Graduation address: Thursday 23 June afternoon ceremony
Graduation address by Professor Dame Sally Mapstone FRSE, Principal and Vice-Chancellor
I start this address with a brief moment of audience participation. May I ask those of you who are familiar with the 1967 movie The Graduate, to raise their hands.
There may be something of a generational divide here. When I graduated from University towards the end of the 1970s my entire generation would have been familiar with The Graduate, could recite parts of its screenplay, and probably still do so now. However, a little recent local market research, reinforced by these results, suggests that the current graduating cohort might not have quite such familiarity with this frankly iconic film.
Well graduates, two years on from your original graduation date, you will have many calls on your time, but do try and make some time this summer to watch this movie if you are not familiar with it. In what follows I will try not to spoil too much of the storyline, but I will indicate some reasons why I think in the context of your own graduation the film holds its value.
The Graduate was directed by Mike Nichols, and starred Dustin Hoffman and Anne Bancroft. It is set in Southern California, in the Los Angeles area. As his family prepare for a party to celebrate his recent graduation, the Graduate, Benjamin Braddock, is asked by his father:
‘Have you thought about graduate school?’
‘No’, Benjamin replies.
‘Would you mind telling me then’, says his father, ‘what those four years of college were for? What was the point of all that hard work?’
‘You got me’, Benjamin, who is often inclined to take the line of least resistance, replies.
Mr Braddock Senior’s attitude to further study might seem pretty enlightened and it is one that we would very much respect and indeed encourage here at St Andrews; as you develop your career plans, further study at postgraduate or doctoral level has a lot to recommend it. I would add to this particular cohort that this is not something that you necessarily have to do immediately. There can be some value (I speak from personal experience) in taking a year or two out to do other things before you go back to further study, with the assurance that that is what you really want to do.
That said, though a popular option amongst our graduates, postgraduate study is only one of many possibilities that lie ahead of you all. However, as the conversation between father and son develops in The Graduate, it becomes apparent that Mr Braddock Senior’s view of his son’s future stems from a further set of generationally inflected attitudes.
As his son drifts on an inflatable raft in their pool his father, trying unsuccessfully to control himself, says: ‘Now listen Ben. I think it’s a very good thing that a young man - after he’s done some very good work - should have a chance to relax and enjoy himself, and lie around, and drink beer and so on. But after a few weeks I believe that person would want to take some stock in himself and his situation and start to think about getting off his ass.’ At this point in the film’s gloriously subtle screenplay, Ben’s mother appears and says, ‘The Robinson’s are here’.
It is possible that there are those in the audience who may share the frustrations of Mr Braddock Senior. To them I would say, your children have a lifetime ahead of them. Taking some time to reflect, regroup, and assess possibilities really does have something to be said for it. We are all different. Some graduates like to have the next stage of their lives set up for them before their graduation ceremony is over; some prefer to take longer, even a year or two, to assess their options. One size does not fit all.
The Graduate is a film very much about rites of passage. But as you can see, it is also a film about generational perspectives, and this is where it can still surprise us.
One of the tropes in the film again related to what Benjamin is going to do with his life, is voiced by Mr McGuire, a convivial friend of Benjamin’s parents during what to Benjamin is an interminable drinks party to celebrate his success:
Mr McGuire: I want to say one word to you Benjamin. Just one word.
Benjamin: Yes, sir.
Mr McGuire Are you listening?
Benjamin: Yes, I am.
Mr McGuire: Plastics.
Ben: Exactly how do you mean?
Mr McGuire: There is a great future in plastics. Think about it.
There is actually a lot going on here. Mr Maguire’s belief in plastics is in the film seen as symbolic of the boring views of the affluent American middle classes to which Benjamin belongs but which, with a nod to the hippy era of his day, Benjamin is trying to reject. Ironically, of course, this leads Benjamin into an affair with another member of the middle classes, the ‘older woman’ Mrs Robinson, thus prompting probably the most memorable piece of dialogue in the whole film:
Mrs Robinson: Do you find me undesirable?
Benjamin: Oh no, Mrs Robinson. I think you’re the most attractive of all my parents’ friends.
Now just to be clear, I am not advocating any of the courses of action that Benjamin contemplates or takes in the film as far as Mrs Robinson is concerned as a good idea for our new graduates. The point here is that the inexperienced, idealistic Benjamin’s suspicion of the corporate plastic-oriented world view espoused by Mr McGuire, has been proved over time to be justified. Plastics have given much to our world in flexibility and facility of manufacturing; they have also given it a terrible ecological legacy which successive generations will have to contend with on a global scale.
Benjamin Braddock in The Graduate is young, inexperienced, idealistic, but he is not willing to take his future for granted, or to follow the paths that his parents and most of their friends believe are straightforwardly mapped out for him. As I have said, I am not going to spoil the plot development of the film for those of you who have not seen it, but I believe it is OK to tell you that the end of the film sees Benjamin committed to a particular decision and heading for a future that suddenly looks both exciting and uncertain. 55 years after The Graduate appeared it contrives in that regard to remain highly resonant; and because the film is about generational tensions it is a film that you may find you orient yourself to differently over the course of a lifetime.
Graduates, you have done superlatively well. Not that you need it, but take this as your licence to celebrate once more, to take time out; but then also please powerfully consider your own futures, and the planet’s. And bear in mind that in fifty years or so you yourself will be looking back on this remarkable time in your life, so please also make the most of it.