thinking". This is a mission from which a university institution cannot shy away, argued Isabel Capeloa Gil.
"To train dream entrepreneurs, like those receiving their degrees today, the university has to promote a deep concern with the reason for things, the context in which they manifest themselves and their impact," she said, adding: "The university is home to all the world's knowledge, all its memories, all its voices. And that's what makes it so restless and so profoundly universal."
In addition to this reflection, the President also highlighted various achievements and future projects, including the Francisco and Clara Economics Chair, the development of the new Veritati Campus, and the creation of the 1st Sino-Portuguese Laboratory of Marine and Environmental Sciences.
Isabel Capeloa Gil also expressed her "congratulations to the academic and scientific community of the Universidade Católica for their commitment, ambition and performance". She thanked the career teachers, who for the first time received the Medals of Merit for 25 and 40 years of service, for their "dedication and contribution to building our university, which is great because it is made up of great people".
Paulo Portas, an alumnus of the Lisbon School of Law, shared that "Católica is unforgettable" and left several pieces of advice for the young people present. "Take advantage of what's bright about digital and distance yourself from what's dangerous. Googling is not studying, a tweet is not a degree, a post is not a doctorate, a society of influencers is not a community of sages," he began. "The backpack of knowledge you're taking with you from here gives you a great responsibility: not to accept the destruction of knowledge and to promote a culture of demand and quality in public debates today and tomorrow."
Also present at the ceremony was Aníbal Cavaco Silva, who presented the Democracy and Development Prize, which he established in 1995, to two students from the Católica Lisbon School of Business and Economics. Expressing his satisfaction at returning to the Universidade Católica, where he was a professor, he commented that he has "always followed with great interest its commitment to quality, excellence, the dissemination of the values that inform it and the national and international prestige it has achieved".
On this occasion, students with the best grades of each bachelor's degree were also presented with the UCP/Caixa Geral de Depósitos Awards by João Guilherme.
In his first official session as Chancellor Magnus of UCP, the Patriarch of Lisbon, D. Rui Valério closed the ceremony with a prayer and congratulations to the entire academic community. "I congratulate Católica because it is an institution where the obligation of the 'I' to open up to the 'whole' is institutionalised. Católica is truly a laboratory of values, of ethics, but above all of humanity," he said.