About the incubator for junior lecturers
Lecturers Maiza Campos Ponce and Marieke Parijs are the driving forces behind the new Incubator for junior lecturers. Or ‘jewels’, as they prefer to call them. ‘For many years, Maiza and I have been working on a programme in which junior lecturers are offered professionalisation courses’, says Marieke. ‘These enable them to further develop their career and to contribute to educational innovation at VU Amsterdam. They can then get their UTQ and take part in the Education Pioneers programme, in which they learn how to set up and carry out an innovation project. With the Incubator we aim to give junior lecturers the recognition they deserve. They are full of energy, they want to innovate and they are hugely enthusiastic. But sometimes there is insufficient acknowledgement of the good work they perform. We wanted to change that, so we set up the Incubator, a place where they can gather every Thursday, for the whole day. They can chat over a cup of coffee, get information on training courses, share knowledge or enjoy a game of air hockey. It’s important that junior lecturers feel there’s somewhere they can go.’
By giving junior lecturers the recognition they deserve, in Maiza’s view, they get that extra bit of motivation to innovate even more. ‘Workshops will be given regularly on Incubator days, for example by Ermelinda Jaku, creative educational developer of the Broader Mind Course. She trains junior lecturers to teach with a ‘broad mind’. But the ‘jewels’ can also learn a lot from one another. As they come from different faculties and have different areas of expertise, they can share knowledge with one another.’
Ana Cassanti can testify to this. This junior lecturer at the Faculty of Science has implemented the Mixed Classroom teaching model in her classes. ‘Other junior lecturers often ask me for tips. But, in turn, I also ask them how they have incorporated certain methods in their classes. So the Incubator is genuinely a place where people learn from one another. We have a drive to innovate and to improve as lecturers. And that can be of great benefit to the quality of teaching at VU Amsterdam.’
Junior lecturer Simone Kersten is happy with the Incubator too. ‘It acknowledges the extra tasks we perform and also gives us the space to innovate collectively. That energy and innovative strength is eventually pumped back into VU Amsterdam.’
‘Junior lecturers are creative people and have lots of ideas. These ideas must be expressed and for that you need a supportive environment such as the Incubator’, says Jochem van Roon. ‘So the logo of the Incubator is apt: a jewel that grows. We need a stimulating space where our ideas can blossom. And thanks to Maiza and Marieke we now have one.’
The seed for longer appointments for junior lecturers was planted more than ten years ago by Lothar Kuijper, Programme Director of the Bachelor’s programme in Health Sciences. ‘At the time, the programme was not going well. Students sometimes felt like a number and had no bond with VU Amsterdam. So I looked at how we could create a ‘bridge’ between students and the study programme. A couple of junior lecturers were already working in Human Movement Sciences. But for a short period and in a different role. We wanted to change this and focus on serious long-term appointments for junior lecturers. We started in 2014 with a pilot involving four junior lecturers and now, eight years later, there are more than 50. The importance of junior lecturers was soon apparent to me, and fortunately to Maiza as well, because she took charge of the project. The advent of the Incubator is the icing on the cake.’
Where and when?
The incubator is housed in room 6A69 of the New University Building. You can go there every Thursday with the exception of school vacations: the door is open and there is always someone there to show you the way and help you further.
More information and registration
Visit the webpage of the incubator for junior lecturers.
Contact
If you would like to know more about the Incubator for junior lecturers, get in touch with Maiza Campos Ponce, m.camposponce@vu.nl
