MILTON KEYNES DEGREE CEREMONY (2)
28th June 2000
Vice-Chancellor's Address to the Graduates
Graduates, Guests, Colleagues:
I bring you greetings from our Chancellor, Betty Boothroyd. She would very much liked to have been able to preside at our first ceremony in Milton Keynes splendid new theatre but this is a very busy time for the Speaker. She sends her congratulations to the graduates and her greetings to all of you.
It has been a pleasure for Professor Geoff Peters and me to talk to the graduates individually this afternoon and to celebrate the OU’s achievements. We are in Milton Keynes, just a few miles away from the University’s main campus at Walton Hall. We are also in the OU’s South Region, which has its headquarters in Oxford. Let me say a word from each perspective.
The mission of the Open University is to be open as to people, open as to places, open as to methods, and open as to ideas. Student Services here at Walton Hall are increasing the OU’s openness on all four dimensions by coordinating moves to offer our students other options to our traditional paper-based transactions. Experiments are already underway for registering for courses by telephone and for reserving places over the Web. Students have been able to access their own records for the last year and many do so - and at the most surprising times of the day and night!. Some of you may well have done this already. Before long students all students will be able to use the medium of their choice - traditional paper, telephone or the latest electronic means for scanning our range of courses, booking those courses, booking residential schools and examination centres, paying fees and obtaining a wide range of advice.
You may have read of plans to set up an e-university in the UK. While this is still at the discussion stage elsewhere, the OU has progressed half way down the e-university road already in terms of its broad educational provision of advice and guidance. We are also expanding the number of online courses to follow on from the highly successful T171 You, Your Computer and the Net, which is being taken by 11,000 students and has 6,000 more already signed up for next year.
The core function of our OU team in the South, under the wise and experienced leadership of Sheelagh Watts, is to help students and support our associate lecturers. The graduates know that our tutors are deeply committed to their OU students. I expect there were moments for each of today’s graduates when their tutor’s encouragement was crucial to the successful continuation of your studies.
Let's show our appreciation for your tutors all the OU staff in both Milton Keynes and Oxford who have helped and inspired you during your time as students.
XXXXXX
There will be other people you wish to thank. It is wonderful to see so many families, relatives and friends here today in this impressive hall.
Success in the Open University depends on the tolerance and understanding of others. You all know the impact of OU study on family and social life. No doubt you are now helping your graduate rediscover real life.
Help is now at hand for redecorating the house, taming the garden and cleaning the car! Extra family outings may now be in prospect. But before you daydream about that I ask the graduates to show their thanks to you.
XXXXXX
Please 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 keep up with the OU through Open Eye - the alumni magazine. The monthly version appears in The Independent newspaper on the first Tuesday of every month. The annual edition was posted to everyone last month. With a circulation of 350,000, it must be the world’s most widely read alumni magazine!
You should also try out the Alumni Website, where you can log your particular interests and receive regular personal email updates on new services and current events.
A key alumni event is Open Day 2000 on June 24th. I hope that some of you can make it to Milton Keynes with your family. Failing that you can drop into the Virtual Open Day on the OU Website.
Many graduates told us just now that they enjoyed their OU studies. That encourages me to lead you down memory lane with one last short test. It’s like a CMA – a Computer Marked Assignment – but I will provide immediate answers:
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?
In fact it was Jeremy Paxman. Last year, when the OU won his TV quiz game, University Challenge, he complained that OU students were too good to compete against students from ordinary universities like Oxford and Bristol. You should all take Mr Paxman’s comment as a compliment.
Let’s move on to number 2. The quote is:
“The Open University has been one of this country’s success stories, both for technical innovation in education and in the way you have opened up opportunities for learning to large numbers of people who have been able to advance their careers and enrich their lives”
That came from a letter I received last year. Who wrote it?
1. Jeremy Paxman
2. The Prime Minister
3. Lord Puttnam
4. Esther Rantzen
The answer is 2, the Prime Minister. Tony Blair was writing to congratulate the OU on its thirtieth birthday. Last month the Prime Minister came to our campus in Milton Keynes. He said that to visit the OU was “a voyage of privilege”.
Let’s move to quote number 3. It reads:
“The most systematic development of new technology for teaching and learning has taken place at the Open University”
Which newspaper made that judgement?
1. The Economist
2. The Independent
3. The News of the World
4. The Times
This was The Times. The explosive growth of the Internet has created enormous interest in its application to university education. With 80,000 students now online the OU could be the world’s largest academic cybercommunity. 50,000 students are taking courses that require online work and I pay tribute to the Student Association, OUSA, which supplements this by organising computer conferences for over 100 courses.
We are also helping teachers to use computers in the schools. Late last year we launched our Learning Schools Programme, an OU joint venture with the firm Research Machines. It trains teachers to use computers effectively in the classroom across a range of subjects. Already, after only six months, 60,000 teachers have joined the programme and are enthusiastic about it. They too are part of our online world.
On to question 4. The quote is:
“The OU is very geared to people with disabilities. I think the OU is one of the finest institutions this country has – I can’t fault it”
What is the source of that quote?
1. The Royal National Institute for the Blind
2. SKILL – The National Bureau for Students with Disabilities
3. An OU student
4. The Minister for Lifelong Learning and Enterprise
This was number 3. OU science student Dawn Rogers wrote that in the journal Arthritis News. She is one of 7,000 people with a disability studying with the OU this year. That number is a thousand up on last year and we expect another substantial increase when eligibility for the Disabled Students Allowance is extended to part-time students.
So to the final quote in this short quiz. Who might have said?
“I miss watching the Open University late at night. There is something compelling about that. It’s a great way to round off the evening”.
1. A British soldier in Kosovo
2. Bill Bryson
3. Sean Connery
4. Lord John Birt
This one is Bill Bryson, the American author and columnist, who returned to the United States and found he missed British television in general and the OU in particular.
I might add that in the final paragraph of Bill Bryson’s book Notes from a Small Island he pays tribute to the best things about Britain in the following words:
“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”.
I congratulate you on representing what is best about the United Kingdom, I wish you every success in the future, and I thank you for studying with the Open University.