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Studying on campus in Twente

Eerste lichting studenten aan de THT 01-07-1964 (beeldbank.utwente.nl)

The University of Twente launched in 1964 as the first campus university in the Netherlands. The idea was that of civitas academia, an academic community where even first-generation students would feel at home. On campus there would be peace and regularity, with a focus not only on studies, but also on cultural development and living together. The establishment of student associations in the form of sports and cultural clubs was encouraged, but corporal associations were kept out. There was an effort to integrate technical and social sciences, and in 3.5 years, students could pass the baccalaureate, which in principle made them ready for a job in business.

 

The story of the early years of the then Technische Hogeschool Twente is well documented. What is less clear is how all the ideals of the founders turned out in practice. The Archive Department of the LISA (Library, IT Services & Archive) department has set up an oral history project in collaboration with the Stichting Universiteitsfonds Twente in which about 20 students from the first batch are interviewed about their experiences between 1964 and 1972. Why did students choose Twente, what were their expectations? How did female students experience their time on campus? What did studying at UT and the process of coming of age on campus give students of that time? An interesting area of tension is the desire to better prepare students for social life than was common at technical universities, while at the same time housing and educating them on a campus far from the city.

 

Marjan Beijering (History Lab) supervised the project. About five interviewers (almost all members of GEWIS, the association of UT pensioners) attended oral history workshops and worked closely with the UT video team, which lent recorders and secured the recordings afterwards. Arjan van Hessen helped work with ASR. By the end of September, 20 oral history interviews will be ready, recorded on audio and including permission for inclusion in archives, metadata, summaries. Some of the interviews will also be recorded on film. Interviewer Martin Bosker will use some of the interviews as the basis for his podcast Campuswalks.

Broken through the glass ceiling?

Number of interviews: 30

Availability: unknown

In the thesis “The glass ceiling broken?”, Lore Goovaerts examines which women at UGent in the recent past still managed to break through this glass ceiling and in what way they did so. My focus is on the female emeriti of UGent and not on the still active female professors. The emeriti of UGent are a clearly defined group and bear witness to a recent past, namely the situation at UGent during the second half of the 20th century. What are the experiences of female emeriti in relation to gender issues? What is their life story and profile? How did they succeed in becoming professors? Did they experience opposition in their careers because they were women? What was the work/life balance like during their career? Did they have a network with other female professors? Through interviews with several female emeriti, Lore Goovaerts tries to answer these questions.

Het glazen plafond doorbroken?

Master’s thesis submitted to the Faculty of Arts and Philosophy
for the degree of Master of History.
Academic Year 2015-2016

 

Goovaert’s thesis focuses on the life stories of women who managed to rise to the highest academic ranks at Ghent University in the second half of the 20th century. This makes her thesis highly relevant both socially and academically. Socially relevant, because to this day, such success is reserved for far too few women and pressure must still be exerted on Dutch and Belgian university administrators to offer women the same career opportunities as men. Scientifically relevant, because beyond the statistical material that often supports policy papers, we actually know very little about how women themselves have experienced the ups and downs of their careers. Lore Goovaerts has produced a methodologically and substantively outstanding piece of work. It does justice to the historical life experience of successful women scientists and also sharpens all of us’ sights on something that should finally become history: the glass ceiling in the university.

Embracing diversity

VU University Amsterdam is known as a diverse university, and many students have a ‘non-western’ background. But the backgrounds of this diversity and the experiences of those involved have hardly been researched from a historical perspective. This oral history project focuses on experiences of Dutch-Moroccan and Dutch-Turkish first-generation students at the VU from the 1980s onwards.

 

The project will start in September 2022. First-generation students will be interviewed about the reasons why they started studying at the VU, their experiences with fellow students, staff, the diversity policy at the VU, and changing attitudes towards Islam at the university and in the Netherlands. The interviews will take place in January 2023 as part of the ‘Oral History and Biography’ course for history students. Students will conduct the interviews here under supervision. Moreover, the interviews will be permanently stored for reuse in cooperation with DANS and the University Archive/Stadsarchief Amsterdam.

 

The project will be led by Norah Karrouche, associate professor at the VU University of Amsterdam and specialised, among other things, in the (memory) culture of North African communities in Europe; and Ab Flipse, university historian at the VU University of Amsterdam. It is supported by third-year history student and student assistant Oumayma Akachaou Achaffay.

 

The project is made possible by Clue+: Research Institute for Culture, Cognition, History and Heritage and takes place in collaboration with several other VU centres, such as the Decolonisation LAB, the HDC Centre for Religious History, and the Stevin Centre for History of Science and Humanities.

 

More information about this project? Interested in participating in the project? Contact student assistant

Oumayma.