Graduation address: Friday 17 June afternoon ceremony 12pm
Graduation address by Professor Brad MacKay, Senior Vice-Principal and Vice-Principal (International Strategy and External Relations)
Vice-Chancellor, ladies and gentlemen, everyone, it is my honour to address our new graduates on such a momentous occasion.
I want to begin by congratulating you all. This small, but mighty and ancient university situated in the North-East of Fife is not only one of, if not the most difficult universities in the UK to get admission to, it is also its best university, at least according to one notable league table!
Today is your day to celebrate what is a tremendous achievement. It is the culmination of all your lectures, labs, seminars, tutorials, reports, experiments, papers, presentations, and exams. And not only have you succeeded, you have done so in the midst of a global pandemic, which has been one of the most challenging and disruptive periods in modern memory. But this only makes your accomplishments that much more impressive.
While this is rightfully your achievement, it is also that of your family and friends that have supported you. But it’s important to remember that it’s also a tough day for your supporters. You stepped onto one side of the stage as their graduand, collected your degree, and stepped off it as a graduate. They are now effectively furloughed! So, let’s take a minute and give them a big round of applause.
In my academic career I study strategic planning, and I have learned precisely three things. Some of which may even be true.
The first is, to draw on a Danish proverb, sometimes attributed to the early 20th Century Physicist Niels Bohr, it’s really, really hard to make predictions, especially about the future.
The Philosopher John Dewey, for example, described textbooks as a fetish in the 1890s. Mercedes forecasted a worldwide demand for automobiles of one million in 1900 because of the limited number of available chauffeurs. Thomas Edison predicted the demise of the lecture with the invention of the motion picture in 1911. In the 1960s, Decca Records conjectured that groups of guitars were on their way out as they turned down the Beatles. And Time magazine proffered that remote shopping would flop.
Which brings me to the second thing I’ve learned: it’s hard to predict the future precisely because, as is sometimes said a little less politely, stuff happens.
From the printing press to penicillin, from Amazon to TikTok, from Brexit to Covid to Viagra, high impact things that we didn’t expect sometimes do occur, and things that we did expect, do not always.
And this brings me to the third thing I’ve learned, which is best summed up by the late 20th Century psychologist and philosopher William James, the world is, as a consequent, often a “blooming, buzzing, confusing” place.
Humans by nature desire certainty, predictability, and stability. But as the 5th Century BCE politician Pericles noted so long ago, one never steps in the same water twice. In other words, the world is one of perpetual movement, indeterminacy, and surprise.
But it is precisely this uncertainty that opens the possibility of changing, shaping and reshaping the world we live in. We are constantly bombarded by the challenges that we face. Automation, climate change, conflict, environmental degradation, fake news, inequality, unemployment, social justice, wealth generation…
But where there are challenges and uncertainty, there is also opportunity. From the unexpected and incongruous the possibilities of new ways of doing things arise. Change is inevitable, but outcomes from the biggest challenges we face, are not.
Who would have predicted that four working class guys from Liverpool would change the course of music, or a single mother writing in a café in Edinburgh would create a global reading phenomenon, or the environmental protest of a young schoolgirl in Sweden would become a world-wide movement to arrest climate change, or a comedian from Ukraine would become one of the most courageous and dignified defenders of democracy of our time?
And at St Andrews, astronomers and physicists are working together to develop new methods from how light comes out of stars to treat skin cancer, our medics are miniaturizing medical devices to improve the health of rural communities in Africa, bees are being taught to identify land mines, lasers are being used to detect bacteria, not to mention the providence of whiskey, and seals are being taught to sing the theme-tune to star wars. Who would have thought!
What your St Andrews degree signifies is not just that you’ve acquired a level of capability and competence in a subject. It’s much more fundamental than that. As Lord Mark Sedwill, former Head of the Civil Service and graduate of this university has said: “[St Andrews was] a big step into a bigger world”. More than a degree, you have been taught to think, to question, to challenge, and it gives you the confidence to embrace the uncertainties we face and with them to fashion a much more equal, peaceful, prosperous, and sustainable planet.
So, my advice is, grab the opportunities fuelled by uncertainty, and if you miss one, don’t worry, they’re like seagulls in St Andrews, there’s always another in the vicinity. Don’t be afraid to fail. Just try to make sure you fail one less time than you succeed. Question those in authority, just don’t ask too many questions at one time lest they become irritable. Make mistakes, but if you’re an entrepreneur try to do it with someone else’s money. Walk your own trail, unless you’re lost in the Highlands, and then definitely use someone’s map.
Alfred Hitchcock was once asked how he makes such great films. He allegedly replied that he starts with an earthquake and builds from there. You are now graduates of the University of St Andrew and part of a global community that is making a difference. So, when you venture away from here, start with your own earthquakes, and change the world.
A hearty congratulations once again. And to use the wonderful Scottish phrase, haste ye back!