Last week saw a plethora of events to celebrate our Bicentenary, kicking off the Bicentenary Year that will run through to next summer. We welcomed hundreds of guests in-person and online at the Chancellor’s Installation, an Anniversary Dinner & Exhibition, Global Alumni Gathering, an International Conference Celebrating the Mechanics Institutes and exhibitions and tours of St Cecilia’s Hall and Panmure House – all of this culminating in an honorary degree ceremony in St Cecilia’s on Saturday night, presided over by our new Chancellor, Emeritus Professor Sir Geoff Palmer.
How wonderful it was to see the Chancellor installed and the affirmation and confidence this brings to our whole community. You can watch the installation here.
I found the weekend experience to be quite an emotional time, especially the historic moment on Saturday night, in the wonderful ambience of St Cecilia’s Hall, on Niddry Street in Edinburgh, when the Lord Provost of Edinburgh opened our special degree conferment for two honorary graduates. His address included the following words:
“Chancellor, Principal & Vice-Chancellor, Honorary Graduands, friends and citizens of Edinburgh and beyond. Two hundred years ago in this very place on this very evening my predecessor The Lord Provost opened the first-ever lecture of the Edinburgh School of Arts. It is with a sense of great pride and enormous gratitude that I, as Lord Provost, have the privilege of celebrating this bicentenary in here in St Cecilia’s Hall … Tonight, as we look forward to the next two hundred years the city retains its mission for enlightened pioneering education and inclusion. Tonight, we are honoured to have the Chancellor of the University, himself a graduate of Heriot-Watt University, confirm honorary degree on two citizens of Edinburgh who have had personal and inspirational impact on the education and wellbeing of people. Their stories will be told later. Can there be any better way to celebrate the astonishing accomplishment of the Heriot-Watt University and the City of Edinburgh? Chancellor, may I congratulate you and the graduates down the years, and the current 146,000 alumni in 190 countries who are currently shaping the future of society at this moment in time. I declare the commencement of this special congregation for the conferment of honorary degrees and in closing express the warmest wishes of the City to the University for its role in transforming lives and assuring opportunities for the betterment of society.”
This happened almost exactly to the hour of the first lecture that marked the inauguration of our University on the evening of the 16th October 1821 – which was also opened by the Lord Provost of the city at the time. That same evening, we were delighted to provide Honorary Degrees to Maureen McKenna and Alice Thompson for their pioneering work across Scotland, in school education and social inclusion & homelessness respectively. The video of the ceremony will be made available shortly.
The installation and dinner last Friday attracted many alumni, some former staff, students and friends from across Scotland and internationally. This included alumni from Norway and Malaysia and special guests including our new Malaysia Campus Pro-Chancellor Tan Sri Jemilah Mahmood, and also Dato Yasmin Mahmood, chair of the Malaysian Board. The various University staff news articles, Twitter and Linkedin carry coverage of further details. The dinner was themed around the 1821 Appeal and reached out to guests to consider supporting it. Many people commented to me about how the event strongly underscored our purpose and values in celebrating our collective achievements and the pleasure of coming together after such a long time in lockdown. The events also provided a platform pointing forward to the critical opportunities and responsibilities that lie ahead in assuring the impact of our research, as well as the need to develop graduates and upskill those already in work for the future.
All these wonderful events take a lot of organising, so my heartfelt thanks to the great teams who made them such an unqualified success. The year of celebration continues across all campuses, and also with further activity at Expo 2020 and in the campus at Dubai, and looking to the new year in Malaysia and in the USA and Norway.
Professor Richard A. Williams
Principal and Vice-Chancellor