Graduation address: Wednesday 15 June morning ceremony
Graduation address by Professor Russell Morris FRS, School of Chemistry
Vice-Chancellor, honoured guests and graduates of the University of St Andrews.
Wow – what a sight for sore eyes you are! I had forgotten what it looked like to stand here and see happy smiling faces at a graduation ceremony. You look great.
This is a day to be proud and first and foremost you should all be very proud of your own achievements. It has been a tricky time to be a student over the last couple of years and I salute not only your academic skills, but also your resilience. I truly hope that the pandemic will not have spoiled your time at St Andrews and that you will still have great memories to take with you.
My colleagues and I could not be prouder of all your achievements – indeed, there is only one set of people prouder than we are – and that is all your supporters, friends and family sitting here in the audience or watching on the internet, or even watching on the DVD you may get later. You should spare a moment to silently (or loudly if you prefer) thank them for their support over the years.
You now have one of the great degrees and I will come back later on in this address to define exactly how great a St Andrews degree is.
Most of you here today are science or social science graduates and I will talk specifically about science, but it translates equally well to all degrees from St Andrews. Even to those pesky Classics degrees (more on those later too).
I am a Professor of Chemistry, and in my office down the road I am lucky to have a bookcase that holds the ‘Irvine Collection’ – the journals and textbooks that Sir James Irvine left to the School of Chemistry. Sir James was a professor of chemistry who ended up being Principal and Vice-Chancellor of the University for thirty-plus years. He was a fantastic scientist and leader who did so much for the University of St Andrews – including having Younger Hall built. Indeed, the outside of this building still bears his name. He also sounded like quite a cool guy. I particularly enjoyed the story of how, as Principal of the University, he found the local coalman’s family playing cricket on the street. He was not having any of that. He took them back to the Quad outside Lower College Hall, set up a pitch and wicket and spent the afternoon bowling to them. Now, it was probably unusual even in those days to see the Principal coming in off his long run. I will let you discover at the garden party whether our current Principal is a demon bowler or not.
Of all the books in the Irvine Collection, two of the slimmest volumes are my favourites. These are transcripts of lectures that Sir James gave during the time he was Principal of the University. It is truly fascinating to read his thoughts.
One, delivered in 1940, was to celebrate the centenary of the professorship in Chemistry at St Andrews. Our Chair in Chemistry was endowed through a bequest in 1808. But hang on a minute, Sir James’s lecture was in 1940! At first, I wondered whether he was too occupied playing cricket to get round to giving the lecture.
But no, Sir James explains all – with what I hope was a twinkle in his eye – it turns out that the Classics Department used the money and there was not enough left for a new Chemistry professor to be appointed until 1840! So, his Centenary Lecture was bang on time to celebrate one hundred years of Chemistry professors at St Andrews. As scientists we are magnanimous and gracious, and we have forgiven the classicists. But we promise that if anyone ever again feels generous, we will not let the School of Classics near any of the money.
The second volume is a series of three lectures given in Canada in 1937. The subject of the lectures was “Science and Citizenship”. It is very striking that Sir James’s thoughts on the challenges of life in the 1930s and the need for science in society are similar, indeed one might say scarily similar, to our thoughts and needs today. He clearly knew the role that science should play and how every scientist and every graduate needed to take responsibility for ensuring that the public were engaged with the facts of any discussions. It really could have been written today. We are all aware that there are great challenges in our world and that science will have to play its part in solving them. To illustrate Sir James’s view, I would like to quote a short passage from the second lecture, which was subtitled ‘Science Education and the Fundamental Values’.
“My contention is that the altruistic spirit can be fostered by scientific education so that a distinctive habit of mind is formed, and a discipline of integrity and responsibility created, which find their application in the wider life of the community.”
In other words, whatever you end up doing, whether it is as a pioneer in an academic or industrial field, an opera singer, or a digger of ditches for the council, your job now you have left with a University of St Andrews degree is to use your “distinctive habit of mind” for the benefit of society. Be an active participant in the important debates of the day. We have all seen how the wonders of modern communication mean that good news and bad, fake news and the truth, travel quicker than ever. In areas like the pandemic recovery or the climate crisis we desperately need a society that is science literate if we are to make the right choices. It is your job as St Andrews graduates to help sort the wheat from the chaff. Do not just believe the last person you heard but use the skills you learned here to evaluate the evidence, come to the best possible conclusions and use your education to improve the world.
Speaking of evaluating the evidence, I did promise to come back to the question: how good is a St Andrews degree? I will use my own skills of evidence evaluation to produce two incontrovertible facts about St Andrews degrees that show how great they really are. Now in doing this you will have to remember that I do not have a degree from St Andrews (wrong colours) so I will not be as good at it as you all. But I will do my best.
Fact number one, the evidence. Nearly 20 years ago we gave an honorary degree to one highly eminent and famous person. He came happily and received his degree, sitting exactly where Dr Henderson is sitting today. A few years later he was awarded the Nobel prize for literature. This time he pointedly refused to attend the ceremony. So, after hearing this evidence what conclusion can we come to? Well, I think it is obvious.
Getting a St Andrews degree must be better than winning a Nobel Prize. That is how great it is.
We can ask Dr Henderson later, but I am sure he will agree.
So that is incontrovertible fact number one – what about fact number two?
What else is so great about a St Andrews degree?
Fact number two about how great a St Andrews degree is – that you have all got one. Congratulations and enjoy the rest of the day.