Honorary Graduates
Orations and responses
Response by Professor John O'Reilly
Thank you Chancellor - and thank you to all. I feel greatly honoured to be
here today. In fact, in the words of the country that I left Essex to go to,
diolch yn fawr, - Welsh for those that don't know it, approximately anyhow.
I said that I feel greatly honoured and I noted that the orator said that he
was confident that I would be able to speak. I should warn you that the last
time that I stood here at a lectern, something similar to this one in a room
within this building, I spoke for 50 minutes and there were 10 minutes for
questions afterwards! I think perhaps, on this occasion, we could reduce that
somewhat. In fact it was my first experience as an academic - and my first
experience of lecturing. I looked at the students; this didn't come to mind it
should have done. Who was it who said something like: "I don't know what they do
to the enemy but they terrify me". [I'm paraphrasing Churchill, of course].
That is very much the experience that one has, I think, as a new lecturer. But
the real, significant, experience one has, as an academic member of
staff, is that you learn: you learn tremendously from your students, you learn
tremendously from your colleagues. That is the experience of being in a
University. I think that it was Sir Michael Atiyah, when he was appointed as
President of the Royal Society, who said that a University is about T and L. And
we all thought that we knew what it meant - but he said: "it is Thinking and
learning". It is not so much about teaching, it is much more about
learning; you learn from one another and you learn from your peers. And I
certainly learnt very much from some of those who are behind here on the
platform - very much my peers. Indeed, it is a singular irony, is it not, that
-almost, I suspect - in order to be recognised by a University you have to
leave. At least to be recognised in this way.
And I say that truly with due humility. I recognise that on the staff in
Essex, and certainly in the Department in which I am proud to have served, there
are many, many, very eminent people. The same sort of things that were said
about me could have been said about any number of those. Essex should be proud
of its graduates and should be very proud of the calibre of the
individuals that it has on its staff.
There is something that someone also said in addressing the graduands. I
think it was Helen, sorry Dr. Helen, Mirren, "This is your day". Behind
me are undoubtedly the eminent - but you are the imminent, as it
were. It is the future that we look to and it is to you that we look to for the
future.
Like others I would like to congratulate you for your fine achievements. I
know something of what you have come through - but not that much I think.
I actually think it is harder: science gets bigger, scholarship gets wider, the
diversity is there and you have had to grapple with that. One of the things that
comes from my current position, leading a Research Council, is an awareness of
the vastness of science. And I use science in the generic sense to
encompass engineering and technology - and increasingly wider than that. One of
the things I suppose that comes with time is that you realise that the
boundaries that we have between disciplines, between degree titles and so on,
are rather arbitrarily constructed - and one of the most powerful things to
acquire, I think, is the ability to learn to ignore these. To follow your
instinct, I suspect, is part of what that is about and very much the challenge
of today. I have got into the habit of using rather pompous phrases in my
current job (possibly I had it some time ago too, looking towards my former
colleagues!) But I think that this is true: "Real world problems do not respect
the boundaries of traditional disciplines nor indeed the established boundaries
of science and engineering".
And, in fact, one of my current colleagues - who is a fellow leader of a
Research Council (or a Research Council to be), the Arts and Humanities Research
Board, - is Geoffrey Crossick. That is the Geoffrey Crossick from this
University. Essex has been singular, I think, in the number of heads of Research
Councils and the like that it has produced. I find myself sitting at a table in
Whitehall with no less than four former colleagues from Essex all heading a
Research Council or heading a Funding Council. I mentioned Geoffrey because he
heads the Arts and Humanities Research Board and this congregation, this
particular session, has brought together graduands from Humanities and
Comparative Studies with Engineering. Increasingly I think of engineering in the
generic sense to encompass also Science and Technology (!), but this
ceremony has brought those together. And that is also one of those boundaries
that we are exploring, to see whether in research there are synergies that
really should be forged, that should be built upon to make sure that there
aren't these arbitrary divisions.
A quotation, which I thought was attributed to Modjeska in her
semi-biographical book "Poppy" but I learnt was actually Ralf Waldo Emerson, the
American essayist of the mid 19th century, I think I will leave with
you as something to ponder. It captures for me very much what research is about,
I suspect that it captures what you will find in your careers as you go forward,
and it very much captures what universities have found as they have moved
forward finding individual missions. And, Helen, if I could again refer to your
remarks earlier, I think it conveys some of what you were saying in different
words. The quote goes something like this: "Do not follow where the path may
lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail." And for me that
represents much of what I have found as the excitement in research - and much of
the pleasure that I find, the privilege that I have, in leading a Research
Council. And as I look at Essex in the way that it has developed, I think very
much that it is the spirit in which Essex has innovated. I am very pleased to be
some small part of that and to be recognised in this way today.
Thank you once again.
Professor John O'Reilly
14 July 2004