Canadian University of Modern Technology’s First Commencement Ceremony
Dear Graduates
As Chancellor of the Canadian University of Modern Technology, I couldn’t be more pleased to be writing to our university’s first graduates.
All of you trusted a young and unproven institution with your education, and today that trust is proven to have been well placed.
You have watched our institution grow from a humble start with a few dozen students, to a fully developed University which will soon host thousands. You have seen our Campus grow from one building into a beautiful community with the most modern facilities in Sierra Leone.
You were here when we brought wireless to the entire campus. You took the first bus ride with me on the university student bus and were here when we opened the first student-operated radio and television station. You saw the seeds of the first carpet grass grow into the finest lawn in Sierra Leone.
I ask that you continue to grow in the same way, so that we may be as proud of our graduates as we are of our university, and so that your name, like the name of the Canadian University of Modern Technology, will become nationally and even internationally, recognized. Because, not only are you graduating with the Degree, Diploma or Certificate that you earned, but you also leave here having received the most practical education that Sierra Leone has to offer.
We expect you to use both the Degree and the skills it represents contributing to national and human development.
Today your education is no longer society’s responsibility, but society’s education is now your responsibility. Here at CUMT, you have received, to paraphrase Emmanuel Kant, the best of theory, as “practice without theory is blind” and experienced a uniquely practical education, as “theory without practice is empty”. We expect you to put both into practice and to join Sierra Leone’s workforce not as mere workers but as creators, entrepreneurs, visionaries, and leaders.
And I ask you to always remember to return here, to your alma mater, and help your brother and sister students who you now leave behind, as well as the many thousands of Canadian university graduates who are not yet born.
Muckson Sesay Snr
Chancellor
Canadian University of Modern Technology
