Graduation address by Professor Stephen Reicher
Tuesday 30 November 2021
Morning ceremony
Vice-Chancellor, graduates, staff and guests.
Whenever I think of the last 18 months of Covid, I am led irresistibly to the opening lines of Dickens’ Tale of Two Cities: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.”
The worst of times. The winter of despair. Well, that is the easy part. Since the pandemic began, we have experienced things unprecedented in all our lifetimes. Confined to our houses. Shops closed. Stadia empty. Forbidden to travel. Banned from mixing even with our loved ones. Locked up and locked down as if we were convicts. Even though we had done nothing wrong.
And we suffered for it. We suffered economically. We suffered socially. We suffered physically. And, in particular, we suffered psychologically. Fear. Uncertainty. Isolation. All of these took their toll.
Moreover, the toll has been particularly high for young people in general, and for students in particular. Henry Thoreau once complained that students should not just study life and advised “how could youths better learn to live than by at once trying the experiment of living”. He was right. But what he missed is that universities are not only about the study of life. They are also experiments in living. They are about discovering new activities, forming new relationships, debating new ideas, developing new passions. That doesn’t detract from learning. As Leonardo de Vinci recognised, it is essential to learning. For “study without desire spoils the memory and it retains nothing that it takes in”.
And experiments in living have been so greatly stunted this last academic year. The inability to come together and play or think and drink a pint – or two, or possibly even three – has been a huge loss and a huge burden. A loss that you will never be able to recoup. We recognise that. We too grieve for that. We know that your time at university has not been as good as it should be.
But I am beginning to sound like a divorce lawyer at a wedding. Today is meant to be a celebration not a wake. My task is not to drag you down with doom and gloom but to send you out with hope and expectation. It is time to deliver on what might seem a more difficult challenge: to understand Covid as not just the worst but also the best of times.
What might seem a difficult challenge… is actually very easy. Because the evidence is all around us. It is there at a global level. Rebecca Solnit has written a remarkable collection of tales of solidarity around the world – from Northern Syria to North America – where people, often let down by their governments, came together to support and care for each other. She writes of “the beauty of ordinary people’s generosity, creativity, solidarity and bravery”. And she also describes the joy that people felt “even in the worst of circumstances, in finding the agency to act and the communion of acting together and finding a connection that can be hard to find and feel and have recognised by others in ordinary times”.
The evidence is also clear at a national level. It is estimated that some 12 million people in the UK were involved in activities to support each other during the pandemic: creating a sense of community, delivering food, taking people to hospital, walking their dog – all those small acts of kindness which the state can never provide but which have an enormous impact on our lives.
And the evidence is also here, in this hall.
I was constantly amazed by the kindness and dedication of my colleagues, working twice as hard as normal to put courses online and be available for students. Caring and standing in for those who became overwhelmed or fell ill or had to care for family members who were unwell. Thank you. We should all thank each other.
And I was equally, if not more amazed by the solidarity and kindness amongst students. It is especially important to stress this because there has been a narrative, especially last autumn, that students were the problem causing spikes in infection due to their wanton socialising and partying. Yes, there certainly was a party or two. But if students had high infection rates it was more due to living together in crowded halls and flats, using public transport, as well as many of you working in bars and restaurants and other public facing jobs. If anything, the remarkable thing was how many students – who at a personal level had great incentive but faced little risk from going out – nevertheless chose to stay in for the sake of their communities.
Much has been spoken about inequalities in this pandemic. Inequalities of gender, inequalities of class, inequalities of ethnicity and race. But perhaps the greatest inequality is generational. Even if young people are less likely to die, the toll on mental health, on education, on economic wellbeing and on future opportunities has been enormous. Young people have made enormous sacrifices for the older generations. That is a lot. But it is altogether too much when, on top of that, you are blamed rather than celebrated for your response.
So here – and now – let us give credit where enormous credit is due. Thank you.
Thank you for your kindness.
Thank you for getting vaccinated and re-vaccinated and tested and endlessly retested.
Thank you for the mundane heroism of staying on your sofa when you could have gone out and partied.
And thank you above all for demonstrating, even in the worst of times, the potential for a society where solidarity and community prevail and where we are all the better for it – and, who knows, where (in the context of the climate crisis) we might even survive as a species!
If that endures, if we manage to hang on to this memory when the pandemic finally subsides, then it could be that – even if it is too much to think of Covid as the best of times – it might at least be seen as heralding better times.
Bishop Wardlaw Professor Stephen Reicher
School of Psychology and Neuroscience