At Friday's ceremony, the newly awarded doctorates marched to the Cathedral for the conferment of their degrees and then back to the University building. During the ceremony, the faculties' honorary doctors are also conferred. The doctors who received their doctorates 50 years ago are honoured as jubilee doctors.
Three PhD students from the Department of Service Studies participated in the ceremony: Aurimas Pumputis, Carin Rehnkrona and Réka Tölg. Sara Ullström, who is one of two newly employed Postdocs with us, was also promoted during the ceremony. Here, Réka Tölg tells us about the experience and how the ceremony went.
Réka, how does it feel after the ceremony?
It feels very good! As a doctoral student one sees the ceremony, hears the canons and gets some motivation to keep working on the dissertation. It was really nice to be there as a ‘new doctor’ this year!
Tell us about the ceremony
We all walked from the University building to Lund cathedral for the ceremony, and then we walked back together as promoted doctors to the main University building. The ceremony in the cathedral is an event with a long tradition and involves rituals that have been done for hundreds of years. For instance the shooting of the canons at specific times in Lundagård, the use of latin language, as well as how the promoter holds our hand and walks us ‘to the other side’, welcoming one as part of the scientific community.
We also received our laurel wreaths (as the Faculty of Social Sciences belongs to the historic Faculty of Philosophy) carried in to the cathedral by nine little wreath-bearers. While for instance the new doctors of LTH and the medical faculty receive their doctoral hats. Then we also received our doctoral ring which symbolises commitment to science.
How did you feel about the ceremony?
The historical settings and procedures were a great reminder of belonging to the university and the larger scientific community. While celebrating the individual achievements and the hard work we have all been doing to contribute to knowledge and practice, the ceremony also reminds one of the importance of knowledge and research, and helps to place one’s own work as part of a continuum as a tiny piece of something larger.
Were you nervous?
I was mostly excited and maybe a little bit nervous about the choreography, when we had to go up to the stage.
It was so nice to be doing it with close colleagues and friends. It happened that quite a few of us from Service studies and Campus Helsingborg have surnames with letters from the end of the alphabet. So I got to walk together with Carin Rehncrona , with Aurimas Pumputis and Monica Porzionato (IKO) in front of us, and Sara Ullström (LUCSUS and now Service studies) behind us. Two other "Campus Helsingborg-ers", Isabell Karlsson (IKO) and Alicia Fjällhed (IKO), were slightly ahead of us in the line.
Inspired by the jubilee doctors, we also discussed that we do our best to try to be there together as jubilee doctors in 2075!
Did you celebrate in the evening as well?
Yes! We were invited for a ball dinner at AF Borgen and we could each have a guest with us too. All the new doctors from the Faculty of Social Sciences and our guests were seated together and it was such a beautiful evening to celebrate each others’ achievements as well as research and knowledge. After the dinner a live band was playing and guests were dancing, me and my fiancé took the opportunity to join and practice our ballroom dancing a bit ahead of our wedding!
