A warm welcome to this 2024 edition of SAIL, our alumni magazine.
Swansea University’s motto is: ‘Technical skill is bereft without culture’.
This dual commitment to both the arts and sciences has held true throughout our 104-year history, and reflects Swansea’s heritage, as a centre of industrial excellence and one steeped in culture.
For students at the University, the region provides a wealth of opportunities to enjoy culture, and the University is at the heart of that. This year marks the 40th anniversary of the Taliesin Arts Centre, on our Singleton Campus, which has, over the years, served to inspire our community, as well as generations of our students, with all it has to offer.
Swansea is of course, the birthplace of poet Dylan Thomas, a figure who is synonymous with the cultural life of the city and region. We are extremely proud to celebrate this legacy by hosting the Dylan Thomas Prize, one of the world’s largest literary prizes for young writers.
Our Great Hall is a central venue for cultural events, and we also host regular arts festivals. Our South Wales Miners’ Library and Richard Burton Archives offer rich resource into the cultural life of Wales. Of course, our cultural landscape also provides scope for some fascinating research, and we are exploring this across a number of multi-disciplinary projects.
As a multi-cultural University, we are keen to welcome and help integrate international students into the world of Welsh culture. And we know that many of our students, whatever their background, are enthusiastic to learn more about our national identity. As well as having many student societies which provide these opportunities, we also empower the status and use of the Welsh language through our Academi Hywel Teifi, which encourages students of all ages and educational, cultural and socio-economic backgrounds to learn Welsh or develop their skills in the language.
As a culturally vibrant university, we hope we inspired many of you during your time here. And we hope you enjoy this insight into the lives of some of those alumni who are lighting up the world with their creative endeavours, from internationally acclaimed opera singing to award-winning journalism.
We recognise the contributions of so many of our former students, across all spectrums of society, and we look forward to featuring many more of your achievements in future editions of this magazine.
Best wishes,
Professor Paul Boyle
Vice-Chancellor
