Well known Australian social researcher, Dr Hugh Mackay, has urged Charles Sturt University (CSU) graduates to “stay connected” during his occasional address at a ceremony in Wagga Wagga on Tuesday 11 December. Dr Mackay delivered his speech to 272 graduates from the Faculty of Arts. Dr Mackay told the students that within the next 15 years, Australian households will have shrunk to the point where about one-third of households will contain only one person. “Although many people choose to live alone, and do so quite happily – at least for some period of their lives – others experience feelings of aching loneliness, isolation and even alienation,” he said. “During your working lives, about 40 per cent of contemporary marriages will have dissolved, and about 25 per cent of dependent children will be raised by only one of their natural parents. Social indicators like those and many others point to increasing dislocation and fragmentation, a continuation of our well-documented epidemics of anxiety and depression, and growing problems of marginalisation and social exclusion.” Dr Mackay told the graduates that they were needed because Australia needs “creative artists to inspire and entertain us, teachers to expand our horizons and help us set our priorities, and welfare and human services workers to support us and bind up our wounds”. Dr Mackay added that a degree from CSU had given graduates training in a specialised field of knowledge and practice that would open doors to many jobs but he said the most important thing was to remain connected to the people we work with and the people we love. Read Dr Mackay’s full Occasional Address by clicking here. Read more about graduation at CSU in Wagga Wagga in December 2012 here.