March 15, 2012
At the conclusion of the event, Mother greets officers of the Sun Moon Educational Foundation; University of Bridgeport president Dr. Neil Salonen congratulates True Mother
On March 15 True Mother was installed as the chairwoman of the Sun Moon Educational Foundation, an organization that administers the schools and other educational institutions founded or overseen by True Parents. These include Sun Moon University, the Sun Hwa Arts Middle and High School and Seonjeong High School (which True Mother attended as a child). The position will afford Mother a more direct and personal role in promoting the values of the organization.
Newly installed Sun Moon University president Dr. Sun-jo Hwang explained in his welcoming remarks that True Parents "have established the Sun Moon Educational Foundation to carry out research, education and voluntary work in order to establish the ideal of peace within our present reality."
In her speech of acceptance of the position, True Mother further explained the foundation's philosophy:
We now need to open the way to a new era under the governance of Heaven's providence, the era of heavenly affairs. Accordingly, the Sun Moon Educational Foundation will rightly establish its identity and lead a new reformation in society, which is presently drowning in a swamp of despair, most especially in the field of education.
The Sun Moon Educational Foundation's tradition is clear. It is a family community, in which, in accordance with the teachings of our founder, the teachers, in the position of parents, should guide students with love and affection and the students, in the position of children, should listen to their teachers with obedience and respect. This means that the nature of the institutions of the Sun Moon Educational Foundation is to be a platform for researching, teaching, learning and experiencing the serving spirit of living for the sake of others and that it is deeply rooted in true love, which demands neither condition nor reward. The Sun Moon Educational Foundation should be the first to create the culture of communication and the harmony of coexistence, that is, the culture of heart, and thus present the field of education in Korea with a new vision.
In congratulating True Mother, University of Bridgeport president Dr. Neil Salonen said:
We have the means to educate everyone in the world but we don't have the values or the will. Many leaders call for economic development, believing that material goods will provide the means. Yet the most developed societies are the ones that are having the most difficulty transmitting their educational values to the young. Wealth without a moral compass leads nowhere.... The essential difference between our Sun Moon Educational Foundation and every other effort in the world is that it represents God's hope to transmit His values and for them to be embodied in the young people so we can establish the kingdom of heaven on earth."