The Graduation
Written by Juan Andres Cuervo, Communications & Campaigns Assistant at Birkbeck Students' Union
From 3rd to 5th May 2022, hundreds of students attended to the graduation at Birkbeck College. Alongside their loved ones or by themselves, they entered into the core of Senate House, which for literature lovers will always be the Ministry of Truth of "1984", the masterpiece written by George Orwell.
I was one of those students who graduated during those days. On the 4th of May, the Star Wars Day for the saga fans like myself, it has now become also the Graduation Day. There is no doubt that we are the stories that we want to tell. The great historian Eric Hobsbawm, a Birkbeck legend who was named many times during the ceremony, said that 'what makes a nation is the past'. In other words, we need to create our own narratives. And this is precisely what this article is about.
My story probably won't be very different to the one of those who attended the graduation on the 4th of May. I arrived at Birkbeck at 8.20am to pick up the tickets and entered Senate House an hour later. But some things happened in between to create an atmosphere of a special day, at least for the purpose of this narrative. After picking up the tickets, I wandered around the Central Birkbeck, and while I was looking to a shirt with the headline "The Class of 2022" which had all the names of people who graduated printed in its back, two people approached and asked me, very candidly, If I had found my name. "It had took me a minute or so", I replied to them, and the person who graduated told me that his sight was not as good as before. But her colleague would help him to find the name. I smiled and wished them good luck, and I left Birkbeck Central.
While I was waiting for my two best friends who were coming to the graduation, I decided to walk by at Gordon Square. There was a cloudy but warm day, and the smell of Spring impregnated the morning in London. The flowers have bloomed at the parks and the tree leaves cast their shadow in a significant part of the paths. After 10 minutes, I left Gordon Square after 10 minutes to go back to Birkbeck College. My friends had just arrived and greeted me, and together we went to Senate House.
Inside the Graduation
People were gathering in front of the College, taking pictures, and some went inside to grab a beverage before the ceremony. Around 9.30am, people were inside Senate House, waiting for the start. To my surprise, the person who had talked to me at Birkbeck Central about the "Class of 2022" shirt just sat down next to me. The seats were numbered, so 'what a chance that was', I told him. He replied very warmily, and although he seemed very happy, he admitted what a hell was taking the tube from Harrow to Central London during the rush hour. It is striking to think that, during the early morning in London, there are more people walking underground than on the streets. But most importantly for the sake of the story, he told me that he had found his name on the shirt.
I will always remember the name of this gentleman, who had a degree based on History as myself, and his energy and commitment despite his age to finish the MA. Later, when I was ooking to every siide of the room to see the hundreds of faces waiting for the kick off, I heard that the person called my name. She was just behind me, smiled at me, and as I could not recognise her, my akwardness was so explicity that she could not help but laugh. In fact, she was one of the people whom I had better relation during my MA, but because the whole year had been studied online and never saw her in person, it took me some seconds to know who she was. I also started to laugh, and then we talked for a while, until the clock marked the 10am. The ceremony started.
The ceremony
At 10am the ceremony started, and it was a dynamic affair. There were four speechs made by the Vice-Chancellor Professor David Latchman, the Historian Professor Joanna Bourke, the Labour MP for Wigan, Lisa Nandy, and Baroness Joan Bakewell, President of Birkbeck. Although the discourses were slightly different, they expressed the idea of remarking Birkbeck as a working-class University and the importance of welcoming people from different backgrounds to study here.
Praising the creation of Birkbeck in 1823 by Dr George Birkbeck, there were references to how the Government of those days rejected the expansion of education to the working-class sector of the population. Some of them emphasised that he was accused of 'scattering the seeds of evil'. Same as today, there are people on the higher spheres of society that look with disdain to the less privileged people. Their contempt that they showed 200 hundred years ago to those who wanted to study is similar to the fact that, nowadays, the wealthiest do not want to redistribute the resources among the population.
It was great to hear those speeches focused on human progress, and almost 200 years after George Birkbeck created the College, we must continue this legacy adapteing those ideas to our times. In other words, Birkbeck must be a torch of integration, multiculturalism, respecting diversity and providing help to people from any background. The concept of working-class in the nineteenth century referred mainly to identify white male people. Nowadays, if we want to keep that signifier alive, it must include people from different minorities, sex, class, and origin.
The end of the day
After the discourses ended, there was a display of drinks and food. It was great to meet in person with the people, being surrounded by our loved ones. My two best friends enjoyed the ceremony and after invited me to lunch.
The class of 2022 were the first ones to have completed the whole academic year during the pandemic. I started the MA in Contemporary History and Politics in October 2020 and finished in September 2021. That meant that the course was done online, and this fact was underlined by some of the speakers during the ceremony. It was impressive and beautiful to be with many people inside the room, to listen to everybody's name, witness people walking by the stage while the audience clapped with enthusiasm.
I will never forget that day and surely not the other people who graduated in May 2022. Pictures and video captured those moments, and I honestly hope that through our narratives, we will keep alive those memories.
