DERBY DEGREE CEREMONY
Vice-Chancellor's Address to the Graduates
21 April 2001
Pro-Chancellor:
I know that I speak for both of us when I say how much we have enjoyed meeting the graduates this afternoon. 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 Birmingham and Nottingham. 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, 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.
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 the East Midlands who have helped you.
The Open University is the largest provider of part-time higher education in this region and my colleagues here have developed an extensive network of collaborative links with local organisations. For example, we are part of a partnership whose role is to provide personal educational advice to rural learners. This work in supported by both national and European funds.
We also have many links with local employers, many of whom sponsor their staff for OU study. In this context we are actively involved in the East Midlands Graduate Apprenticeship Scheme whose aim is to provide new graduates in small and medium sized enterprises with management skills.
In developing these links and in all of its work the Open University is extremely fortunate in the quality of the people who associate themselves with us in many different capacities. Sir Bryan Nicholson, who is presiding today, continues a thirty-year tradition of Pro-Chancellors of great distinction. The Pro-Chancellor serves in a voluntary capacity as chairman of the Council, our University’s governing body, and Sir Bryan brings to that position a wealth of experience from the public and private sectors.
We are also blessed with first-rate full-time staff, both in the regions and at our main campus at Walton Hall. It gives me particular pleasure that the healthy financial situation of the University has allowed us to make many excellent new appointments this year, including some distinguished young professors.
Today I particularly want to recognise our associate lecturers. The are the people to whom the graduates will feel most directly grateful because of the encouragement and guidance their tutors provided to them during their studies. Although our 8,000 associate lecturers work with the OU on a part-time basis they are tremendously loyal and dedicated. In recent years I has signed many hundreds of twenty-five year service certificates for these colleagues, whose work is at the heart of teaching and learning at the Open University.
I am sure that the graduates would like to show their appreciation for the OU people who have supported them directly in their studies and the many thousands more who sustain the success and dynamism of the University. Let’s give them all 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. New initiatives continue apace.
For example, 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.
Finally, I myself will soon be leaving the Open University as Vice-Chancellor although I hasten to add that I will continue to be an OU student, which is, after all, the most important association you can have with the OU.
It has been a wonderful privilege and a great honour to lead this extraordinary University for eleven years. What makes it so special is the enthusiasm of the students and the benefits they attribute to OU study. In my time as Vice-Chancellor I have officiated at a hundred and fifty ceremonies like this and talked to fifty thousand graduates. I have heard many heart-warming stories of personal achievement in those conversations. The Pro-Chancellor and I heard some more this afternoon.
I can think of no better preparation than the OU for my next job, which is to be head of Education at the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation in Paris. My challenge there is to help the world community address what is perhaps the greatest moral challenge of our time. That is to enable all people to exercise their right to an education. Hundreds of millions do not have that opportunity today. There are 250 million children who get no schooling or inadequate schooling and there are 800 million adults in our world whose lives are blighted by illiteracy.
So I hope that you will support the UN campaign for Education for All wherever you come across it.
The Pro-Chancellor and I wish you all success as graduates and thank you for being part of this very special University.