Dean’s Debate

The long-awaited inter-UC Dean’s Debate finally took place here in The Hague,
at the Nieuwspoort, on Friday December 9. Around 100 students from over the
5 Dutch University Colleges (AUC, LUC, RA, UCM, UCU – it’s up to you to decipher
the acronyms, enjoy!) took part in this event that created a place of discussion
regarding what the program of Liberal Arts and Science is all about, how to
promote it and what kind of future awaits the UCs.
Jules van der Sneppen, Chair of LUC’s beloved student association Fortuna,
moderated the debate presenting the points the Deans could discuss. These
included, but were not limited to: the essence of Dutch UCs; the future of UCs in
the Netherlands; the role of an international community within a UC; what is so
special about excellence (in The Netherlands); how and why should UCs work
together to promote their graduates into graduate schools and master programs.
Following the debate, there were ten minutes left for a question and answer
session involving the audience, who however failed in supplying particularly
relevant topic of discussion and, if it did, it did not manage to formulate the
questions as to break the spirit of political correctness the Deans have kept
throughout the entire evening.
In the final part of the evening, where all the participants could mingle in front
of a drink or a cigarette, it was possible to have one-to-one conversations with a
particular Dean of your choice. I had the privilege to talk with Ms. Marijk van der
Wende, Dean of AUC, who however decided not to give me an accurate definition
of what a Dean represents for a University College (“It’s just another job title”)
and with Mr. Rob van der Vaart, Dean of UCU, who told me that, in order to affirm
the University College in front of its Mother-University (Leiden, in our case), the
Dean has to be “a bulldozer” – we’re sure people here at LUC will pick up on this
advice.
Finally, as a side note, for those of you who are into Harry Potter and Hogwarts
and would like to compare the UCs to the Houses, one of my sources went
and ask every single Dean which House they thought represented their UC
better. The results are as such: three of them never read the book, Maastricht’s
Vice Dean Teun Dekker replied, to our surprise, that he was leaning towards
Hufflepuff while our beloved Chris sees us as Griffindor – what else, really?
All in all, it was an interesting night and we sure hope to see more inter-UCs
activities taking place in the months to come.