Dear colleagues, What a great evening did we have last week! 150 colleagues attended the end-of-year celebration in the Twentsche Foodhal, that is over 80% of the CES employees!
Thank you all for making this such an enjoyable night, many thanks to Nel, Willemijn, Josephine and Niels for organizing this. For those who could not be there, we still have the pictures elsewhere in this newsletter.
The end of the year always invites us to reflect on the past year as well. 2023 was eventful and definitely not boring, that is for sure. Where the first months were heavily influenced by the internationalization discussions and language policy, the second half was dominated by the financial situation of the UT. And then we are also living in a world of uncertainty with the war in Ukraine that continues, the war in Israel-Palestine, natural disasters, political shifts, inflation, energy shifts…
But amid all that discussion, let’s not forget about all the other things that have happened: SAS’ move to the Boerderij, finally finishing the vision and mission of CES, the great work of the Life Long Learning architecture team in preparing the organization for an increase in LLL activities, the establishment of the Process & Design Team to streamline the requests from faculties, the redesign of the UTQ, the launch of the poster about student support structures, a successful Let’s Go! Event, the famous bus trip to the IND in Utrecht with hundreds of international students, the opening of the Learning and Teaching lab and so, so much more. In addition to that, all the regular processes of admissions, registration, scheduling, examinations, graduation, scholarships, meetings, sucCES café, and all the updates and changes to the systems to let this happen. It is a lot to look back on, and a lot to be proud of. We, you, have once more achieved all of this and I am grateful for that.
And yet, I write this with mixed feelings, knowing that there are colleagues to whom we have to say goodbye to in the new year, even if we don’t want to. I am also very much aware of the effects of the cut backs on those who remain here while the work continues.. That is why I was so glad to have so many of you at the End-of-Year event: we, as CES, will always find those connections, help each other, look for solutions together. I am glad that several of you share your concerns with me, with the Service Council, with your supervisors so we can to the best of our ability inform the rest of the organization of the effects of these changes. We will continue to innovate, evaluate and renew, perhaps at a slower pace, and we will have to delay projects, say no more often, but we will not just sit back and do what we are asked to do. The colleagues working in CES are professionals, experts in their own fields and we will continue to use that expertise to support the educational processes in the UT.
So now it is time to look forward to a very well deserved Winterbreak. I hope you will have time to connect to loved ones, to relax and recharge, to enjoy the seasonal spirit or just go for a walk, watch a silly movie, read a book, or just do nothing. I look forward to working with you in 2024!
Happy holidays!
Lieke
