They might be all pomp and ceremony, but academic rites of passage do matter

PRESIDENT'S LOG:After 10 years presiding over 110 conferrals and shaking some 23,000 hands, the final ceremony was a deeply moving event, writes FERDINAND VON PRONDZYNSKI

IF I RECALL correctly, it was a cold and rainy day in October 1983. I was lecturer in industrial relations in Trinity, but I returned to Cambridge that day to receive my PhD.

The conferring ceremony took place in the Senate House, and the whole thing had the look and feel of a Gilbert and Sullivan production, albeit entirely in Latin. The vice-chancellor did the conferring, and he was preceded and accompanied by various folk with titles such as esquire bedells and junior and senior proctors.

When it was my turn, I was held by the hand by someone or otherwho proceeded to praise my learning and good character in Latin, whereupon the vice-chancellor put his hand on my head and either conferred a degree on me or maybe blessed me, at any rate ending with “in nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti”. The young Irishman conferred next to me instinctively added “amen” when it was his turn.

After that there was something of a change in mood, and we were whisked out; the Senate House is not a big building, and other graduands had to be admitted and needed our seats.

I shouldn’t give the impression that I want to mock that Cambridge ceremony. Graduations are rites of passage of some considerable significance, and perhaps they need to have the particular mystique that comes from ritual and tradition. They are almost always elaborately stage-managed, and none the worse for that.

The Cambridge conferral in 1983 was my second. Five years earlier I had been awarded the LLB and BA degrees at a ceremony in Trinity College Dublin, also entirely in Latin. I remember quite a lengthy speech by the university orator, and surprised myself by understanding it more or less completely – which is not something most graduands today would manage, I suspect.

More recently, graduations have become a regular feature in my life. As president of DCU, I have handed a parchment to every student who successfully completed their degree programme and who turned up for the conferral, not just in DCU but in our linked colleges. Over the 10-year period, I have presided at 110 such ceremonies, and have shaken some 23,000 hands as they passed me on the podium.

I have had the pleasure of encountering some pretty amazing hand jewellery: I can never see it, but I can feel it as my hand closes around theirs, and I can tell you that in my experience men wear much stranger rings than women; more than once I received little cuts to my hand and fingers. And as I have watched the graduands cross the stage in front of me, I have marvelled at some of the really improbable footwear, mainly worn by women.

Mostly the students smile as they shake my hand, though you get the occasional “I’m really only here for my parents” look of sullen irritation. One student a couple of years ago told me he was not going to shake my hand “for hygiene reasons”, and maybe he had a point, as in the previous year I had contracted scabies from the ceremony. And over the 10 years, I delivered myself of 110 conferral speeches, no two of them identical.

I think DCU has the perfect graduation ceremony. It has that wonderful blend of formality and informality, with the ritual needed for this kind of occasion, but also with flashes of humour and exuberance, and occasional theatrics by students as they enjoy the moment. We recognise that these ceremonies mark a key point in the graduate’s life, and it is their day, but we also try to send out some message to them and the wider world about principles and values. And I believe we do this very well.

Becoming a graduate is not a farewell. It is important for the universities, and for the whole idea of higher education, that as a student graduates he or she does not leave but rather accepts a new kind of membership of the university community. Graduates should be our advisers, supporters, ambassadors and friends. They are also still entitled to our support and assistance, just as we hope that they will help their university to develop further. It is not a relationship that should ever be broken.

A couple of weeks ago I presided over my last DCU graduation. On this occasion, it was a rite of passage for me as it was for the graduates to whom I handed the parchments. It was a time for me to say, with them, that my membership of the university community would not end, but rather would mature. Actually, it turned out to be an emotional moment for me – even more than I expected – as I received an extraordinarily warm ovation from staff and students. Yes, academic rites of passage do matter.

• Ferdinand von Prondzynski is president of Dublin City University