Honorary Graduates

Orations and responses

Response by Bishop John Waine

High Sheriff, Chancellor, Vice-Chancellor, ladies and gentlemen, today there is a phrase in vogue which describes an event as a ‘defining moment’.  I am not quite sure what it means but I reckon that for me something approaching it occurred a few weeks ago when the public orator telephoned: and I heard him say ‘I have just finished writing the obituary of so-and-so and now I need to get started on you.’   All my past life flashed before me and I found myself wondering how long I had got.  

However, I do know how long I have got this morning. Five minutes said the Vice-Chancellor firmly, but with his usual charm. His optimism knows no bounds.  For everyone knows that once a bishop gets to his feet there is no stopping him. In fact the story is told of the bishop who went to give the prizes at a school prize giving and he was told beforehand that five minutes would just about be right.   After five minutes the bishop was still going on; ten minutes, he was in full flow. The chairman coughed, the chairman shuffled, the chairman looked at his watch, the chairman shook his watch, and eventually the chairman picked up his gavel and through it at the bishop.  Unfortunately it missed him, but it hit a man sitting on the front row, who, as he sank to the floor in unconsciousness, was heard to say ‘brother, hit me again I can still hear him.’

My first duty today must be to thank the public orator for his generous oration. My father would have enjoyed it and my mother would have believed it.  And I also want to thank the University, as I am sure all my fellow graduates do,  for the degrees we have received today.  Of course I am very much aware of the fact that my fellow graduates have worked hard for their degrees, written papers, done research, sat examinations, whereas I have not been required to do any of those things. Perhaps there is a small measure of redress in that those of you who today received second degrees studied for them maybe two or three years since receiving your first. Whereas it has taken me, from my first degree, over fifty years. Nobody could accuse me of  being an adrenaline junky!

I like to believe that all of us who have received degrees today share one thing in common, and that is our pride in the University of Essex.  Pride in its achievements as one of the leading research institutions in the country.  Pride in its vision and confidence as it develops links with Southend, Writtle and East 15, committing itself to the biggest building programme since its foundation.  Pride in its ethos, so brilliantly portrayed here at Wivenhoe Park where students from many countries learn to recognise, understand and honour each other.  As Chairman of  the Foundation may I say how much I hope that this pride, this regard for the University, and recognition of what it has given us, will remain with us for many years to come; and that through the Foundation office and the alumni magazine and activities we shall play our part in enabling the University to do for future generations what it has done for us.

Today University courses are designed more than ever to cater for the needs and interests of students.  Moreover students are both discerning and demanding as they sift through the courses universities have on offer. I am sure that this is a welcome development, but I do just have to say that I hope that university education will not become a buyers’ market to such an extent that university courses are limited to that which will appeal.  We do well to remember that the root of the word education is the Latin educare – to lead out – to lead out to new, exciting and hitherto undiscovered and undreamed of fields of learning. And we should beware of settling for anything less.

Today, my fellow graduates, you will received many congratulations  from proud parents and friends alike.  No doubt you will be told more than once that the world is now your oyster. It remains for you to decide what kind of world you wish to serve, and to create with the skills and distinctions you have acquired; what sort of  values you wish your world to respect and what sort of goals you wish it to adopt.

Chancellor it only remains for me to say how deeply honoured I am to receive this degree, to crave the Vice-Chancellor’s pardon for ever so slightly exceeding my time, and to thank you for your forbearance in not hurling the gavel.