Graduation address: Professor Sally Mapstone
Friday 28 June 2019
The long road of the radical
Graduates – congratulations! Firstly, you have made it across the stage. Those of us who sit here as you do that, do understand how preoccupying that is: will you hand over your hood properly, will you be able to find your way off the stage, will you negotiate the kilt or high heels (or occasionally both) you have chosen to wear for the ceremony. Well you all have: well done. Now you can focus on what this all means.
Your degree is an immensely special achievement: it represents something in your life that will stay with you, and which you have the right to be very proud of. You now have a record in a tradition that has been taking place here since the start of the 15th century, but you also represent the future of this wonderful University, as its members stream out into the modern world to make their mark. Again, very many congratulations to you all from all of us here.
In a few minutes you will walk out of this Hall into the sunshine, and the wide expanse of the summer months now lie ahead of you, the summer of 2019. The mild days are yours to treasure, and I recommend you do so with the assuredness of those who have completed a formidable stage in a long journey.
One of the things a university career prompts us to do is to use what we know, to re-examine it, so I invite you as you look forward to the lives and careers that await you, to also look back to a summer 50 years ago this year, the summer of 1969, which remains in the popular imagination. It was a moment of immense political, social, and technological upheaval, the reverberations of which we still feel today.
Following waves of national protest, this was the summer when the new US President, Richard Nixon began withdrawing troops from Vietnam. In Bethel, New York state, it was the summer when 400,000 people gathered at a farm for a music festival, Woodstock, featuring acts such as Jimi Hendrix, the Grateful Dead and Janis Joplin (I do hope those names resonate down there; they certainly resonate up here). It was the summer when Apollo 11 landed on the moon, and Neil Armstrong proclaimed, ‘one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind’. It will not surprise you to know that in the Mapstone household as we clustered round a small black and white television that utterance was met with cries of ‘What about women?’ The Stonewall riots broke out in New York, and the books that everyone was reading were Maya Angelou’s 'I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings' or Kurt Vonnegut’s seminal anti-war novel 'Slaughterhouse-Five'.
It was a summer of dreamers, protestors, reactionaries, dissidents, idealists and radicals.
1969 was memorable in the life of this University too. In those days we were a community of a little under two and a half thousand students, less than a third of that we are today. But we were questioning and ambitious then too, and as a result, three of our Schools, Art History, Psychology and Computer Science, are celebrating 50th anniversaries this year.
All of these Schools have flourished. Fifty years of hard work, of ideas, of brilliant lecturers and professors, and ingenious students – sometimes of course covering a combination of these three subjects in their studies – have created a set of uniquely powerful environments that are recognised as world-leading in their fields.
I should add in the presence of graduates and colleagues from the School of Psychology and Neuroscience that the founding Chair of Psychology appointed in 1969, Malcolm Jeeves, is still a distinguished, active Emeritus Professor today and we are proud to host the annual Jeeves lecture in his name.
The progress made by these Schools over these years should prompt us to reflect on the importance of taking bold action and doing new things, and equally of following those actions through with persistence – of the next steps that come after the great leap for everybody. Alongside persistence, these next steps often require that we reach out and take others with us, and engage an increasingly diverse and informed community in our ambitions. That is how real change comes to take shape and have impact, and that is what, incidentally, our University Strategy for 2018-2023, which so many people in this room have played a part in shaping, is all about.
Dreaming, protesting and dissenting are important and have their moments; they are equally paths in life. Long after the summer of 1969 we continue to protest against war and discrimination, we continue to search for truth in new music and across a range of media, and we continue to explore the stars. Though some of us may complain about the unrelenting need for action, wondering when we will ever truly improve or when we will be content, I take the opposite view. Because we continue to strive, we continue to succeed.
I hope whilst with us you have learnt to listen and then to argue, to imagine, and to make a fresh case. These are the deep skills we aim to enable in you, and that is how you can make a difference. The road of the radical is a long one, and it is one I recommend to you.
But precisely because it is a long road you need to make sure you are properly prepared for it, and for today that requires fun, refuelling, and photographs. So many congratulations again, and please stay in touch with what will always continue to be your University.
Professor Sally Mapstone
Principal and Vice-Chancellor of the University of St Andrews