The Vice-Chancellor reminds members of the University that an additional Congregation will take place on Friday, 12 June 2009, at 2.45 p.m., at which the Chancellor will admit the following persons to Honorary Degrees:
His Highness Prince KARIM AL-HUSSAYNI, K.B.E., The Aga Khan.
MELINDA FRENCH GATES, Co-Founder and Co-Chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Philanthropist.
WILLIAM HENRY GATES III, Hon. K.B.E., Co-Founder and Co-Chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Co-Founder and Chairman of the Microsoft Corporation, Philanthropist.
The Right Honourable SHIRLEY VIVIEN TERESA BRITTAIN, Baroness WILLIAMS OF CROSBY, P.C., Honorary Fellow of Newnham College, Co-founder and sometime President of the Social Democratic Party, Public Service Professor of Elective Politics Emerita in the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.
ELIZABETH HELEN BLACKBURN, Ph.D., F.R.S., of Darwin College, Morris Herzstein Professor of Biology and Physiology in the Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics at the University of California, San Francisco, Biologist and Bioethicist.
WALLACE SMITH BROECKER, Foreign Member of the Royal Society, Newberry Professor of Geology in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Columbia University, Geoscientist.
Sir PETER ROBERT CRANE, F.R.S., John and Marion Sullivan University Professor in the Department of Geophysical Sciences, University of Chicago, sometime Director of The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.
AMARTYA KUMAR SEN, Hon.C.H., M.A., Ph.D., F.B.A., Fellow and sometime Master of Trinity College, Honorary Fellow of Darwin College and St Edmund's College, Lamont University Professor, and Professor of Economics and Philosophy at Harvard University, Nobel Laureate in Economics.
WANG GUNGWU, C.B.E., University Professor at the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences and founding Director of East Asian Institute, the National University of Singapore, sometime Vice-Chancellor of the University of Hong Kong, Professor of Far Eastern History Emeritus at the Australian National University, Canberra, Historian of China and the Chinese.
Sir PETER MAXWELL DAVIES, C.B.E., composer and conductor, Master of The Queen's Music.
Ticket-holders will need to be in their places in the Senate-House not later than 2.30 p.m. The Congregation will end at about 3.45 p.m.
There will be a Garden Party after the Congregation for all those attending. It will be held on the lawn in Senate-House Yard and refreshments will be served. There will be provision for cover in the event of wet weather.
Members of the University attending the Congregation are required to wear academical dress in accordance with the relevant regulations. Other persons attending do not wear academical dress. Friday, 12 June 2009 will be a 'scarlet day', and Doctors in the several Faculties are requested to wear their festal gowns. Graduates wear hoods at this Congregation. In accordance with Regulation 4 for academical dress (Statutes and Ordinances, p. 188), any member of the University (other than the Chancellor, Vice-Chancellor, High Steward, Deputy High Steward, Commissary, Proctors, Registrary, Esquire Bedells, the Orator, and the graduands) who is a graduate of another university or degree-awarding institution, may, on this occasion, wear the academical dress appropriate to that degree if they prefer.
Admission to the Senate-House and Yard will be strictly by ticket only and entry to the Yard on this occasion will be by the South-East Gate, from King's Parade.
All members and all staff (including retired staff) of the University and the Colleges are invited to apply for tickets to attend the Congregation and Garden Party. In order to allow for the widest possible participation, it is regretted that applications for guest tickets will not be accepted.
Applications for tickets must be made by letter or by email and cannot be made in person or by telephone. Applicants must give a postal address and state their University and/or College affiliation. Requests for tickets should be sent to Honorary Degrees, The Vice-Chancellor's Office, The Old Schools, Trinity Lane, Cambridge, CB2 1TN or by email (Honorary.Degrees@admin.cam.ac.uk).
The deadline for applications this year is Friday, 15 May 2009. If demand exceeds capacity, tickets will be allocated by ballot, and any application received before the deadline will be included in the ballot. In recent years there have always been more applications than places available and demand in the University's 800th anniversary year is expected to be particularly high. For this reason, applicants who subsequently find that they will not be able to attend on 12 June are asked to inform the Vice-Chancellor's Office as soon as possible so that their places can be offered to others.
Unsuccessful applications will not be acknowledged. Tickets will be issued to named individuals and are not transferable. Unwanted tickets should be returned. Further details of the arrangements for the day will be issued with the tickets.
If it is fine, a procession will form up in the Schools Arcade at 2.25 p.m. Those in the classes specified below who wish to take part in the procession are asked to state this clearly in their application for tickets. Processional tickets will be issued up to the maximum number of seats available for the procession. Only holders of Cambridge Professorial Chairs or Cambridge Higher Doctorates are eligible to process as Professors or Doctors.
With the assent of the Proctors, the Vice-Chancellor has prescribed the following order of processions prior to this Congregation.
The Vice-Marshal
Heads of Colleges
The Regius Professor of Divinity
The Regius Professor of Civil Law
The Regius Professor of Physic
The Regius Professor of Hebrew
The Regius Professor of Greek
Professors who are Doctors
Doctors of Divinity
Doctors of Law
Doctors of Medicine
Doctors of Science and Doctors of Letters
Doctors of Music
The Librarian
Professors who are not Doctors and the Director of the Fitzwilliam Museum
Members of the Council
The Pro-Proctors
A second procession will then form as follows, and will proceed immediately after the first:
The Esquire Bedells
The Chancellor
The Chancellor's Train-bearer
The University Marshal
The Orator The Vice-Chancellor The Registrary
The Proctors
(University Constables)
The High Steward
The Commissary
The Pro-Vice-Chancellors
The Honorary Graduands
The Deputy Proctors