Australian Catholic University confers honorary doctorate on Sr Patricia Nolan of Sisters of Mercy Brisbane

Sr Patricia Nolan RSM OAM of the Sisters of Mercy Brisbane, Australia, has been conferred with an honorary doctorate by the Australian Catholic University.

The honorary degree acknowledges Sr Patricia's contribution to Catholic education across the primary, secondary and tertiary sectors, and particularly her role in the preparation for the setting up of the Brisbane Campus of Australian Catholic University. 

Sr Patricia is the former principal of McAuley College, a teacher training college for the Sisters of Mercy and members of other Religious Congregations which eventually became the Brisbane Campus of ACU.

Patricia accepted the award at a private ceremony on Wednesday 17 June 2026.

Sr Nolan said she was initially surprised to be offered the honorary degree. 

She said, "Surprise, at first, followed by recognition of the grace and warmth with which the offer had been made.  It also brought to me a sense of closure and of great gratitude for the collegial verve and energy of the academic community." 

Patricia is a former teacher with the Queensland Department of Education who wanted to be an educator since her teenage years.  She spent nearly six years teaching, before deciding to seek admission to the Sisters of Mercy, attracted by the sisters she knew, though knowing only a little about their foundress, Catherine McAuley. 

Looking back at that time Patricia said: "“Time-wise, we are in the late 1950’s – travel was difficult and expensive, opportunities were limited and the Western World was just on the brink of breaking out of the trauma, loss, disjunction and severe disruption imposed by World War II and its aftermath, which was followed closely by the Korean War."

“I remember standing on the corner of Ruthven and Margaret streets in Toowoomba on the Saturday morning before I entered the convent and thinking, ‘I can sense immense change coming and I’ll be in the novitiate where I will not experience it all’.” 

Sr Patricia said she was inspired by Catherine McAuley’s well-informed interest in theories of teacher education.  

“It is this aspect of Catherine that I personally found most stimulating and one that, from this distance in time, may be the most difficult to document,” she said. 

Now retired from teaching, Sr Patricia said she has enormous respect for modern-day educators. 

“I have only respect for them in times when I am retired from active work and they are dealing with issues the like of which we have never encountered in education in previous ages,” she said.  

“Teachers in schools encounter all the children of all the people, by and large.  I would not dare to offer them advice, except to say: Take care. Do not burn yourselves out. Never lose courage. Your country needs you. Never give up the search for new theories and ideas.”

Read the official press release here from ACU.

Read a lovely story about the award on The Catholic Leader.

ENDS

Image: Australian Catholic University