“Who is happy to be away from home?”, rector Jeroen Geurts asks at the Opening M eeting of VU Introduction Days. In the full aula at 10 in the morning a few hands go up in the air. “And who is a bit scared to be away from home?” Some other hands raise. “I hope in the next years the VU will become your home away from home”, Geurts continues.
The VU is more than just a university where students study to become a lawyer or a doctor, it is a place where you can be who you already are, the rector stresses. “We don’t ask you to fit in, we need you with all your different backgrounds.”
He himself was a first generations student, Geurts discloses, and the VU is still there for first generations students from all different backgrounds and orientations. “The rainbow flag you see on campus is not just a symbol, it is a promise, a promise of belonging.”
Suspicious
The event, held in the VU aula and the auditorium was heavily secured: every attendant needed a wristband and every bag was checked. A girl with a heavy rucksack was not allowed in with her belongings.
The stress on safety comes across as a bit suspicious. It contradicts the focus on belonging: come as you are, but we do not trust you beforehand. The VU wants to be open and in control at the same time, maybe that is how a university must deal with the threats and conflicts in the world these days.
The rector speaks of his grand ambition: to add to a more peaceful world by delivering students who can navigate and respect different opinions. And then the focus shifts to more mundane things: “I never forgot my introduction week”, event host Miranda Holland says, “and I expect it will be the same for you.”
‘Try out new things’
Psychology student Kamile Šalaševičiūtė shares how attached she had become to the strangers sitting next to her at her introduction week a few years ago. Boris Fortuin, student computer science, stresses that students should try out different things alongside their studies: “The VU has so much to offer, sports teams, courses, activities, committees. Try out different things, find what you like”, Fortuin says. And with that message, the students are sent off to their mentors who will guide them through the rest of the introduction week.