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That’s a formidable list of opening courtesies. But I would not want to abbreviate it, because all have a part in the successes we salute today. Graduation is the great academic rite of passage - a solemn ceremony but also a tremendous party. So welcome to this climax of the academic process and our thanks to all of you for coming to help celebrate what is a wealth of achievement.
It is, of course, primarily our graduands’ day. For you it is truly a rite of passage. Indeed you will never be the same again. You will be marked for life. You will have a degree or diploma - in many cases a higher degree - from the University of Dundee. You will be branded with the University crest and required to know the meaning of “magnificat anima mea dominum” or perhaps more importantly understand its significance as an allusion to the patron saint of the City and Royal Burgh of Dundee with whom we work in such close partnership. And you will become a permanent part of our University Community through membership of our Graduates Council.
We hope you take pride in your new status. You will know that you have graduated from an institution which is buoyant and successful across a wide spectrum of activities. And while we all recognise the shortcomings of so called performance indicators, the official rankings reflect this for the world to see. The series of results obtained by the University in the assessments of teaching quality by the Scottish Higher Education Funding Council has been outstanding. The last five gradings for subjects at Dundee under the established assessment procedure have all been in the highest category of “excellent”. That includes of course English and, as we know from the announcement only last Monday, Psychology, while Town & Regional Planning received a very high score under the new system just introduced, in fact the highest in Scotland. No University has done better over the last year.
The appraisal process, as I have said, is called Teaching Quality Assessment. However teaching in a University is a subtle and complex business. We have long recognised that the emphasis must be on learning by the student rather than spoon-feeding by the lecturer. What is happening now is a revolution in the ways in which that learning can take place. The tools available are rapidly proliferating - particularly Information Technology and computer assisted learning. They also include advances in distance learning, an approach very much in tune with modern patterns of living and with the spirit of our times, with the concepts of lifelong learning and wider access. We recognise the need to be involved, to be prime movers. For example we have launched a comprehensive distance learning course in Modern Scottish History in collaboration with the Open University - the first major collaboration of its kind, funded by a substantial grant from the Scottish Higher Education Funding Council through its Flexibility in Teaching and Learning initiative. The timing, on the eve of the Scottish Parliament will not have escaped you. Our historians are very forward looking.
The implications of IT for teaching and learning will be as profound as those of the invention of typesetting by Gutenberg in the 15th century. We must exploit its potential to the full, but we must remember that like typesetting it is just a tool, however sophisticated. We must recognise that mastering the tool is not a substitute for the underlying and enduring core mental disciplines of higher education which include:
· The assembling and sifting of relevant information · The critical analysis of that information · Drawing valid conclusions from the analysis, and · Identifying appropriate courses of action in the light of the analysis.
Similarly with other so-called transferable skills which are so much the fashion - communication skills, team working and so on. We recognise their importance, we recognise the need to impart them to our students to equip them for employment. And as graduands you will be glad to know that we continue to be among the very best universities for graduate employment. But we need to recognise also that many of them are already embedded within the existing academic disciplines: We need to make that more conscious and evident while preserving the essential rigour of imparting those disciplines at the highest levels.
Underlying this is another key attribute, seldom seen as a transferable skill, but one which I would like to add to the list. Possibly it is the most important of all. This is the capacity for courageous independent thought. You may think academics are an odd lot - eccentric at times - but with that eccentricity goes a passion to keep this flame of independent thought firmly alight, something which I earnestly hope we pass on to you. There are disturbing signs these days of a pressure to follow the “correct” line of thought and of presentation of facts to reinforce this - on social matters, on public and policy matters. Perhaps it was always thus, it is after all what Orwell and Huxley wrote about. As graduates, taking your place in society, the responsibility to resist this also falls to you.
Another part of learning at University is about how knowledge expands, about the latest advances, about the pleasure and excitement of pushing back the frontiers. This can only be conveyed in an environment where new knowledge is being created and individuals are active in expanding understanding. It is for these reasons that we attach so much importance to the link between teaching and research. We are unequivocally a Research Based University. Here again the performance indicators are very positive.
Our strong showing in the last 4-yearly national Research Assessment Exercise has been celebrated and we now look on it as the springboard for an even better performance in the next round. In the meantime numerous other developments testify to the vigour of our research activity. Last year, for example, the University attracted a remarkable £42 million in research grants and contracts. Much of this was from industry sources, underlining the practical relevance of our research. During the year we also participated in the launch of the biotechnology company “Cyclacel”, financed by Venture Capital and based on research by Professor David Lane. The objective of the company is to discover new therapeutic treatments, particularly for cancer. This is the kind of direct contribution which a vibrant academic enterprise can make to the economic regeneration of the region, in partnership with local government and the local enterprise board - one example of the renaissance taking place in Dundee. In a similar vein, perhaps the most widely publicised highlight of the year was the official opening of the Wellcome Trust Building, that magnificent new citadel of biomedical research dominating the upper part of our Campus. It is a dream which became reality through immense hard work and generous external support - primarily from the Wellcome Trust, of course, but also from numerous private and public benefactors. It houses 250 additional research scientists, recruited from round the world and led by the indefatigable Professor - and since the last birthday honours - Sir Philip Cohen. It’s worth noting that this was the second such honour for us to take pride in this year. Our Professor of Surgery and master locksmith (that is to say pioneer of keyhole techniques) Professor Sir Alfred Cuschieri was knighted in the New Year.
These are just a few examples of major research initiatives throughout the University. There are many others - the Cancer Centre at Ninewells Hospital, the new Arts Centre, the £1 million contract by the Housing Corporation for research in the School of Town & Regional Planning.
Indeed in a broadly based University such as ours, the research is equally diverse. But a common theme which runs through much of it is that very many of the projects can be described as contributing to the common good. This is self-evident in the case of medical and dental research and, of course, in the life sciences research directed at major diseases such as cancer, diabetes, malaria and sleeping sickness. It also applies to many other strong areas of investigation: in applied computing where the major focus is on devices and systems to assist the disabled; in work on environmental improvements such as a radical catalyst system for vehicle exhaust emissions, in studies on working parents and the needs of children, on child care and protection and on early social development, in work on environmental law and charity law, in research on environmental and social accounting, in work on population change and migration, in studies on profound and multiple disability, in research on design and the visual arts. This theme of contributing to the public good is a powerful motivation, something which makes universities exciting and worthwhile places in which to work, despite the many pressures and demands.
We within the University can feel this sense of excitement and it seems we are not deceiving ourselves. Our activities are catching the attention of others. Over recent months every quality Sunday newspaper in the UK has had a major feature on the work at this University and many of the dailies have too. So something of note must be happening!
Now this may all sound self-indulgent. But I do not say it just to brag - although I don’t see why I should resist the temptation to brag about the achievements of my colleagues when I have a captive audience filling this great Caird Hall. I say it to the graduands - to fix in your minds and in the minds of your families and friends the calibre of your institution as you become permanent members and go forth as its latest ambassadors.
For most of you it is the end of an era - the era of being of being an undergraduate - though not a student as that should be lifelong. Coincidentally it is the end of an era for Higher Education. For from next year many of your successors will have to make a contribution to tuition fees. We still do not know how this will turn out. But I cannot disguise my feelings of profound concern. Notwithstanding what you may read in the press, our application figures leave little doubt that the issue of student fees is having an adverse effect, particularly the differential between Scottish domiciled students and those from England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Whatever rationalisations are put forward, the practical impact is discriminatory. If this leads to a decrease in the diversity of the student body which you have enjoyed then it will be Scottish Higher Education and ultimately Scottish interests which will be the losers.
These though are concerns for the future: you have been spared these tribulations and this is your day of celebration. As we now call on each of you to come up on the stage to be admitted as graduates, we share in the pride and pleasure of your achievement. We congratulate you and wish you well in the future, wherever it may take you.
