Graduation address: Professor Len Thomas
Tuesday 3 December 2019
Vice-Chancellor, ladies and gentlemen, friends, it is my great honour to give this address to our new graduates this morning.
Well done! You did it! Congratulations! All those hours spent listening to lectures, working on assignments and practicals and tutorials and examples, and filling your brain with the knowledge required to get you through those exams… it has all paid off and here you are now, a graduate, with the right to put two or three letters after your name to indicate that you are a Bachelor or a Master or, for some of you, a Doctor. You have earned the right to use those letters and the reputation of this great university to help you pursue success in your chosen career.
But, suffixes aside, let us take a moment to reflect on what you have actually learned while you have been here. Of course, you have acquired a body of knowledge and skills on your specialist topic – you now know about theories of cognition or computation, carcinogenesis or clustering. You have also learned important time management skills, and how to produce high quality work on a tight deadline. Very importantly, I expect you have picked up some life skills along the way: you may have learned how to cook for yourself, or how to get wine or coffee stains out of a carpet! But the aspect I would like to focus on, and encourage you to nurture, is bigger than all that.
The key skill we have imparted to all of you is the ability to think critically and rationally on an issue. You now know how to gather information on a topic, how to evaluate the quality of that information, synthesise it, come to a view and then communicate your findings to others. This key skill is your new superpower! It will, I hope, make you immune to Fake News and Alternative Facts. It will equip you, no I hope it will compel you, to look beyond the everyday hubbub of daily news and social media to the real stories, the important stories. And there are important stories: the climate emergency, environmental pollution, social injustice, gender and racial discrimination, and many others. Some of you may devote your lives to addressing part of these stories. You may work for an environmental consultancy, or on new accessible medical treatments, or low-carbon technologies, or contribute in one of many other ways. Even if this is not part of your future career, I hope that all of you will at least keep informed about the important stories and take at least small actions to use your education to make this world a better place. Of course, one thing you can do this next week, if you're eligible, is to vote. I am sure I have our current Chancellor’s support, even in his absence, on that suggestion!
I am actually on strike today, so you are getting this address for nothing! Why am I here then? Like many academics, I am not very good at withdrawing our labour. The strike is on a range of issues: low pay for starting academics, high workloads, and pension cuts. In fact, this dispute gives you an excellent opportunity to use your new superpower and find out why we are on strike, to get information from multiple sources, and make up your own mind on the issue. Consider writing to the Union if you think the strike is unjustified, or to Universities UK if you think it is justified. Students are the lifeblood of this university, so your voice will make a difference.
Just to be clear, this strike is a national dispute and this University has been generally very supportive over these issues, which is one reason why I find it a great place to work, and I hope you too have found it a great place to study. Actually, while you have been hard at work studying over these past few years, the University leadership, in consultation with the academic community, has been hard at work itself coming up with a new strategic vision to guide us through the next five years. You may come across a copy today, or you can find it online. Our vision starts with consideration of our social responsibilities and then has four themes: World-leading, Diverse, Global, and Entrepreneurial. Just like the University, you too need a strategy to guide your decisions, and if you do not have one already you could do worse than taking your alma mater’s as a starting point. World-leading: Ever to Excel – I bet you have heard that before – do the best you can. Diverse: keep an open mind, be inquisitive, be aware of the implicit biases that can cloud our thinking. Global: look beyond your own environment and consider the big picture. Entrepreneurial – be flexible and adaptive, take some risks, but be resilient if things don't go to plan. Above all, use your superpower!
As I said before, students are the lifeblood of this university. We have absolutely loved having you here to study with us, and we hope that, as well as picking up your new superpower, you have loved your time with us. Obtaining a degree from the University of St Andrews is no mean feat, and so on behalf of the University, I congratulate you all. Well done!
Professor Len Thomas
School of Mathematics and Statistics