Eulogy for Neil Hynd from Terry Redding, Global Learn Day Chaplain

Greeting from Wilmington, California. This is Terry Redding, and it is my distinct privilege to speak in honor of Neil Hynd as the Global Learn Day Chaplain.

Neil Hynd will be missed by many. His family, who knew him as a son, brother, father, mentor and friend. His employers and co-workers, who knew him to be brilliant, reliable, forward thinking, and kind.

Here in the Global Learn Day community Neil Hynd will be missed as an educator and friend. It was his joy to be engaged in learning and teaching. He knew that education increased one's hope for a better life. He dreamed of a day when the world would be truly at peace.

He was a man committed to extending a liberal education globally.

Neil Hynd was the DEQA Project Director for the Benjamin Franklin Institute of Global Education

Chartered Engineer (UK)

BSc, DIS, MEng, PhD, Cert Ed

MIEE, MBCS, MORS, MIMS

Certificated ISO.9000 QMS Internal and Lead Auditor

His career covered General Management, Computer Systems, Further Education Teaching and Quality Assurance in Business, Defense (Aviation), Government (Highway Authority), Industry (Automotive and Process Manufacturing) and Vocational Technical Education.

After positions, including Managing Director of a private company, and UK plc Divisional I.T. Director; since 1991 Neil worked on Government-based projects in the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.

Neil held traditional UK Bachelor (Metallurgical Engineering & Management) - and Master (Control Systems) - degrees, a Diploma in Industrial Studies, and a UK Certificate in Education.

He earned a non-traditional state-licensed US Doctoral degree (Computer Science) - Century University, licensed by the New Mexico Commission on Higher Education) by Distance Learning while working in the Middle East in 1990.

Neil has been Regional Chairman of the UK Institution of Manufacturing Engineers and a Member of Council, Branch Chairman of the British Computer Society, Vice-Chairman of the UK Engineering Council Regional Organization, a Governor of Darlington College of Technology and Head of the College Engineering Advisory Board.

Neil contributed to every Global Learn Day event from the Arabian Gulf, he was the Regional Coordinator.

Over the years Neil has provided me with some notable quotes that emphasized his commitment to education world-wide.

If you consider what are called the virtues in mankind, you will find their growth is assisted by education and cultivation.

-- Xenophon (434 BC - 355 BC)

Next in importance to freedom and justice is popular education, without which neither freedom nor justice can be permanently maintained.

-- James Garfield (1831 - 1881), July 12, 1880

The aim of education should be to teach us rather how to think, than what to think--rather to improve our minds, so as to enable us to think for ourselves, than to load the memory with thoughts of other men.

-- Bill Beattie

Education is not merely a means for earning a living or an instrument for the acquisition of wealth. "It is an initiation into life of spirit, a training of the human soul in the pursuit of truth and the practice of virtue.

-- Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit

Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe.

n H.G. Wells, Outline of History, 1920

Neil knew that a liberal education liberates minds in at least three ways:

First. A liberating education frees the mind to see the world as it actually is, to recognize the contradictions between old opinions and new knowledge, and to learn new truths by studying them.

Second. A liberating education frees the mind to understand different interpretations of the same set of facts.

Third. A closed mind is used to rationalize narrow and deficient explanations and opinions. Rather than using the intellect to question old opinions and learn new things, the intellect is used instead to reject new ideas and avoid change. A liberating education on the other hand, frees the mind to analyze all knowledge, from all perspectives, to produce fresh enlightenment.

Neil, these past few months has been focused on peace, and has forcefully supported the notion that world peace will be achieved primarily through educational processes Ð through the process of making access to education available to everywhere Ð from everywhere.

It would be Neil's prayer, and it is mine that Global Learn Day will honor the concept of spreading a liberal education globally so that all the people of the earth will be able to pursue a life filled with joy, hope, and peace for all.

Amen

November 20, 2004