Dear Colleagues,
Graduation is one of the most important dates in the University calendar and our teams aspire to make it an exciting day which allows our students to celebrate their amazing achievements with friends and family.
The atmosphere at St Mary’s Stadium last week was positive and celebratory and we saw many thousands of our graduands, their guests and our staff enjoying this special moment. Thank you to everyone who worked so hard to deliver Graduation – it was an enormous team effort, with many months of planning and colleagues from right across the University supporting the three days.
This was a unique year for Graduation, given the cancellation of our ceremonies in 2020 and 2021, and we did need to make some significant logistical changes to accommodate the very large numbers attending. Some of those who attended the ceremonies have told us that they were disappointed by some of those changes. We will now take all of the feedback from this year’s events as well as our own learnings to refine our graduation offer.
We take feedback on these important events very seriously – we were listening and demonstrated the agility the new strategy calls for, making some changes on the second day, where it was possible to do so, to create a more personalised experience. This was well received in the stadium and it was really clear that for many students the sense of occasion and scale was something they will long remember.
Thank you again to all involved for your support and most importantly, our congratulations and warmest wishes for the future to all of our Graduates from the classes of 2020, 2021 and 2022.
Best wishes,
Deborah
Professor Deborah Gill
Vice-President (Education and Student Experience)
