Graduation address: Tuesday 28 June afternoon ceremony

Graduation address by Professor Linda Goddard, School of Art History

Vice-Chancellor, honoured guests, colleagues, graduates of the University. 

Graduation ceremonies are a rare enough experience, but this one especially so. Not only have you earned your degree – an achievement worthy of celebration at the best of times – but you have done so under extraordinarily difficult circumstances, and you and your families and supporters have had to wait a whole year to finally mark the event in person. It is so unusual; you might even remember some of it!

This ceremony today cannot fully replace the loss of that celebration in the moment that we all hoped for a year ago. But it does bring its own, different advantages. Most importantly, it gives you the right to party at least twice as hard to make up for lost time. But distance also brings the chance for reflection and perspective. A common feature of the graduation address is to recognise this moment as both the close of an intense and rewarding chapter, and the beginning of a new, unknown one with exciting possibilities. Those of you who are here today, though, are already one year into life “beyond the bubble”. You have begun to gain some perspective on your St Andrews experience, and perhaps to reflect on what your degree can do for you. Some of you may already be living up to the impressive achievements of former graduates that are frequently cited on such occasions. But it is just as likely that many of you are still finding your way: taking time to reflect, trying out different pathways, even just recovering and getting by. And that is just fine. In the year after I graduated from my first degree, I was earning £60 a week sorting dusty papers in a publishing house. And that was the best of my jobs that year. 

Today, I am honoured to be here among those congratulating you on your success. It is also an opportunity to thank you: for persevering while libraries closed, internet connections sometimes failed, and you were shut off from friends and family. Thanks go as well to your family, friends, and everyone who has supported you. I know that I speak for my colleagues too when I say that it was the regular hour with students in the virtual seminar room that kept me going during lockdowns. Thank you, too, for often being the ones to remind us that other things were happening during the pandemic: that others were and are suffering invasion, violent oppression, or the disproportionate effects of our collective neglect of the planet. Regardless of the varied paths that you take in life, I urge you to keep speaking out.

St Andrews is a medieval pilgrimage site, and you have made a pilgrimage to be here today. Perhaps you were drawn back by a final opportunity to walk on West Sands. The chance to reunite with friends, and perhaps teachers, from different subjects is probably one of the reasons you made the journey back. For another different and special thing about this ceremony is that it is not limited to a few subjects but involves all our Schools and Departments. I wish for you a world where, as in this room, the arts and sciences talk to each other, and the friendships formed here last a lifetime.

And now, it is already a year late, so let the celebrations begin. Congratulations!