BELFAST DEGREE CEREMONY
Vice-Chancellor's Address to the Graduates
19 May 2001
Dr Hamilton, Graduates, Ladies and Gentlemen:
I know that I speak for Dr Hamilton, our Regional Director in Ireland, as well as myself when I say how much we have enjoyed meeting the graduates today.
It has been inspiring to talk to the graduates individually. You said that an OU degree is hard work but most of you have enjoyed it. That encourages me to give you a short final test today. It's like a CMA - that's a Computer Marked Assignment – but I will provide the answers even faster than the computer.
Each question is a short quotation. You have to identify the source.
If you are ready for number 1 the quotation is:
“I yield to no one in my admiration for Open University students. It seems a great deal more difficult to do an OU degree than to be feather bedded through university like most students are.”
Who do you think said that?
1. Jeremy Paxman
2. Anne Robinson
3. Cherie Booth
4. David Blunkett
In fact it was Jeremy Paxman. Two years ago, when the OU won his TV quiz game, University Challenge, he complained that OU students were really too good to compete against students from ordinary universities like Oxford and Southampton. Take that as a compliment.
Let’s move on to question 2. The quote is:
“The most systematic development of new technology for teaching and learning has taken place at the Open University.”
Which newspaper printed that comment?
1. The Economist
2. The Sun
3. The Times
4. PC World
This came from a article in The Times by Lucy Hodges. This year many other publications have commented with admiration on the OU’s leadership in the e-world as we have passed some important milestones. More than 100,000 students now communicate with the University online from home, well over half the student body. In addition to that Our Learning Schools Programme, which is a partnership with the firm Research Machines based near Abingdon, has attracted over 100,000 teachers to learn how to use computers effectively in teaching their subjects in the schools.
This online community of over 200,000 makes the OU the world’s first industrial scale user of the Internet in higher education and we are working diligently to maintain that leadership.
But let’s move to question number three. Here is the quotation.
“The extraordinary role of the Open University degrees in furthering the peace process in Northern Ireland is acknowledged throughout the Republican sector as well as by the smaller Loyalist political parties whose support for the Good Friday agreement of 1998 and for the 1999 Northern Ireland Executive is vital”
Where did that quote come from?
1. The Irish Times
2. The Times Higher Educational Supplement
3. Senator Mitchell
4. Mo Mowlem
It’s from an article by Anne MacHardy in the Times Higher Educational Supplement last year. Over the period of the Troubles hundreds of Republican and Loyalist prisoners studied with the OU in the Maze and other prisons. You should be proud of the way that your university has broadened their horizons and led them to seek peaceful routes towards a settlement.
This year there are over 7,000 OU students in the island of Ireland, slightly more than half of them in the Republic. The OU in Ireland operates in an integrated way in North and South and that too is a contribution to understanding and peace.
Lets move to the final question in this short quiz. Can you identify either the book – or the author – from which the following quote is taken?
“What other nation in the world could have given us William Shakespeare, pork pies, Christopher Wren, Windsor Great Park, the Open University, Gardeners’ Question Time and the chocolate digestive biscuit? None of course”.
The author is Bill Bryson and this is the last paragraph of his book Notes from a Small Island. Bryson is something of a fan of the Open University. When he returned to the United States he commented that he missed watching the Open University late at night. “There’s something compelling about that”, he said, “It’s a great way to round off the evening”.
All of today’s graduates will have rounded off many evenings immersed in OU study materials. Today we congratulate you on your success in completing the stiff test of an Open University degree. It is good to celebrate that success in the presence of so many staff and tutors from the OU in Ireland who have helped you.
Since the reinstatement of the Northern Ireland Assembly just over a year ago and in line with its Programme for Government, the Minister for Higher and Further Education, Training and Employment has initiated a number of significant developments in the tertiary education sector. Our University has been pleased to contribute to the shaping of government’s thinking on ways in which higher education can play a key role in the creation of a peaceful and prosperous Northern Ireland.
The key challenge is the expansion of lifelong learning opportunities for adult students. We must widen access to tertiary education for a greater number of people from under-represented groups. We must strengthen the synergies between education and training and local industry and commerce. This is crucial in raising the skills-base of the workforce in the Province and fostering its economic development. We must also further develop the links with the tertiary education sector in the Republic of Ireland. The Open University in Ireland will be a significant force in supporting these endeavours and ensuring their success.
The OU continues to introduce new programmes and this year sees the first graduates of our new Diploma in Social Work. In keeping with our mission of access, this programme a professional qualification within the reach of working people who simply could not contemplate taking two years off work to study by the traditional route. This is particularly important for staff in the many small voluntary and independent agencies.
Even by OU standards the Diploma in Social Work is a very intensive programme and I particularly congratulate those who have succeeded in juggling the demands of their families and their employers, who often sponsored their studies - adding a little extra pressure.
All these developments are a great team effort between OU people here and at our campus in Milton Keynes. Their main task, of course is to serve our students and I am sure that all today’s graduates can remember a moment when the help and attention of their tutor, or of another OU staff member, made all the difference. Let’s give them a round of applause.
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I expect there are other people to whom you also feel grateful. It is wonderful that so many of your family members, relatives and friends are here today.
Success in the Open University depends on the tolerance and support of others. Everyone here is aware of the impact of OU study on family and social life. No doubt you are now helping your graduate rediscover forgotten aspects of real life.
Help is now at hand for redecorating the house and landscaping the garden! Extra family outings may now be possible. But before you dream about that I ask the graduates to show their appreciation to you.
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If you have enjoyed your OU studies I urge you to keep in touch with your University. I encourage you to join the Association of Open University Graduates and I remind you that you are automatically members of the Alumni Association - The OU LINK.
You can find out more through Open Eye - the alumni magazine - the monthly version appears in The Independent newspaper on the first Tuesday of every month. The third annual edition will be posted to everyone in May this year. With a circulation of 350,000, it must be the most widely read alumni magazine in the world!
The Alumni website is well worth visiting. You can register your interest and receive personal monthly updates by email of all new services and current events.
I encourage you to think of yourselves as lifelong members of a unique academic community to follow its future development closely.
Finally, I myself will be leaving the OU this summer to take up a new appointment in Paris as Assistant Director-General of UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation. I shall be responsible for the Education sector where my major preoccupation will be the United Nations programme of Education for All. This means providing a basic education for the 250 million children around the world who either do not go to school at all or before they have learned to read, write and use number. It also means helping the 900 million illiterate adults, one in four of the world’s population.
I can think of no better preparation for this daunting task than serving as Vice-Chancellor of the OU. My association with the OU will continue in another way, for I am an active student. I hope that one of these days I too with receive my OU degree at one of these ceremonies.
Meanwhile it has been an enormous privilege to lead this great University for eleven years and I am grateful to all of you for making it such a truly exhilarating job.
Dr Hamilton and I wish you every success as graduates and thank you for being part of the Open University.