Emma Sprangers, Author at Ad Valvas

18 February 2026

Students walk out of dinner with executive board

During a dinner with student representatives and the VU executive board last week, a large part of the room walked out after rector Geurts’ speech.

17 February 2026

‘You can’t reduce Iran to one story’

For Iranian and Iranian-Dutch students and staff, the unrest in Iran is not a far-off conflict. Three members of the VU community share how they experience the current situation, and why they believe Iran is so often misunderstood.

10 February 2026

International student intake continues to decline

The number of first-year undergraduate students has declined again. With the exception of Leiden and Delft, universities in the Netherlands welcomed fewer Dutch and international students.

9 February 2026

USC chair: ‘We don’t agree, but we carry on together’

Anne Bruggink is chair of the University Student Council this academic year. How does she keep everyone together?

9 February 2026

How the classroom can offer a remedy for trauma

Decolonial feminist Nadira Omarjee stresses the importance of sharing lived experiences within the classroom and outside of it, as space for the engagement with the other, to build solidarity and resistance against injustices.

4 February 2026

Board roles increasingly unpopular among young people

Clubs, student associations and youth interest groups are struggling to recruit new board members. The National Youth Council (NJR) notes a marked decline in enthusiasm for serving on boards.

29 January 2026

ABP pension fund dumps US government bonds

ABP, the pension fund for the public sector, has reduced its holdings of US government bonds by 10 billion euros. At the same time, the fund has invested hundreds of millions of euros in Palantir, a controversial company that’s said…

28 January 2026

CDA makes case for English-taught education

Are we throwing the baby out with the bathwater if degree programmes, under political pressure, increasingly switch back to Dutch? CDA fears so. ‘We’re shooting ourselves in the foot.’

15 January 2026

Plato must be censored, Texas university believes

It is okay to read Plato, but not when he writes about race or gender. A professor of philosophy at a major university in Texas has been instructed to skip certain texts in his classes.