Graduation nr II

We had already had a fairly standard, but of course still festive, graduation ceremony this year. But we were due another one, and this one would be unusual. It would be the ceremony for the students who had graduated in the two years that hadn't had such a ceremony for reasons of covid. I thought it was good we had such a ceremony, but I had no idea how many people would show up for it. It is a nice way of marking an important transition, but if you are already two years into your new job you might feel so distant from this transition that you don't feel the need to mark it any more.

In order to complicate things for us staff, we had the late afternoon slot, from 4 PM onwards. And that meant they had planned the concomitant reception beforehand. And that in turn meant we would be socialising with students we hadn't had anything to do with for one or two years, that we wouldn't have seen during the later parts of their education for reasons of online teaching, and of whose names and faces we would not have been reminded during the actual ceremony, because that was still to come. I did look up my old dissertation students and personal tutees, to make sure I knew who to look out for. But I could only hope I would indeed recognise all of them.

I went to the reception in my full gown and hat. That was a bit warm! But it did mean I didn't have to lug a bag around. And there weren't very many people. It was lovely to see Rhian Tait, Rachel Turnbull, Dan Lambley and especially Jo Rogers, and to hear what they are getting up to these days. But none of these had been either my tutees or my dissertation students, so there were a lot of people I would have liked to see but didn't. And I knew I couldn't linger very much after the actual ceremony, as I had birthday beer by the weir pretty much immediately afterwards.

Gown pic with Joanne Rogers

After a while, when the whole room where the reception was held had already been deserted as the few people who were still there had gone outside, it was time together in the council chamber, waiting to be marched outside. We were clearly a smaller group than the previous time! One of us had been taken down by covid in the meantime, and yes that could have happened during the previous ceremony, but I wasn't sure about the other people not there.

Given how few people had attended the reception, I was pleasantly surprised to see a full hall. And then they were called up one by one. Quite a lot of people appeared! Some had actually changed quite a bit since I last seen them. One of my tutees had grown a beard, for instance. That does change one's appearance!

At the end of the ceremony we gave a slightly demure rendition of the national anthem. We were missing Dei, our main singer! And then we were taken outside again for a group photograph. And then went back to the other courtyard. I did find two of my old tutees: Charlotte Lewis and Margaret Pound, and I gave them a hug and it was really good to see them. I struggled to spot other particularly relevant people in the crowd, and I was a bit tired and thirsty, and I knew I had more in the diary that evening. So I just slinked away. And in hindsight I was glad I did! At home I got into my more pragmatic outfit, had a bit of dinner, got my bag together, and then set off up the hill. No time to spare...

We have now caught up on the backlog. The next ceremony will be in winter, for students who didn't pass their final year in one go and had to do supplementary assessment in summer, or master students who are just not done yet in June. And I know that we have rising covid numbers again, but let's hope the situation is such that we can have a ceremony without issues! And we won't build up another backlog…