Dear colleagues, the first week of the academic year has been an intensive week.
You will probably have seen the pictures of the official opening, with the procession of professors walking through the city centre. At the opening ceremony, both the UT president Vinod Subramaniam and the Minister for Education, Robbert Dijkgraaf, spoke about the importance of education. Educating young, and also not young is the best investment a country can make. I could not agree more with that! It is exactly what makes it so nice to have our students back on campus, to see full classrooms, and yes, even to see students enjoying the sunshine on the grass outside the Vrijhof when I am working my way through meeting documents.
On Thursday another opening took place: the opening of the Learning and Teaching Lab, tying in very nicely with what was said at the opening of the academic year. The LTL is a wonderful space where teachers, educational consultants, e-learning specialists, students and all those who are interested in educational innovation can connect, share and experiment with new ways of teaching. It was a very enjoyable afternoon for me (and many others), touching base with what we all do at CES in our own way: enabling high-quality education. That can happen through training teachers, but also by ensuring that the students are registered, the canvas pages are created, or by organising the scholarships or visa and residential permits for students. It was wonderful to see once more this summer how the various departments in CES have worked together, connect if you like, to achieve this once more.
One connection that is changing, is the connection with Erik van Oenen, the departmental head of SOIR. He will leave the UT on September 15 to take up a new position in his home town The Hague. Thanks for all your hard work, thoughtful contributions and great sense of humour Erik, we wish you all the best in your new position. I am sure we will stay connected one way or another.
I wish all our CES colleagues a wonderful new academic year. There are some interesting months ahead of us in which political developments will affect our university. But let’s keep that focus on educating those young people because that is always a good investment.
Best wishes,
Lieke
