Graduation 2007 marks 40 years of graduating students from the University of Dundee. Back in 1967, the University’s first Chancellor Her Majesty the Queen Mother attended the first graduation ceremony at the newly independent University of Dundee.

Now one of the UK’s leading universities, the University of Dundee is today almost 10 times the size it was back in 1967 when it broke from the University of St Andrews to establish its presence as an excellent provider of education and research in its own right.

In 1967, the University was home to about 2,500 students, today the figure is closer to 20,000 and the number of students that will graduate this year exceeds the total number of students that were present in 1967.

The graduation ceremonies and the garden parties this year will be a highlight of the year-long 40th anniversary celebrations, launched in February at the Caird Hall, in which the University honoured people who have contributed to the life and growth of the city of Dundee.

The graduation ceremonies take place on June 20th, 21st and 22nd and July 10th at the Caird Hall in Dundee.

Adding to the buzz of excitement around the University are a series of events being held as part of the 40th anniversary celebrations. The Reunite in Dundee Homecoming Weekend 2007, taking place from 15-17 June, will see many alumni return to the University to join in the celebrations.

The inaugural Dundee Literary Festival, which will feature contributions from Philip Pullman and Jacqueline Wilson, takes place on June 21st and 22nd, and The Beatles will also be prominently featured on campus with the fantastic exhibition of Michael Peto photographs - `Now These Days Are Gone’ - which capture the Fab Four in their mid-60s heyday. It is in the University’s Queen Mother Building until July 11th.

NOTES TO EDITORS

Honorary degrees will be bestowed on a number of global figures from fields ranging from water law to poetry. The international personalities to be honoured are:

Margaret Catley-Carlson is the chairperson of the Global Water Partnership, a water-management partnership established in 1996 by the World Bank, the United Nations Development Program and the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency.

She has been Deputy Minister of Health in Canada, Deputy Director (Operations) of UNICEF and President of CIDA (the Canadian International Development Agency) and of the Population Council. In 2002 she was made an Officer of the Order of Canada.

Professor Piet Borst is an internationally distinguished biochemist and molecular biologist. His studies have been instrumental in mapping genes and understanding how mitochondrial DNA in yeast is used to make RNA. One of the most widely used methods in molecular biology today - agarose gel electrophoresis (a method used to separate DNA and RNA) - grew out of this research.

His research work has also extended to understanding the parasites that cause Sleeping Sickness and investigation of multidrug resistance of cancer cells.

Professor Sir Alfred Cuschieri is internationally known as a pioneer of keyhole surgery. He first joined the University of Dundee in 1976 and has become respected throughout the world for his work in the development, execution and clinical evaluation of minimal access surgery. The technique has been adopted internationally for a range of conditions.

Sir Alfred received a knighthood in 1998. His research team earned the University the Queen’s Anniversary Prize in the same year. Now retired, Sir Alfred continues to develop and evaluate novel technologies and he is a major figure in the Institute of Medical Science and Technology, a joint venture with the University of St Andrews.

Gerald Scarfe is a cartoonist and illustrator whose early caricatures of public figures were published in satirical magazine Private Eye throughout the 1960s and 1970s. A set of animated short clips used on Pink Floyd’s ‘Wish you were here’ tour, including a full-length music video for the song ‘Welcome to the Machine’ are among his best known work.

Other familiar works include the caricatures in the opening and closing sequences of the popular TV shows ‘Yes Minister’ and ‘Yes Prime Minister’. An outstanding political cartoonist, today he draws cartoons for ‘The Sunday Times’ and occasionally ‘The New Yorker’ and was voted cartoonist of the year by the British Press Awards in 2006.

Professor Sir Tom Blundell is one of the UK’s leading biochemists. He has been a scientific advisor to the government since the 1980s and his laboratory work, which involves identifying the chemical processes of diseases, has led to the development of drugs to treat AIDS, cancer, cataracts and diabetes.

Currently head of biochemistry and the University of Cambridge, he is also chairman of the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution which recently produced the influential report Energy, the Changing Climate. He is also a member of the advisory committee of the Parliamentary Office for Science and Technology.

Thomas Heatherwick is Director of the Heatherwick Studio in London which has made a reputation for its work in architecture, sculpture, urban infrastructure, product design, exhibition design and strategic thinking. He is a Royal Designer for Industry and a Senior Fellow of the Royal College of Art. Icon magazine has described him as the "UK’s brightest young designer".

The range of his expertise is reflected in his works which include ‘Bleigessen’, a spectacular 30 metre high work of art at the Wellcome Trust headquarters in London, ‘Zip Bag’, an unusual handbag made from a single length of zipper, and ‘Rolling Bridge’, a masterwork of engineering on the Grand Union Canal in Paddington Basin.

Georges Henry Erasmus has made a major contribution to the welfare and community of Canada’s Aboriginal people over the past thirty years. He has been an important figure in the Canadian First Nation leadership and was instrumental in guiding the Dene people of Canada’s Northwest Territories towards declaring their indigenous rights through ratifying the Dene Declaration.

He was awarded the Officer of the Order of Canada in 1999 and the Aboriginal Achievement Award for Public Service in 1998. He is currently president of the Aboriginal Healing Foundation and chairman and chief negotiator for the Deh Cho First Nations self-government and land claim.

Philip Pullman is one of the world’s best known writers. His trilogy ‘His Dark Materials’ brought him worldwide acclaim and is set to become one of the major cinematic events of the next few years with the first film instalment due for release later in 2007. The novels manage to bridge the gap between adult and children’s fiction and have been honoured by several prizes including the Carnegie Medal, the Guardian Children’s Book Award and (for The Amber Spyglass) the Whitbread Book of the Year Award.

He has published about 20 books in total, most of which are written for children. In 2002 he was awarded the Eleanor Farjeon Award for children’s literature. Mr Pullman is also passionate about education and has taught at many different schools and colleges.

Philip Pullman will be attending the Dundee Literary Festival, which coincides with graduation.

Jacqueline Wilson is one of the best known children’s authors in the UK. In a BBC poll 14 of her books were voted among the top 200 in Britain, where she has sold more than 20 million copies.

She is the Children’s Laureate and passionate about introducing as many children to reading as possible. Her books are the most borrowed from libraries and have been recognised by a host of awards including the Smarties Prize, the Children’s Book Award, the Guardian Children’s Fiction Award and the 1999 Children’s Book of the Year at the British Book Awards.

Jacqueline Wilson will be attending the Dundee Literary Festival, which coincides with graduation.

Ettore Sottsass is an Italian architect and designer with a career spanning more than 65 years. He is the founder of Memphis, a Milan-based design collaborative that played a key part in postmodernism and has had a pioneering influence in the field of design including furniture, ceramics, glass, jewellery, architecture and industrial design.

He has collaborated with some of the world’s leading manufacturers including Alessi, Olivetti and Sevres and continues to lead the field of design.

Dr Joyce Thompson is internationally lauded for her contribution to women’s health. She established and directed the first basic nurse-widwifery program in Pennsylvania and headed the Penn-Malawi "Women for Women’s Health" project from 1990-2002.

She is now Bernadine M. Lacey Professor of Community Health Nursing at Western Michingan University where she directs "Safe motherhood" efforts for WHO’s global network.

Carol Ann Duffy is an acclaimed poet, playwright and freelance writer. Her poetry includes Standing Female Nude (1985), winner of a Scottish Arts Council award; Selling Manhattan, which won a Somerset Maugham Award; The Other Country; Mean Time, which won the Whitbread Poetry Award and the Forward Poetry Prize; and the World’s Wife. Her plays have been performed at the Liverpool Playhouse and the Almeida Theatre in London.

Her work has been recognised by a number of awards. She received an OBE in 1995, a CBE in 2001 and became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1999.

For media enquiries contact:
Roddy Isles
Head, Press Office
University of Dundee
Nethergate Dundee, DD1 4HN
TEL: 01382 384910
E-MAIL: r.isles@dundee.ac.uk