On Saturday I attended one of the many wonderful Open University degree ceremonies that take place throughout the UK and continental Europe. The large number of ceremonies is of course needed to handle the large number of graduates, and it is really a sight to behold. A very moving event all in all, particularly given the phenomenal achievements of the hundreds of extremely-hard-working adult learners that make up the graduating groups. I was proud to be the person to deliver the eulogy introducing recently-retired Psychology Professor Judith Greene for the award of Emeritus Professor of The University.
Judy appointed me to my first real academic job here at the Open University almost 30 years ago, so it was quite an occasion. She brought me a special present on the day: the original artwork for Fido The Dog, the ‘semantic network’ dog from the Fido–isa–>dog & Fido–likes–>beer representation I inherited from Don Norman’s Explorations In Cognition group in the mid-70’s, and for which I had an OU artist by the name of Ray Webb draw a sequence of beer-drinking dog episodes in order to lighten up the OU teaching material that I was then preparing [one of eight images is shown to the left]. I also got to wear (for the first time!) the formal academic robe from the last place I attended as a graduate student: the University of California at San Diego. I was already out of the country by the time of my original graduation, so never managed to attend. And it seems my one-year visit to the UK kind of ran on and on….
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