 Well, greetings everybody. I'm Graham Upton and I'm delighted to have been awarded an honorary degree by SOAS this year. I worked in SOAS for eight months last year as Director of Transformation and Change and Interim Director. And what a special eight months they were. Looking back I see them very much as representing the culmination, the apex of my career. I grew up in Australia and I started my career as a school teacher, working with children with special needs. I then moved into academic life and worked in a number of universities here in the UK and elsewhere in the world before I moved into university management. First at Cardiff, then Birmingham and then at Oxford Brookes where I was Vice Chancellor for ten years. Since finishing at Brookes I've become seen as something of an expert on institutional management and change and before coming to SOAS I spent periods of between eight and fifteen months as Interim Vice Chancellor of four other universities. Universities that are running into difficulties of some sort and where I was asked to come in and help out. When I arrived in SOAS it was just at the very beginning of the COVID crisis and that presented unprecedented problems for all UK universities and SOAS was no exception. Potential recruitment problems threatened our financial viability and the dream that was SOAS was under threat. During my time though here I was privileged to work with a team of people who were determined not to let that happen and what that team achieved in a short period of time was truly remarkable and one person even described it to me as being magical. Now I was very quick to tell that person that magic had nothing whatsoever to do with it but what had made the difference was the commitment and determination of people at all levels in the school to ensure that SOAS not only survived but did all that was needed to ensure its long term success and that very special institution that's always been. Now it would have been wonderful to be present at an actual graduation ceremony but the COVID pandemic has made that impossible. However ever creative SOAS has arranged opportunities for some face to face events and arranged for those of us who can't be at those events to engage remotely with those of you who can. Much as I'd love to be with you in person I'm nonetheless delighted to have an opportunity to congratulate all of you who have finished your studies here at SOAS and to wish you well in whatever you go on to do in your future. The COVID pandemic has had serious implications for education and for all of you as students and I can only imagine that your experience of the last 18 months wasn't what you would have ideally wished to have happened or what you'd expected your experience of university might be like but you've survived and here you are graduating. Well done and congratulations. You've achieved in a very short time I think it's really been quite heroic. So well done to you all. Now some of you may go on to do further studies here at SOAS some of you may go elsewhere in the world but good luck to those of you who follow that route good luck in your search for further knowledge and skills that will enable you to achieve your ambitions in life. Others you may go on into the world of work and to you I hope you'll soon discover that your courses equipped you well for the challenges of that world. You leave here as a SOAS graduate and I think you'll find there are high expectations out there for you. I hope that the knowledge and skills you've developed during your studies will equip you well for whatever road you take in the future Take confidence from the fact you've had the best of what there is to have in terms of education and that you join a very special group of the schools alumni who play key roles in various communities around the world that SOAS serves. Take confidence too in the voice that I hope SOAS has helped you develop the world's far from a perfect place and I can only hope that you'll go out there and do all you can to make a difference and make that world a better place. A place where there's greater equality and respect where diversity and cultural difference are celebrated where justice can be taken for granted where freedom can be taken for granted and where our environment is a better protected place than it is now. So my congratulations to you all on graduating. Graduation is a very special event which marks a transition point in life and I wish you the very best of luck in your careers and your future more generally. In conclusion I would just like to thank SOAS for the honour that it's bestowed on me. I'm really very proud of this award and I look forward to my continuing association with the school as it continues to grow and develop as one of the world's most highly regarded institutions of higher education. The award for an honorary degree means I'll continue to have a role in SOAS and be part of its journey and having got so involved in SOAS and all it stands for being a permanent member of the family now really is very important to me. Thank you.