This week, schools and departments across the University are hosting a week of virtual celebrations for our graduates.

Our students have shown a tremendous strength and resilience in completing their examinations and studies during such a challenging time. I am sure I speak for all of us when I say we are all incredibly proud of their achievements, especially in these extraordinary circumstances.

I know that for many of you this will be a bitter-sweet moment, and that you will miss taking part in our usual ceremonies and celebrations. Seeing our graduates celebrate with their families and friends is undoubtedly one of the highlights of our University Calendar.

I would encourage you to have a look at some of the events taking place throughout the week. Tomorrow, I will confer our finalists’ degrees in absentia in Eliot College, the University’s founding college and location of the first graduation ceremony. And on Friday at 14.00, there will be a joint virtual ceremony with the University of Greenwich for our Medway School of Pharmacy graduates. Graduating students will be invited to join celebration ceremonies in Canterbury and Rochester cathedrals at a later date as and when we are able and safe to do so.

On Monday, we held the Kent Student Awards and, as always, the entrants were simply awe-inspiring. Congratulations to all of those who were shortlisted and, in particular, to Paul-Georg Ender who won the Student of the Year award, and to Kent Islamic Society, winners of the Group of the Year award.

I also want to thank you, our staff, for all your hard work in supporting our students. Thanks to you they have gone on to complete their studies, despite the challenges they have faced as a result of Covid-19. It is through your efforts that our finalists will graduate with a degree they can be proud of and enter into the next phase of their lives with a great university experience to build on.

With all good wishes,

Karen

Professor Karen Cox | Vice-Chancellor and President