ACU pro chancellor Virginia Bourke, Dr Miriam Rose Ungunmerr Baumann AM and ACU vice chancellor Zlatko Skrbis. Photo courtesy of ACU.

Aboriginal elder, educator and artist Dr Miriam Rose Ungunmerr Baumann AM has received a Doctor of the University (Honoris Causa) from Australian Catholic University. 

The honorary doctorate recognises Miriam Rose's authentic servant-leadership and her contributions to new understandings of Indigenous art and spirituality, and their importance to the Catholic tradition. 

ACU awarded Miriam Rose the honorary degree at a ceremony on 5 October in Sydney, following the respected Aboriginal activist’s first trip to Europe to attend the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II. 

“It feels very humbling to be acknowledged for my lifetime achievements,” Miriam Rose said.

A Catholic Aboriginal woman from Nauiyu near the Daly River community of the Northern Territory, Miriam Rose spent the majority of her life “walking between two worlds”.

“Growing up, the nuns had taught me to learn about how westerners lived so I could learn to walk in two worlds,” she said.

Her teaching career started in the classroom, when her teacher discovered she could read and offered her a job as an assistant teacher. That same teacher encouraged her to take up university training in education. In 1975, Miriam Rose became the first fully qualified Aboriginal teacher in the Northern Territory.

In 1993 she was appointed principal of St Francis Xavier School in Daly River, a role she held for 13 years.

“Teaching about culture, art and spirituality has led me to have some incredible experiences and opened up opportunities I would never have dreamt of as a young teaching assistant,” Miriam Rose said.

“Education can take you places far beyond what you can imagine.”

Read more via the ACU website.