Graduation address by Dr Karen Brown

Wednesday 1 December 2021
Morning ceremony

Vice-Chancellor, graduates, staff and guests.

Warmest congratulations to all our new graduates, their families and friends gathered here today, marking your graduation from the University of St Andrews. It is time to celebrate your achievements and enjoy this rite of passage experienced by fellow alumni for more than 600 years in this small, but dramatic Medieval coastal town of St Andrews.

I have learnt on good authority that there are 35 different countries represented at our ceremony today, illustrating the point that St Andrews is (in the words of Scottish polymath Sir Patrick Geddes), a university that “thinks global” in reach and ambition, but that “acts local” in the delivery of excellent teaching, learning and student experiences. In the course of your studies, you have acquired a whole range of skills that will now hold you in good stead for the future, but of course not all of these are academic. During your time here, many of you have engaged in societies for sport, music, environmental justice, social diversity, and other interests leading to the enrichment of your lives, and the development of friendships with like-minded people. Moreover, in studying during the Covid-19 restrictions, you have shown your ability to adapt to unpredictable change. Considered together, these are the skills that will be essential for the wider world you are now embarking upon as you leave the chilly shores of Fife this December to follow your hopes and dreams.

My own hopes and dreams were created where I studied, at Trinity College Dublin, a community that still holds a very special place in my heart for the friendships and memories made, ranging from discoveries in the archives and days spent in pubs with friends discussing literature, theology and the arts for hours on end, to sneaking through front arch in the dark to return to the safe haven of rooms, escaping the noise and excitement of Dublin at night.

I did not know at that point that I would go on to become an academic living in Scotland specialising in community museums in Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean, but when I look back, I believe it is largely the values and beliefs that I learnt at Trinity that honed my path. Thanks mainly to two key professors in my life, I learnt the value of being true to yourself and following your gut instincts, and of having faith that your life is unfolding as it should, even when it does not work out as you had expected. As WB Yeats reflected when looking at portraits of Irish cultural leaders in the Municipal Gallery: “my glory was I had such friends”.

These are also qualities that I have recognised in the community museum leaders that I have had the privilege to work with in Latin America and, if I may, I would like to share with you the wisdom learnt from one very special indigenous woman elder from Costa Rica who drove the creation of their community museum for over 30 years and who also, rather amazingly, came here to speak at the Byre Theatre in St Andrews and in Portree secondary school on the Isle of Skye.

This wisdom is:

to honour ancestral memories and keep them alive;
to have a clear vision that will benefit the collective good;
to practise collective forms of decision making;
to have faith in a spiritual force greater than yourself;
to be patient, for you will get there slowly, little by little;
and finally, to have fun and make time to celebrate with your community.

I suspect that I have tested your patience well enough by now and that you cannot wait to move on to celebrate your own successes, but to return to where we began, today is a moment marking new horizons for each of you at a time when you may be experiencing a mixture of excitement and nervousness. I hope that following your well-deserved festivities today and before you leave, you will pause to take one more look out over the vista of the North Sea and reflect upon what memories you may hold onto from our small university town of St Andrews. Memories that have made you who you are today, through the hard times and the good. Values formed together with us your teachers and support staff, as an academic community in change.

Congratulations once again, all the best for your futures, and please stay in touch!

Dr Karen Brown
School of Art History