Over 2,000 people gathered at the Monash University auditorium to see their loved ones graduate.
Alphington Grammar School Principal Dr Vivianne Nikou addressed Monash University graduates as they prepared to embark on the next stage of their professional lives.
Dr Nikou spoke about the experience she has gathered in over 40 years of teaching in the ceremony that was live-streamed around Australia and Monash’s overseas campuses in Malaysia, Africa, India, Italy and China. During her talk, she shared the challenges of being a young Greek girl growing up in an era when ethnic children in classrooms were uncommon and unlikely to aspire towards leadership positions.
She paid tribute to educators who reached out to her and others like her, helping to inspire them to go further than they believed they were capable of at the time. Like many other young Greek Australian children raised in the family fish and chip shop, Dr Nikou was instilled with a strong work ethic and resilience demonstrated by her family and siblings. Attributes gained in her childhood have helped her become a leader in her field, heading the Greek Community’s Alphington Grammar School with close on 600 students.
Under her leadership, the school has prospered. Developments include an ambitious building project with a staff and student lecture theatre, a new entrance and school administration block, new student amenities, a brand new science technology, an engineering and maths centre and the new library that will be completed before the end of the year.
Dr Nikou spoke of educators being ‘champions’ for young people. She said “one of the privileges of being an educator is the ability to observe the growth of our students after they have had a rich learning experience and to know you have been able to provide the environment for that growth to take place”.
A great deal of the talk was focused on inspiration. “As educators, the profession is no doubt a challenging one, but one that we must embrace with the head and the heart if we wish to inspire young people to be the best version of themselves and to become responsible citizens of the world they will inherit,” she said.
The Chairman of Council, Associate Professor Marinis Pirpiris said, “Students all aspire to enter a major university. We now have students studying at top universities around Australia and as far abroad as Oxford University and Harvard. Alphington graduates are leading the way in Medicine and medical research, Law, The Arts and the Humanities.”