Two doctorates and a wedding in a week

Peter Huggard and his daughter Katharine will receive their doctorates at a ceremony today. Photo / Paul Estcourt

With two graduations and a wedding, it's an exciting week for the Huggard family.

Today Katharine Huggard and her father Peter are wearing their black academic robes and graduating with doctorates from the University of Auckland.

On Saturday Katharine will don a white gown and Mr Huggard will walk her down the aisle to be married.

Miss Huggard will marry her fiance, Duncan Brown, in an early afternoon ceremony at St Matthew-in-the-City.

"What's confusing is that I'll be having two name changes in a week, first to Dr Katharine Huggard and then to Dr Katharine Brown," said Miss Huggard.

Her mother, Jayne Huggard, said she never dreamed there would be two graduations and a wedding in the same week.

"In some ways we're having to squeeze graduation in with all the wedding preparation but tomorrow we're just focusing on celebrating successes," she said.

The family has strong ties to the University of Auckland. Mrs Huggard is a senior nursing tutor at the university and graduated in May as a master of health science. As a staff member she will be sitting on the stage in the Aotea Centre as Miss Huggard and Mr Huggard are capped. "I'll be there as a proud wife at 1.30pm and a proud mother at 4.30pm," she said.

Mr Huggard is a senior lecturer in the Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences and is receiving his doctorate in education. He has been studying compassion fatigue in hospital-based doctors and has presented his research in New Zealand and overseas.

Miss Huggard's doctorate is in clinical psychology. For her thesis she developed a psychological screening tool for adolescents with Type 1 diabetes and now works for a youth mental health service in South Auckland.

* University of Auckland Graduation

2515 students to graduate today in four ceremonies at the Aotea Centre.

Chancellor Roger France will confer 1848 degrees and diplomas with a further 902 bestowed in absentia.

103 doctorates are being conferred. This is a record for a spring graduation.

With 643 the Faculty of Business and Economics has the most students graduating today.

This is the second graduation for 2009. In May there were 11 ceremonies.