You hesitated when you were asked to be interviewed for this column, because it is called ‘Key Figure’.
“I hesitated because that is not how a university functions, with so-called key figures. We are all doing it together, aren’t we.”
Merged faculty
The newly merged faculty will take effect at the start of the academic year in September 2025. The three former faculties will continue on as separate schools under one board. The road to the merger was not always smooth, with heated discussions between the participation council and the Executive Board.
That’s the idea behind this column, that everyone at VU is a key figure. VU does not function without its researchers, lecturers and administrators, but also not without, for example, the people who oversee the bicycle parking. You are now a key figure because you are the dean of a newly merged faculty.
“But scientists do not need a dean in their daily work. Most of the work they do, they can do just fine without deans.”
Perhaps they can even do it better without deans or other administrators.
“That is not how I see it, but I can imagine that people have days when they think that.”
You are leading the new faculty that consists of the former faculties of Social Sciences, of which you were the dean, of Humanities and of Religion and Theology. What makes you want to herd that many cats?
“Well, I mainly consider it an honour. Every day I learn new things and I meet completely different people than I did in recent years. And I like bringing people together and forming new coalitions. That often results in good things. That’s what I wanted to do here, too.”
During the first meetings of staff and employees about the upcoming merger, you said that you were initially sceptical about the merger. What changed your mind?
“There wasn’t a sudden change of view – more a process. In the beginning, I wondered what problem it was exactly that would be solved with a merger. But I also understood the perspective of the Executive Board. Look, the pressure to merge comes mainly from the outside. It’s related to the financing of the university and the discussion about intellectual domains and the educational landscape.”
Do you mean the populist wind blowing from The Hague, the anti-intellectualism?
“The current wave of populism certainly doesn’t help, but there have been a few things going on for a while now. I call them the four great disappointments of my generation. First, in the 90s we thought that our freedom would only increase. Well, that’s not what has happened in the past 30 years. Second, we did not take our responsibility for the earth, which we are now in the process of destroying. Third, we thought that peace would expand, that has clearly not worked out either. The fourth disappointment has to do with our belief in technology, which we expected would provide solutions for everything. Now it seems that AI is going to surpass humanity in terms of cognitive abilities.”
And how is this merger faculty an answer to that?
“A large faculty is a more robust discussion partner than three smaller faculties, there is also a bit of administrative protection in it. But aside from that, as an intellectual coalition we are better equipped to enter into collaborations with the beta and technology sciences and with economics. Because you can’t leave the solutions to the big problems in for instance the field of the environment to them alone. You need social sciences and humanities; that’s what they are for: exploring the human dimension of everything.”
The new merger faculty has some challenges ahead of it too.
“Internationalization is one of those challenges. We’re forced to reduce internationalization, to accept fewer international students. But with fewer of them, the campus will change considerably and we have to ensure that our students get an international experience in other ways and we have to invest in that. With a more aggressive approach, encouraging students to do their internship abroad. We have to pay a lot of attention to that.”