Graduation address: Professor Bridget Heal
Thursday 27 June 2019
Chancellor, Principal, ladies and gentlemen, everyone.
New graduates, well done! You have made it! On behalf of all my colleagues, it is my great pleasure to congratulate you on your achievement and to offer you good wishes for the future. And congratulations to all those who have supported you along the way: family, friends, and the many people who have worked to make the various parts of this University run smoothly during your time here.
Most of you are about to leave ‘the bubble’, to step into a different world. So, in preparing this address, I turned to my former students and asked them for their favourite St Andrews memories. What did they take away with them from their years spent here?
Strangely, given that they were writing to me, none of them even mentioned ‘studying history’ (though colleagues behind me on the stage will be glad to know they did say very nice things about our teaching). Instead, they said the May Dip, shinty, ice cream from Janettas (for breakfast!), and seagulls the size of albatrosses.
Many of them, not surprisingly, mentioned the astonishing natural beauty of this part of the world, all too easy to forget when your days are spent rushing from lectures to classes to the library, or during the dark days of December. They mentioned the beaches, especially on long summer days, like today. Above all, they remembered fondly the close-knit community, and the many lasting friendships - and sometimes marriages - forged during their time here.
My former students also mentioned St Andrews itself: the very special experience of studying history or art history in a place itself steeped in history. In the sixteenth century St Andrews was described by the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, as ‘the most flourishing city as to divine and human learning in all of Scotland’. The University has not flourished non-stop since then – there was certainly a bit of a wobble around the eighteenth century – but throughout its long history it has made a profound contribution to the intellectual and cultural life of Scotland and of the wider world. You should all be very proud to be part of that history.
So, it was a great achievement to get here and it is a great achievement to have graduated. What else do I hope you might take away with you, other than a degree certificate and memories of ice cream and enormous seagulls?
Independence and self-motivation, resourcefulness, and an ability to manage your time and to balance work with other commitments. I would highlight in particular the highly transferable skill of getting yourself to class for a 9am start.
I hope that you leave St Andrews with an open and enquiring mind, with a sense of curiosity, and with a continuing desire for knowledge. As a historian or an art historian, I hope that you take out into the wider world an ability to read and to look critically, to analyse, to argue clearly, and to reject simplistic explanations for change, both in the past and in the present. I hope that you take with you compassion, an ability to engage with unfamiliar belief systems, and a vision of the world that goes beyond national and linguistic borders.
Graduation is the end of something significant, but also the beginning of something even more important. We are sending you out well equipped into a turbulent world. In a society and culture shaped – for better or worse – by the internet, by a 24-hour news cycle, and by social media, the skills that you have worked so hard to acquire here are needed more than ever.
One of my students wrote, after reminiscing about her time here, ‘I had better stop now, before I buy a one-way train ticket back’. Know that you are always welcome back. Know that one of the things that gives us great pleasure as teachers is to hear from our former students, and to learn what you have gone on to do. And know also that yes, we will respond to your requests for employers’ references, even years into the future…
But before you think too hard about the future, enjoy the present. Go out and celebrate. Congratulations!
Professor Bridget Heal
School of History