St Andrews principal urges graduates to value memories.

GRADUATION: Professor Sally Mapstone insists touching base with the past can give graduates a clearer sense of the future

As hundreds of young men and women gathered in St Andrews for their graduation ceremony yesterday, Principal and Vice-Chancellor Professor Sally Mapstone shared a special memory from her student days.

She explained the ceremony was all about “marking the moment”.

“We value ritual because it enables us both to cherish individuals and to include them within a time honoured process that signifies the new community which they – and you – are now a part,” she said.

“Of course, the ceremony would be marked by many photographs, from selfies to formal posed shots, but there will be one favourite to go back to again and again.

“And what that photo will be doing will be capturing something special, almost timeless and irreplaceable.

“For the generations above yours memory often has to fulfil that role because the photo bonanza of today is a relatively recent thing,” she said.

Looking back to her own students days, it was sound, and not vision, which has been imprinted on her memory.

It was a very apt piece of music, and not one associated with graduation, but which she heard having completed “the brutal regime” of nine three-hour exams in six days.

Blinking into the Oxford sunshine, the 250 students heard loudly amplified music blasting from the windows of one of her friend’s rooms.

It was Alice Cooper’s School’s Out and she said the puns and irreverence of the lyrics made it instantly its own exquisite memory moment.

She urged graduates to find their equivalents and preserve them.

“Sometimes touching base with your past gives you a clearer sense of what you want from your future,” she said.

The university honoured Professor Emeritus Roger Winston Smith from the College of William and Mary, Virginia, at the ceremony.

He is credited with being one of the small number of scholars who pioneered the field of genocide studies.

Dr Hazel Cameron from the School of International Relations said he was an inspirational teacher and “quite wonderful mentor” who remained committed to educating new generations to study and solve the problem of genocide through prevention and tolerance.

Students make their way to St Salvator’s quad, while, right, Honorary Graduand Professor Roger W. Smith is flanked by Sir Menzies Campbell and Principal Sally Mapstone.

Proud Vasilisa Fendrikova after the ceremony, while Alexandra Mezeul from California, Moritz Doerfler from Germany, Martin Michalek from Michigan and Felicity MacLeod, 23, from Paris are all smiles. Top, the Gilday family from Dunblane celebrate son Chris’s graduation.