
From 2011 to 2017 one of my roles at the University of Birmingham was as one of the Public Orators who introduced these who were to be awarded honorary degrees / prizes etc. Links to the orations I have given over that period are given below. They are all of the same (necessarily) stylized form. From 2015 the University reduced the number of honorary degrees it gave quite substantially and put in place mechanisms to rein in the verbosity of public orators so that the graduation ceremonies could proceed rather more expeditiously. Hence there are fewer orations from 2015 on – and they are usually somewhat shorter in length.
2011 Dec 16th Rolf-Dieter Heuer Doctor of Science
2012 July 5th Anne Widdecombe Doctor of the University
2012 July 10th Sue Ion Doctor of Science
2012 July 11th Francis Richards Doctor of the University
2013 July 3rd Pritam Sharma Doctor of Engineering
2013 July 4th Jinghai Li Doctor of Engineering
2013 July 5th Christopher Addison Doctor of the University
2013 Dec 10th Terry Morgan Doctor of Engineering
2013 Dec 11th Keith Murray Guild of Benefactors
2013 Dec 11th Adrian Shooter Doctor of the University
2014 July 9th Hamid Mughal Doctor of Engineering
2014 July 11th John Plant Doctor of the University
2014 July 11th Derek Pearsall Doctor of Letters
2014 July 14th David Haslam Doctor of the University
2014 July 14th Alexandra Matthews Vice Chancellors Prize
2014 Dec 11th Desra Percaya Doctor of the University
2014 Dec 12th John Nolan Doctor of Engineering
2014 Rachel Severn Chancellors Prize
2015 July 8th Lim Ming Yan Doctor of Social Science
2015 July 10th Billie Major Alumna of the year
2015 July 13th Philip Sugarman Doctor of Medicine
2015 Dec 10th Zude Zhou Doctor of Engineering
2015 Dec 10th Azeefa Sajad Vice Chancellors Prize
2016 July 7th Charlotte Hill Alumna of the year
2016 July 12th Jane Guyer Doctor of Letters
2016 Dec 8th Martin Slumbers Doctor of the University
2017 July 10th Sarah-Jane Marsh Doctor of the University