Success is in the air

TWO days before setting out for a short visit to India I was walking through Cambridge, full of people celebrating success. On the 32 colleges, and on central University buildings, flags flew.

In the streets, newly graduated students walked in processions from their colleges to the Senate House, where they were "admitted" to their degrees with a formula proclaimed, in Latin, by one of the Vice-Chancellor's deputies. Parents and friends watched this culmination of three or four years of rigorous study, and then went to be photographed proudly with their offspring still wearing the academic gowns and hoods that are symbols of immemorial Cambridge.

On the following day, I was one of the organisers of a garden party for Cambridge graduates of earlier generations, held in the grounds of the Cavendish Laboratory, one of the world's leading physics departments. The head of the department, Professor Malcolm Longair, welcomed those attending with a short speech in which he outlined the huge range of research going on in the department. He also told his audience about the high quality of the undergraduates - over half of whom had just obtained first- class honours degrees - and about the ability and dedication of the research students, many of whom were pushing forward the frontiers of knowledge beyond the point which he and his colleagues had reached. "It is marvellous," he said, with almost tangible enthusiasm.

On the day before my walk through Cambridge, I was in the audience at another celebratory occasion. This was the annual "Festival of Achievement" at the Cambridge Regional College, a further education institution which serves the Cambridge area.

The festival began with a performance, vocal and instrumental, by a group of so-called "Routes" students. "Routes" is a highly regarded course provided by the Regional College for students with severe learning difficulties. The effort put into the performance was huge. Several of the students had physical as well as mental disabilities, and had to be helped on and off the stage. The pleasure which they all showed as they performed, and as they received the applause of the appreciative audience, was heart warming. As the programme put it: "The students' enthusiasm and dedication is a positive and warm influence to all". And it clearly is.

Many awards were given out during the ceremony: for commitment to study in difficult circumstances; for great personal effort to achieve learning goals; for commitment to study in the face of considerable personal challenge, and many more. Some were given to students who had taken quite small steps, some to those who had achieved nationally recognised vocational qualifications, some to staff for outstanding contributions to the college's work and ethos.

At the conclusion, we were able to enjoy an excellent meal prepared and served by the college's catering school.

As someone who has worked in the University of Cambridge for more than 30 years, I am very familiar with the success - recognised nationally and internationally - of the institution, and of its students and staff. The annual degree-award ceremonies, and the achievements which they mark, those of us who work in the place take for granted. We similarly take for granted the successes of the Cavendish and its staff and students (like those of other university departments). Without wishing to appear arrogant, success is what the University of Cambridge is about.

The regional college ceremony was a timely reminder that success is not always such a high-profile matter. The students of f the University - able, and part of an international elite - may expect, and are expected, to have successes to celebrate. For many of those at the Regional College, successes are hard won and by no means part of what they and their families have been able to assume. The achievements celebrated in the Regional College's festival are in a sense far more modest than those marked in the University's degree ceremony. But they are no less real, and no less important. In exactly the same way, the two superficially disparate kinds of ceremony and celebration are reflections of human effort, and of the effective development of the talents and abilities of individuals.

Sometimes the application of the results of education may help to change the world, but what education is really about is drawing out and nurturing the capacity of individuals. In the Cambridge annual calendar of events, the Regional College's Festival of Achievement is less well known, but no less important, than the University's "Days of General Admission", as the degree ceremonies are quaintly called.

BILL KIRKMAN

The writer is an Emeritus Fellow of Wolfson College, Cambridge. E-mail him at wpk1000@cam.ac.uk

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