Welcome Luci Quinn- Principal of Clonard College

We are delighted to introduce to the Kildare Ministries community the new Principal for Clonard College, Mrs Luci Quinn.  A woman of deep faith and personal witness, Luci has been an educator for almost 30 years beginning her career in Melbourne and holding significant leadership positions in the Diocese of Sandhurst.  In recent times she has held the position of Senior Education Consultant for Learning and Teaching at the CEO Sandhurst and in partnership with La Trobe University was a part-time lecturer in religious education. She held the position of Principal at St Augustine’s College in Kyabram (2015-2018).

In her professional life, Luci models life-long learning and holds a number of educational qualifications.  She is excited by the possibilities that can be created in the classroom and has a profound understanding of the interplay between wellbeing and learning.  In addition, Luci is very community minded volunteering her time to serve on Boards, Stewardship Councils, Parish Councils and other community organisations. Parish life is an important aspect of her life as is the great outdoors.

Together with her husband David, Luci enjoys the company of her young adult daughters Emma and Hannah.

We welcome Luci and her family to the Clonard community and to Kildare Ministries. We can already see in Luci a woman who embodies ‘strength and gentleness’ and who will be a strong role model for the young women in her care. We look forward to witnessing her leadership unfold in this next chapter for Clonard College. Welcome Luci. 

A word from Luci

Coming to a new place, a new school, has brought with it so many experiences of being welcomed - greetings, offers of support, flowers, check-ins, kind notes, phone calls and questions about my story. When one experiences hospitality in this way it engenders comfort, safety, confidence, trust and a sense of belonging. Such has been my experience coming to Clonard College. This should not be a surprise for a College steeped in the Brigidine tradition, a tradition marked with a lived expression of the hospitality shown by Jesus. 

Kildare Education Ministries has chosen the value ‘Hospitality: welcoming all’ as our theme for 2019. It’s easy to think of hospitality in its simplest terms, however the richness of our faith tradition gives us many facets of hospitality to ponder as we journey through our year. Hospitality can be expressed as: 

presence  

love & mercy 

table fellowship 

encounter 

counter to marginalisation 

self-emptying 

love of stranger.

Since reflecting on the notion of hospitality, I have been struck by the idea that as host, one has as much to receive as guest. Hospitality is a human gift that bridges two lives. When we intentionally experience encounter, be present and attend to the stranger or other, we become more than we were beforehand. I think this is what Pope Francis desires for us as a faith community which ‘goes forth’. In Evangelii Gaudium, Pope Francis writes that he wants us to get involved through word and deed in people’s daily lives, to be supportive, to be fruitful and to be filled with joy. This is a community of hospitality! I trust that our new students, staff and families are experiencing a sense of welcome. 

I want to express my deepest gratitude for the welcome so beautifully expressed in my commissioning at our Opening of the Year Mass. It was a truly sacramental moment in my life. One of my favourite authors Joan Chittester, when writing about ‘a hospitable heart’, says that when people come into our lives they come bearing ‘insights, wisdom, traditions, cultures and ideas that stretch us to the limit’. I look forward to continuing to be ‘stretched’ by your presence in my life as I embrace all that this Principalship calls me to be for this College.