NEWS RELEASE
30 November 2007
Almost 400 academic awards, including two honorary degrees, were conferred today (Friday, 30 November) at the University of Abertay Dundee’s 2007 Winter Graduation Ceremony.
About 900 graduates, friends, families and members of staff thronged Dundee’s Caird Hall this morning for a ceremony conducted with full academic pomp and pageantry.
In his Graduation Address, Professor Bernard King, Principal and Vice-Chancellor of the University, told the graduates that their new Abertay degrees equipped them for the knowledge economy.
Professor King said that Abertay was a “driver of economic progress….producing graduates who are employable, entrepreneurial, creative, company-creating, resourceful, ambitious and confident about controlling and securing their own futures – just what Scotland (and other countries) need for the knowledge economy.”
Professor King also said that 2007 academic year had been “another year of yet more success and achievement by students, staff and stakeholders.”
He highlighted last month’s BAFTA Video Games Awards, at which a team of five Abertay students won the very first “Ones to Watch” BAFTA for a computer game they designed in the University’s Dare to be Digital competition.
“One of these students has not even graduated yet, and I am delighted to say that the fact we are now producing students of this calibre indicates that our teaching and learning focus really is producing dividends,” he said.
Professor King also spoke about Abertay’s work with industry and in research.
“In knowledge transfer partnerships – research grants for working with industry – we are now, for our size, Scotland’s most successful university,” he said.
Professor King also noted that Abertay was actively involved in several national research pooling projects funded by the Scottish Funding Council.
Abertay experts were now leading important work on counselling and mental health, police-community relations, computer modelling, and environmental science, he noted.
During today’s ceremony, an honorary Doctorate of Arts was conferred on the leader of Glasgow’s successful bid to host the Commonwealth Games 2014, Louise Martin CBE, and an honorary Doctorate of Science on the UK’s chief scientific officer Professor Sir Keith O’Nions.
Professor King concluded his address by congratulating all the graduates and wishing them every success in the future: “I have every confidence that you will go on to make a positive, disproportionate and very real impact on the world in your many different ways,” he said.
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Media enquiries: Kevin Coe
T: 01382 308452 M: 07850 904110
E: k.coe@abertay.ac.uk W: www.abertay.ac.uk