I've added another three ceremonies this week to my tally of Sheffield degree congregations. I could count them up with the help of my diary, but I would guess that they now amount to around 175 since I was appointed a Pro-Vice-Chancellor in 2004 (plus one or sometimes two each year during the previous thirty or so years when I only went to the ceremonies where my own students were graduating). So that must make over 200. But I never get bored or see attendance as a chore - they are symbolic occasions when almost all the different elements of the university come together in a celebration of what the institution is about - the successful development of student skills.
People are often curious as to why I, rare among colleagues today, own my own graduation robe. How that came to be is a curious story.
My mother was secretary to a doctors' practice. She, perhaps naturally for a mother, boasted to her employers when I was successfully examined for my doctorate - it was in early December one year. A few days later one of the doctors came through to her office. One of his elderly female patients had remarked that she was busy clearing out the flat of her deceased sister in Oxford. That sister had been head of an Oxford college, and her executrix was finding it difficult to know what to do with her sister's academic gowns. And so it was, after my mother had made a small donation to the bereaving family's favourite charity, that on Christmas morning, about three weeks after my oral examination, I was presented with a full set of Oxford DPhil academic dress (Oxford would call its doctorate degree by a different name than almost all other universities!) as my Christmas present. And I have cherished them and used them ever since. (Although I will add that the main doctorate gown is heavy wool and not as practicable in the hot weather we have had this week as more recent gowns made of a lighter fabric.) But I notice that some of my colleagues with Oxford DPhil degrees wear the gown with a hood over a suit and tie - and they also wear their mortar boards in procession. It may be a fad - but I stick to the correct form of Oxford academic dress for a DPhil: gown with NO hood, mortar board carried but not worn (except in the presence of the Chancellor of Oxford itself), and a white bow tie. I'm not generally one for unnecessary tradition, but this one is quite nice.
I want to share one reflection from this week, and it's about the languages ceremony. This year ALL our linguistics and area studies specialists graduated together - so we had a range from Spanish to Japanese, Russian to Chinese, Luxembourgish to Korean. I haven't looked at the statistics to prove it, so this is just an impression, but my perception is that a higher proportion of graduates this year were males than has been the case in the recent past; and a higher proportion were from British ethnic minority backgrounds. If I am correct, those are both good things. For too long languages seem to have been the preserve of white women (and often from middle-class backgrounds at that).
I do wonder about the backgrounds of some of the students, I must confess. It does seem to me that a student who has been brought up bilingual with, say, a Spanish father and a British mother has something of an advantage in taking a degree in Spanish alongside students who do not have that family background. I know that a languages degree is about much more than simply developing a proficiency in the language, and that there are swathes of cultural materials (and even what I would see as social sciences) to be mastered. But it must surely be easier to get a very high mark in the language components if one is a native (albeit bilingual) speaker. Perhaps 'value added' could in some way be incorporated in student assessment.
Someone the other day said to me that there would be less need for graduates in European languages as a result of Brexit, because we would not be contributing civil servants to the Brussels directorates. It seems to me that there could be MORE need for linguists - particularly those with another element to their cv. In the past we have had one set of negotiators for EU matters, now we will be negotiating many things bilaterally with individual states. I know that there is anxiety that we just don't have enough trade negotiators, for example, because over the last 40 years we have been represented in trade negotiations by central staff in Brussels. But NOW we will need our own negotiators with, for example, China, Russia, Brazil, Argentina and other countries where a knowledge of the local language will be crucial for the successful conclusion of discussions.
So the route to a post in the European Union institutions may be about to close for our language graduates, but employment within various government departments here in the UK - and probably in the London offices of many multinationals - seems to me likely to grow in the future. I am optimistic about the need for languages graduates - and their increasing diversity is a further positive sign.
Tonight we shall celebrate the end of graduation week and of another academic year. This evening I shall try to seek out the fascinating Russian honorary graduate for whom I undertook the oration yesterday, but otherwise it will be an occasion to relax. And then next week is generally the quietest in the university's year. More from me then.
People are often curious as to why I, rare among colleagues today, own my own graduation robe. How that came to be is a curious story.
My mother was secretary to a doctors' practice. She, perhaps naturally for a mother, boasted to her employers when I was successfully examined for my doctorate - it was in early December one year. A few days later one of the doctors came through to her office. One of his elderly female patients had remarked that she was busy clearing out the flat of her deceased sister in Oxford. That sister had been head of an Oxford college, and her executrix was finding it difficult to know what to do with her sister's academic gowns. And so it was, after my mother had made a small donation to the bereaving family's favourite charity, that on Christmas morning, about three weeks after my oral examination, I was presented with a full set of Oxford DPhil academic dress (Oxford would call its doctorate degree by a different name than almost all other universities!) as my Christmas present. And I have cherished them and used them ever since. (Although I will add that the main doctorate gown is heavy wool and not as practicable in the hot weather we have had this week as more recent gowns made of a lighter fabric.) But I notice that some of my colleagues with Oxford DPhil degrees wear the gown with a hood over a suit and tie - and they also wear their mortar boards in procession. It may be a fad - but I stick to the correct form of Oxford academic dress for a DPhil: gown with NO hood, mortar board carried but not worn (except in the presence of the Chancellor of Oxford itself), and a white bow tie. I'm not generally one for unnecessary tradition, but this one is quite nice.
I want to share one reflection from this week, and it's about the languages ceremony. This year ALL our linguistics and area studies specialists graduated together - so we had a range from Spanish to Japanese, Russian to Chinese, Luxembourgish to Korean. I haven't looked at the statistics to prove it, so this is just an impression, but my perception is that a higher proportion of graduates this year were males than has been the case in the recent past; and a higher proportion were from British ethnic minority backgrounds. If I am correct, those are both good things. For too long languages seem to have been the preserve of white women (and often from middle-class backgrounds at that).
I do wonder about the backgrounds of some of the students, I must confess. It does seem to me that a student who has been brought up bilingual with, say, a Spanish father and a British mother has something of an advantage in taking a degree in Spanish alongside students who do not have that family background. I know that a languages degree is about much more than simply developing a proficiency in the language, and that there are swathes of cultural materials (and even what I would see as social sciences) to be mastered. But it must surely be easier to get a very high mark in the language components if one is a native (albeit bilingual) speaker. Perhaps 'value added' could in some way be incorporated in student assessment.
Someone the other day said to me that there would be less need for graduates in European languages as a result of Brexit, because we would not be contributing civil servants to the Brussels directorates. It seems to me that there could be MORE need for linguists - particularly those with another element to their cv. In the past we have had one set of negotiators for EU matters, now we will be negotiating many things bilaterally with individual states. I know that there is anxiety that we just don't have enough trade negotiators, for example, because over the last 40 years we have been represented in trade negotiations by central staff in Brussels. But NOW we will need our own negotiators with, for example, China, Russia, Brazil, Argentina and other countries where a knowledge of the local language will be crucial for the successful conclusion of discussions.
So the route to a post in the European Union institutions may be about to close for our language graduates, but employment within various government departments here in the UK - and probably in the London offices of many multinationals - seems to me likely to grow in the future. I am optimistic about the need for languages graduates - and their increasing diversity is a further positive sign.
Tonight we shall celebrate the end of graduation week and of another academic year. This evening I shall try to seek out the fascinating Russian honorary graduate for whom I undertook the oration yesterday, but otherwise it will be an occasion to relax. And then next week is generally the quietest in the university's year. More from me then.
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