Graduation Address: Professor Zinnie Harris, School of English
Tuesday 1 July 2025 – morning ceremony
Vice-Chancellor, special guests, colleagues and graduates, it is an honour to speak to you on such a significant and memorable day and I wish you many congratulations.
One of the parts of my job here that I love the most is being a sub-Honours academic adviser. It might sound like a strange thing to name as the cherry on the top, but bear with me. I will admit to scratching my head when I first arrived – you mean there is a process whereby hundreds of sub-Honours students are manually put into the modules on the computer system by a small group of academics? Yes, was the reply. And it all happens in a single day in a single hall?
As it was, I met a whole host of slightly apprehensive young people on their first official day at university. They looked lost, fresh out of school, trailing a suitcase, nerves, and a saucepan from home. Sometime later, I crossed paths with some of these same students again. Now they were holding their heads high, confident, sometimes arguing something nuanced and difficult, sometimes saying that they thought the existing orthodoxy about X or Y was wrong, sometimes coming and asking for advice on next steps, sometimes being innovative and unconventional, sometimes wanting better things for the world and dreaming up new ideas, and I remember thinking, yes, the University is doing its job. Education is doing its job. This person is changing, evolving, and here we are to witness it.
The University has certainly done its job today. And what a brilliant thing to be here to see it. But what further advice can we offer as you set off into the world? I wonder. What might help steer you through these first few steps as you establish yourself in your chosen career? And what are the things that other people might not tell you?
My first tip is not to believe the hype about other people. Or get distracted by it. I learnt this the hard way, and it is a common mistake. We all show our best side and tend to be noisy about the things that are going right. But here’s the rub – people tend to be less noisy about the things that are not going so well. Who talks about their shadow CV for instance? The one that lists all the failures and the things that went wrong. We all have those, however successful we may appear on the surface. So when the road gets a little tough, or things fail, do not compare yourself to others, instead acknowledge, forgive yourself, learn and carry on. Or as Samuel Beckett puts it more eloquently: “Ever Tried. Ever Failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.”
My second tip is not to listen to the inner critic. Everyone has a voice in our head telling us we are not good enough but, for some, it is louder than for others. My inner critic can appear with trumpets and megaphones when it wants to. It can be hard to turn it down, as trying not to listen makes it shout all the louder. Instead, I suggest you replace it with a team of inner advocates. The people who know you, who believe in you, who encourage you, sustain you and want the best for you. Your cheerleaders. What would they say when you lose faith in yourself? And can we carry a sense of them rather than the sneering voice as we go on our day-to-day? These people might be tough at times, honest. They might tell you to write the email, make the phone call, risk the no, but hopefully they will drown out the voice of fear and self-criticism, and replace it with belief and banner-waving.
A third tip: stay curious. When I was young, I went on a camping holiday with my family and all of my cousins. We were 11 people in two campervans and a tent, and the children were aged from six months to 15. We had two cassette tapes for the three weeks, one was Stevie Wonder and the other was Jesus Christ Superstar taped from the telly. Two tapes, three weeks. To say that the words of Jesus Christ Superstar are in my veins and through my DNA is to be moderate. One of the lines that I often think about is spoken (ok, sung) as Jesus is brought to trial. Pilate says to him: “we both have truths, are mine the same as yours?”
The world wants us to think in black and white. And increasingly so. Black and white is convenient. Quick. Simple. Black and white does not require effort. It is clean, resolved. But it can also deceive. There is pressure on the notion of truth right now globally, and the world needs us to stay sharp and alive to what is true and what is not true. Truth can be gnarly, it can be complicated. Truth most often does not exist in neat packages. Truth takes effort to find.
It seems to me that perhaps the greatest gift of education is to understand and relish the pursuit of truth. So keep that up – get to the bottom of things, keep reading, and then read that bit more. Listen. And listen harder. Work hard to understand from all angles, and do not let this complicated and nuanced world fob you off with easy answers.
And finally. Sometimes I do not know why this University let me in through the door: I have quoted Jesus Christ Superstar at you, and now I am going to quote Dolly Parton. Dolly Parton once said: “Find out who you are and do it on purpose.” This is the most joyful piece of advice of all. It is about authenticity and intention. Find out who you are and then live it thoughtfully, deliberately. Finding it out, though, might take a while, it might require a bit of honesty, it might even require a bit of discomfort and for things to change, but this work is the real work. When you know, you know, and then, like an arrow, it will guide you to where you need to be.
My parents were both baby boomers, young adults in the sixties, and latter-day hippies. I was named after a butterfly. They had a copy of Desiderata put up with blu tack over the sink in the bathroom. Desiderata is a prose poem by Max Ehrmann and a mainstay in the 1970s and 1980s of anyone who was listening to Joan Baez and marching for Greenpeace. I used to read it while cleaning my teeth. But here’s the thing, however hippie-ish I might think it is now, whenever the world feels complicated or scary, or even just unknown, it is the last line of Desiderata that comes into my head:
“With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.”
Perhaps that is the best advice of all.
Once again, I congratulate you all on your achievements and wish you the best of luck.