Speech Day Awards honouring ex-students

In 2022 the Santa Sabina College

Ex-Students’ Association honoured two former students, Howard Brown OAM and Ashleigh Barnes, by creating two new annual awards for Year 4 students.

THE EX-STUDENT Ashleigh Barnes Award

The Ex-student – Ashleigh Barnes Award recognises a Year 4 girl who has displayed the spirit of the four Dominican Pillars of Prayer, Study, Community and Service during her time as a student and the inaugural winner was Georgia Ghossein.

ASHLEIGH BARNES started in Kindergarten at Del Monte in 1999 and completed her studies at Santa Sabina College in Year 12 in 2011. While at school Ashleigh actively participated in and contributed to the life of the College. Following school she studied Arts/Law at the University of Technology, Sydney and won the University Medal. Ashleigh is our College’s first Rhodes Scholar and is currently a PhD candidate in Human Rights Law at the University of Oxford.

THE EX-STUDENT Howard Brown Award

The Ex-student – Howard Brown Award recognises a Year 4 boy who has displayed the spirit of the four Dominican Pillars of Prayer, Study, Community and Service during his time as a student. The inaugural winner was Emmanuel Chidiac.

HOWARD BROWN attended Del Monte from 1960 to 1962, before moving on to St Patrick’s College Strathfield. He is a Victims Advocate for Victims of Crime before the Mental Health Review Tribunal and NSW Parole Authority. Howard was awarded the Order of Australia Medal in June 2004 for his work with Victims of Crime. He was also made an Honorary Fellow of the University of New South Wales.

Santa Sabina ex-student and current debating tutor Anna Carissa Burton was chosen to travel to Madrid in December 2022/January 2023 to represent Macquarie University as an adjudicator in the World Universities Debating Championship in English. This is the world’s largest debate tournament with around 1000 participants from more than 80 different nationalities.

Classof 2017

Anna Carissa said she hoped her presence in Madrid ‘contributes to the larger task of carving out a space for women in what is still largely a male-dominated activity.’

Anna Carissa was first introduced to debating at Santa Sabina.‘I am forever indebted to the teachers and coaches who supported me. I now take great joy in training the next generation of Santa debaters’, she told Santa Scholars

Anna is currently a student of Advanced Science at the University of Sydney, anticipating a career in medicine.