29 September 2014

 

Dear Lord Bilimoria, CBE, DL, Chancellor of the University of Birmingham

 

Re: Welcome to the University, please change the format of our degree certificates

 

“The most dangerous phrase in the language is: ‘We've always done it this way’”

       Rear Admiral Grace Hopper (1906 – 1992)

 

Dear Lord Bilimoria,

Please accept our warmest welcome to the University. Congratulations on your appointment as the 7th Chancellor of the University of Birmingham. We are delighted to know that such an accomplished individual as yourself will guide the University of Birmingham and its community in the years to come. We have no doubt that you will make outstanding contributions during your time at our institution.

We are getting in touch with you to politely request your intercession in a matter which is of great importance to us. As you know, every year hundreds of students from all disciplines and at all levels of higher education graduate from our University. Collectively, they form part of an alumni community of almost 300,000 graduates in the United Kingdom and overseas. We are confident to say that all of them have made and continue to make significant contributions to our University’s reputation for excellence long after their graduation.

Yet, a number of these bright individuals, specifically graduates from the University’s doctoral programmes, who have all continuously strived for excellence during their studies, receive during their graduation ceremonies, a degree certificate which does not reflect in any way the hard work and unfaltering commitment that they put throughout three to five years.

To this date, postgraduate students, receive a degree certificate printed on an A4-sized white paper in anextremely simplistic block layout containing a single sentence of ‘admission acknowledgement’ together with a watermark, hologram and the seal of the Registrar and Secretary, in addition to hardly legible gray signatures of the Vice-Chancellor and Registrar in very poor colour contrast with the rest of the document.

First, despite the wide range of doctoral programmes that are offered by our University, these certificates do notlist the name of the programme instead only state the general phrase of “Doctor of Philosophy”. This makes the field of specialisation of the graduates quite ambiguous and indistinguishable across the extensive range of areas of human knowledge. 

Second, rather than explicitly stating that the graduate has successfully concluded their programme of studies, the certificate reads they were “admitted to the degree” of Doctor of Philosophy. While such a statement might indeed adhere to the correct usage of the English language it leaves wide room for misinterpretation, especially when translated to a second language and particularly for individuals not familiar with the technicisms and formalities of academia, as it can be easily interpreted as “the student has been admitted to the academic programme”, rather than “has been awarded the degree”.

Third, there is also a fair chance of the light gray signatures to be missed in photocopies. Since producing photocopies is a conventional stage of official translation as well as employment contractual process, the unfortunate missed signatures leaves an almost blank paper. which may lead to further misunderstandings.This difficulty with scanning the certificate makes it difficult to share with, for example, potential employers, thus placing us at a disadvantage in the labour market.

Last but not least, the format of the degree certificate severely lacks in both formality and recognition of the degree achieved. This has left many graduates, and peers within the academic community, the impression that they are viewing a common document or office memorandum rather than an official graduation certificate commemorating three to five years of hard work and an original contribution to human knowledge.

We believe that the layout and contents of current certificates misrepresent the University and downplay the efforts made by students at the University of Birmingham to an unfitting low level. The vast majority of us have relatives, friends and colleagues studying at and graduating from other Universities around the world and therefore have had the opportunity to see their beautiful and exquisitely-designed diplomas from both British and foreign universities. We think that at the moment, the degree certificates awarded by the University of Birmingham fails to match many of these in terms of clarity and design and, most importantly, fail to reflect the prestige of our University and its community.

Dr. Manal Makoshi, graduate from the University’s doctoral programme in Applied Linguistics, got in touch with Student Enquiry Services about this issue. The following are excerpts from the reply she received on 1 September 2014: 

"Thank you for your message and the comments regarding your certificate. I'm afraid this is the University's degree certificate, and we cannot produce anything more than what you have already received. [...] This has been the style for our certificates since 1901, and we are obviously not in a position to amend them in this instance. Certificates do vary from institution to institution, however the [...] degree certificate contains a watermark, hologram and the seal of the Registrar and Secretary, in addition to the signatures of the Vice-Chancellor and Registrar. I'm afraid I am not able to send you anything further than the already received certificate."

We, the undersigned think that this is not a convincing argument from the ‘University of the Year’. Over 113 years have passed since the University began issuing certificates and in that time a great number of things have changed. Perhaps, at that time, it was unnecessary to include the area of specialisation on degree certificates, given that most human knowledge was condensed and arranged, even if uneasily, in a handful of broad categories. However, human progress as well cross-fertilisation and interdisciplinary have created a wide array of specialised areas of knowledge. In fact, the University of Birmingham acknowledges this by maintaining 300 different doctoral programmes across all its Schools and Colleges. While we appreciate tradition, we also think that it should not be portrayed as an excuse from improving as a community and University.

As doctoral students and graduates of a great university, we deserve degree certificates that better reflects the high status of our institution and the hard work that we have undertaken throughout our time at the University. We respectfully request that the certificates produced:

 * State the subject or field of our programmes of study.

 * Feature a more beautiful and carefully-designed format for modern purposes, such as electronic use and digital capturing.

 

We the undersigned thank you for your time and attention to our letter and look forward to your response.

 

CC: Professor Sir David Eastwood, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Birmingham