No dream Start
"Leading the Faculty of Humanities is fun. People all look beyond the boundaries of their discipline and I have enjoyed the way people are engaged in their profession." Susan Legêne looks back fondly on her period as dean, although there was no dream start. "I had been dean for less than three months when the pandemic broke out. It was all hands on deck and that was tough." According to Susan, one positive consequence of that period is educational innovation. "There is much more confidence about the different ways in which you can relate to students." She refers to digital media. "The basic fears that were there were overcome by necessity." The pandemic does seem to be affecting new generations of students. Susan: "The teacher has become a kind of declarer, arbiter, instigator, order taker. The naturalness of being constantly debating and exploring a problem together as Humanities scholars has diminished considerably.
The political tide
The number of students at Humanities has shown steady growth in recent years. Susan: "The awareness brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic has underscored that medical and exact sciences are still far from providing comprehensive solutions. They can even commit huge blunders if they don't understand or include society and its history." Susan says the growth can also be explained by the interdisciplinary approach of Humanities at VU Amsterdam and the fact that the political tide has been favourable, making more money available for universities. She thinks that Humanities will face cuts again in the next cabinet period. "We haven't seen that for a while," she says.
What do they expect to happen? René: "We don't know exactly, but the trend is that Dutch politics believes English-language programmes should be reduced or that teaching in English should be reduced. Our faculty plays a role in language policy. We have many people working here who are not native speakers of Dutch, they need to be trained somehow. Our faculty can play a role in that. René only has positive experiences with English-language education. Moreover: "The Netherlands is Europe and all those companies and institutions where students end up play a role in Europe. That international orientation is never going to work against you."
Socially engaged
How does the incoming dean view the faculty? René: "Actually, I think it is one of the more interesting faculties within the university. In Humanities, we have exciting and complex discussions, such as about the history of slavery. What I'm interested in myself is the question of boundaries of science. What can you expect from science? How can constructive thought about science and religious traditions be applied? These are exciting conversations. We have social responsibilities, we are a socially engaged university and that's how I feel it."
Spider in the web
Starting 2024, there will be an exploration into a possible collaboration between the faculties of FRT, FGW and FSW. How do the deans view this exploration? Susan: "As Humanities Faculties, we already collaborate with other faculties. For instance, we do a lot with the betas when it comes to computer science, language modelling and analysis of quantitative and qualitative data. We also work with FGB when it comes to teacher training. There is a huge shortage of teachers in the Netherlands, and we are the supplier of teachers. Actually, we feel like a spider in the web and a merger may lead us to also intensify our cooperation with the social academics, with whom we already work intensively."
Careful considerations
René's appointment is for one year. When will he be satisfied? "I am satisfied if we can proceed the exploration with an open mind. That we sit down at the table with the sole purpose of how to make the Vrije Universiteit come out stronger." René realises all too well that there are 350 people working at the faculty and that they need to feel that they are in good hands with the faculty board.
Bored?
Although Susan will not be in the faculty's offices every day as of January, it doesn’t mean she is going to sit back and do nothing. "I will continue my research and have six more PhD students. I’m the project leader of the National Science Agenda project Pressing Matter. Formally, I also lead an NWO project on Colonial Normativity and I’m on the national advisory committee to promote diversity and inclusion in higher education and research. I’m also part of the NWO assessment committee and, finally, I am going to finally finish all those articles that have been lying around. I will not get bored."