Energetic and spreading its wings | Prof. Carmen Sammut

Prof. Carmen Sammut, Pro-Rector for Student & Staff Affairs and Outreach

Social Wellbeing is the youngest Faculty in a University that boasts 430 years of history.

Since its nascence, the Faculty of Social Wellbeing experienced significant developmental milestones: it asserted its existence, developed its own ‘language’, and above else, participated in enriching collaborations with a range of other faculties, centres and institutes, as well as with key governmental agencies and non-governmental organisations.

The Faculty also evolved its special interests and championed the focus of each and every department. As its academic and administrative staff swelled to meet student demand, the Faculty contributed to the development of a Maltese body of research and knowledge, whilst it is also asserting itself at par with other long-established faculties in universities overseas.

The Faculty for Social Wellbeing assumed that organisational growth patterns are generally faster during early years, as any promising new set-up finds its feet and grows its own teeth. However, the Faculty soon showed that it had the potential to endure, to flex and expand its muscles and to enjoy esteem and attention from both locally and on international platforms.

At ten years of age the Faculty is progressing from its infancy into its adolescence and adulthood. How will it meet new challenges? How will it face unexpected turbulences and unavoidable growing-up pains? How will it deal with the attention that it attracts? How will it respond to a society that tends to present complex and perhaps contradictory pressures? What sort of reflection does it need to engage in, to check its impulses and to ensure reactions that are mature and correct?

In the coming ten years, I am sure that the Faculty will spread its wings even wider.

Its development will certainly also depend on the existence of the University vis-a-vis national goals and within the bigger global picture. We all need to keep responding to social, political, economic, and cultural processes in order to touch the pulse of our society and remain relevant.

Each year the Faculty of Society Wellbeing generates an average of 260 professionals in crucial disciplines that include the mental health professions, preventive therapies, social and community work, the areas of inclusion and mainstreaming particularly the fields of gender, ageing and disability.

It also looks at issues that touch the heart of communities: families, children, youth and older persons. It does not merely provide a better understanding of specific socio-economic groups, but also deals with policy and big questions that are closely related to social justice.   

The Faculty constitutes a pillar of the institutional development of the University of Malta. An inclusive university contributes to an inclusive society.

The University of Malta Strategy 2020-2025 outlines our institutional commitment to the areas of equity, diversity and inclusion. The Gender+ Equity Plan that was adopted by the University in early 2022 is a historical commitment to these principles. Here, I wish to take the opportunity to commend and thank all those academics from the Faculty of Society Wellbeing who give their valuable time to support the rectorate in its endeavour to develop the various University policies and procedures and to implement numerous initiatives that will help us reach these aims.

At ten years of age the Faculty of Society Wellbeing is commemorating its successes thanks to the energy and commitment of many. The whole University augurs you well and joins you in the well-deserved celebrations of this special anniversary.